MICHAEL HANTZSCH BIO

Date and Place of Birth:  Dec.8,1954, Toronto, Ont. Canada 
Mother: Irene Gerczuk, b. 1922 Lviv, Ukraine
Father: Ottokar Wilhelm Hantzsch, b. 1923 Odessa, Ukraine

Michael Hantzsch graduated in 1978 from the University of Toronto with a degree in Chemical Engineering and moved to Calgary  in 1980 to work for Shell Canada. Currently he is working for  Kiwetinohk Resources Corporation ( a private energy company) in Calgary, as Chief Operating Officer of their Energy Division and also Senior Vice President of Market Development.

Michael’s father, Otto, was born in Ukraine, but he moved to Germany with his German parents in 1933. He met and married Michael’s mother in Germany in 1951 and they came to Canada in 1952. During the war Otto spent five years in a Russian prisoner of war camp and escaped but he never  wanted to talk about these experiences to his son. Michael  has visited with his German relatives and corresponds with them yearly in English, as his German is very limited.

Michael considers himself Canadian by birth but Ukrainian by heritage.  Michael and his wife, Petrusia Sirant, have encouraged their two daughters to participate in Plast* and in the Ukrainian community in Calgary . His ties to Ukraine are very strong due to his mother’s and his great uncle’s influence. Michael was on the National executive of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress for nine years, is now an advisor to the Board of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress branch in Calgary, on the Board of Directors of the Ukrainian Professional and Businessmen's Association and an advisor on the Church Council, Church of the Assumption in Calgary. He has also been a life long and very active and supportive member of Plast. In 2012 he travelled to Ukraine for  the 100th anniversary of Plast and in 2004 Michael was an observer for the elections in Ukraine.

*Plast - Ukrainian youth organization

INTERVIEW EXCERPT

Date and place of interview: Feb.14, 2020, Calgary Alberta, Canada
Length of interview: 26 minutes
Interviewer: Chrystia Kolos
Language: English

Interviewer: So as a child or teenager, what language did you speak at home? Michael: Ukrainian

Interviewer: Ukrainian, almost exclusively,
Michael: Yes

Interviewer: and did your Ukrainian parents speak to you in Ukrainian?

Michael: They did, my mother all the time, my dad, he struggled with his Ukrainian, it was mostly…he could speak to me in German but I wouldn’t understand so we conversed in English. But it was interesting that I forgot to mention that when they got married there was an agreement made, I don’t know if it was formal or not, that any children out of this marriage would be raised Ukrainian, Ukrainian culture, Ukrainian church, so that was the condition and my father accepted that.  So that’s why I became Ukrainian rather than German.

Interviewer: So what do you like and find helpful about the Ukrainian Canadian community?

Michael: What do I like? I like the fact that they have not assimilated within the Canadian context, and they’ve maintained their identity but yet they feel they’re an important and vibrant component of  Canadian society. So that they have people who have a bit of influence with respect  of our involvement in politics. I know that the President of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress has many times visited with the Prime Minister, the current Prime Minister... the former prime Minister. So we now are, like the other communities, like the Jewish community, I think we are exerting some kind of influence, we’ve elevated our professionalism, as a community. So I like that part. I like the focus, especially the organizations that I belong to, on youth… youth development, making them better citizens, Canadians for that matter, as well as maintaining their Ukrainian heritage, what’s important to them.

Interviewer: Is there anything that you’d like to see different or, you know, that you could suggest different about the Ukrainian Canadian community?

Michael:  Well, if I have one disappointment is that there is not better cooperation amongst the various organizations, with respect to the community here, we’re so small with respect to the overall population. I feel there should be better collaboration between the various organizations, we should try and remove religion and membership out of those discussions.