ERNST (ERNIE) DOMET
Member of BAG since 1994. He also served as Director and President for several years. He and his wife, Anne-Marie, have lived in Oakville since 1980. While they have no children, they are a very happy uncle and aunt to 8 nieces and 2 nephews in this country as well as 7 in Germany.
Ernie was born in Berlin, Germany in 1930. His schooling included a Gymnasium (classical college). In the summer of 1943, Berlin became one of the first major targets of the massive allied air offensive against Germany. The Government, therefore, ordered women and children, where possible, to be relocated to places deemed to be safe. Ernie, his mother and the two sisters found a place in a village in the German Province of Silesia (now in Poland) where they had relatives. From there, in January 1945, the family was caught up in the mass migration of some 17 Million people who, in the exceptionally harsh winter of 44/45, fled to the West from Eastern Germany to escape the quickly advancing Soviet armies. They managed to get back to Berlin in January 1945, where Ernie and his family survived the constant bombing from the air, Soviet artillery bombardment, and finally, the heavy fighting for the city.
Ernie’s father came from a Lebanese Christian Arab family but had gone to German schools and lived in Germany until just before the outbreak of World War 2. Like many Lebanese, his immediate family had always been resident in Haifa, Palestine (now Israel but until 1948 a British territory). Palestinian citizens were British subjects. Thus, Ernie’s mother and the children, though totally German in all respects, were Palestinian citizens and lived as such in Germany. A few months after the end of the war, the Allied authorities (American, British, French and Russian) issued a decree requiring all persons on German soil who were NOT German citizens, to report to the new foreign military authorities in their area. In Berlin at that time, it meant the Soviet army. After a few months in one of their camps, the Soviets drove all people under their care to a British army base in Lüneburg (Northern Germany) where, for the first time, they got lots to eat.
After about 15 months in a so-called “Displaced Persons” (DP) camp, the British authorities arranged for Ernie, his mother and two sisters to travel to join his father in Haifa. Once in Palestine, Ernie managed to get a job with Barclays Bank, Haifa Branch.
Finally, in 1954, Ernie had an opportunity to return to Berlin where he joined the Foreign Department of Berliner Volksbank, a major German Regional Bank.
Ernie immigrated to Canada in 1956 where he started his career with the Bank of Montreal. Over the years, he also became a Fellow of the Institute of Canadian Bankers, after studies with Queen’s University. Ernie is fluent in German and French, with a good working knowledge of Spanish.
In 1966, after 10 years with BMO branches in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, he was transferred to the Bank’s Head Office in Montreal. There, he met Anne-Marie, also a German BMO employee. They were married in Montreal in 1973. In 1977, Ernie was transferred by BMO to London, England and “lent” in 1979 by BMO to a company in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia as a consultant. In September 1980, he assumed a senior management position in BMO’s International Division, Toronto, from which he retired in 1993.
After his retirement, he became a consultant for 6 years to the President of a medium-sized wholesale import/export company in Toronto.