Toronto, Ontario, Canada (York)
1950 - SIX MEET DEATH IN FIRE TRAP.

Toronto, Jan. 21. - (CP) - Refugees from Europe's barbed wire and prison bars died behind bars yesterday in their land of promise.

They died amidst flames in a prison-like basement workshop in west-central Toronto, clawing at heavy bars that covered windows with thick, wire meshed glass.

Six persons - four men and two women - were suffocated or fatally burned in the fire, Toronto's worst since last Sept. 17 when the Great Lakes steamship Noronic went up in flames at her pier with the loss of 119 lives. Three other workers in the dingy cellar were burned so severely they may die.

No Chance.
Said Chief Coroner Smirle Lawson:
"They were caught like rats in a trap. They didn't have a chance."

The four head-high windows in the Phillips Garments Company basement plant were barred as protection against burglars. The one door opening to an outside hallway was blocked by leaping flames, feeding on plywood partitions. A rear door, it was reported, had been locked in contravention of fire regulations.

The dead:
PHILIP CHALKOFSKY, proprietor of the garment factory.
his 18-year-old son, SIDNEY.
ISADORE SINGER.
WILFRED GUTZEN, 58.
MRS. ROSE ANNA KITTS, 37.
MISS BIUMA EICKENBAUM.
The injured, all in critical condition:
ABRAHAM WERZBERG.
MRS. ISADORE SINGER.
MRS. PRIMA NEIMAN.

They were taken from the fire-swept room of death through the windows after firemen had cut the bars with acetylene torches.

Recent Arrivals.
Most of the plant's workers had arrived in recent months from Europe's displaced persons camps. Some had spent years behind prison bars and had come to Canada in search of peace and security How many of the dead and injured were D.P.'s could not be determined immediately but it was believed that all but the CHAIKOFSKYS were new Canadians.
Of the 10 persons in the Phillips plant when fire broke out shortly after 1 p.m. E.S.T., only one escaped death or injury. He was ZLIG FENTSERER, 39-year-old Polish D.P. who spent the war in a German concentration camp and came to Canada 11 months ago.

He told how he ran through the flames blocking the only exit and how he tried to free his trapped fellow-workers by kicking at the window glass and pulling the strong iron bars. He said:
"I pulled from the outside and they pushed from the inside, but the bars wouldn't move."

Workers in an adjoining dress-manufacturing plant escaped through the only unbarred window in the basement of the building, located near the corner of Spadina Avenue and Queen Street just west of downtown Toronto. Eleven persons escaped by that means.

Mayor Hiram McCallum ordered an investigation of the blaze which caused property loss of more than $20,000.

The Lethbridge Herald Alberta 1950-01-21



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