Local WWII vet given the Legion of Honour for role in liberating France

John Neu is a 101-year-old World War Two veteran living in Kitchener and now is also a knight.

Neu was given the Legion of Honour by France over the summer for his part in helping to liberate the country from Nazi occupation. The community has planned a celebration for the veteran in Cambridge Jan. 29 at The Portuguese Club.

Neu enlisted when he was only 19 years old in 1942, he worked his way up, getting his basic training done in Chatham, Ont. He went to England before being sent to serve in France, working in mail and communications. Neu helped send messages back and forth from the field, often intercepting “secret documents.”

He told CityNews it is difficult for him to look back on his army days as it gave him Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

He found it particularly stressful when they were sent into enemy territory to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, in northern Germany, where 50,000 people died including Anne Frank. Neu said he couldn’t believe the way human beings were treating other humans. He found out later there were other concentration camps as well, like Auschwitz.

“I knew nothing about foreign intrigue, wars, nothing,” said Neu. “In the four-years I was in the army, particularly at Belsen I grew up very fast, very fast.”

“Some of our people went up there because there were five Canadian soldiers the Germans had put in that camp because the war was near ending and they didn’t want to be caught with some allied prisoners, so they parked them there,” said Neu, adding that he has mixed feelings about the award.

“I kept nothing, of my army regalia I wanted no more of wars at all. It was difficult.”

The Legion of Honour was created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. Since 2014, over 1,200 Canadian war vets have been named, alongside Neu.

“They want to show people that they recognize that we put our life on the line and indeed that’s what happened. I can tell you there were approximately six occasions where I should have died and I missed out on it,” Neu added.

The concentration camps shook Neu. He found himself later wandering around northern Germany aimlessly, which is when he realized something was wrong. PTSD wasn’t a known ailment at the time. He remembers being taken under the care of a Lieutenant from Newfoundland whose last name was Kitchen.

Neu mentioned it’s funny now, because he lives in Kitchener.

Neu said he has been able to stay so lively at 101, as well as being happily married for the second time. Neu added that the answer to that is his love of reading.

He says similar to his father, he’s an avid reader. He came to Cambridge after the Nazi occupation, joining his family that had previously settled here.

“I began to read, when I came to this country and went to school here and learned to read. We did not live too far from the library, we lived on Scott Street, the library was on Queen Street, so the library was a place I haunted. Books to this day are still kind of another world for me.”