Henry (Heinz) was born and raised in Berlin, attending elementary and high school in Berlin.  After high school he entered a training school for metal workers.  In February 1937, he entered a program to further his education in mechanical engineering.  Henry's father died in 1934 due to unresolved health issues related to WWI injuries when he served as a German soldier.  Henry's mother was transported from Berlin to Riga, Latvia in November, 1942 with nearly 800 other people and they were murdered in the forests on the outskirts of Riga.  Henry's sister, Lilly, married Leo Ingberg in 1938 in Berlin and gave birth to a daughter, Hadassah, in October 1939.   Leo was arrested in Berlin in September 1939 and sent to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp block 38 for Polish Jews and never got to see his daughter. Leo was then sent to Dachau Concentration Camp.  Leo survived the war, remarried and moved to Venezuela.  Lilly and her daughter, Hadassah, were arrested in late January 1943 along with other Ingberg relatives and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.  Actual date of death of Lilly and Hadassah is unknown but recorded as 1943 in Auschwitz.  

In 1939, the Anglo-Jewish organizations in Great Britain realized that an abandoned WWI British army camp near the town of Sandwich (Kitchener Camp) could be used to house German speaking Jewish adult men who were at risk of being imprisoned in concentration camps in Greater Germany.  Between February and September, 1939, a total of 4000 Jewish men made the journey from Austria and Germany to Sandwich, England. Many had been imprisoned in concentration camps and were permitted to leave Germany on the basis that they never return.  The camp needed repairs as it had been abandoned since 1918 and it had been battered by weather and decay.  Many of the men were selected because they had skills needed to rehabilitate the camp.  Together they rebuilt the structures and established a community.  The men were given day passes to go into Sandwich when they were not working and the residents of Sandwich were very receptive to the camp residents.  Henry received the appropriate clearance to leave Berlin in April 1939 on the basis of furthering his education.  In June 1939 Henry left Germany by train to Belgium.  He then boarded a ferry across the English Channel to the English port of Dover.  He arrived at the Kitchener Refugee Camp in Richborough, Kent England on June 20, 1939 where he was employed in the machine shop as a locksmith.  Certified as a refugee from Nazi oppression, Henry and other German and Austrian Jews were transported from Kitchener Camp to an internment camp on the Isle of Man in May of 1940 in an attempt to remove all Germans from England in fear of a Nazi invasion.  On July 3, 1940, Henry boarded the S.S. Ettrick, bound for Quebec City, Canada.  On the upper deck of the ship were German soldiers, protected by International Humanitarian Law enacted by the Geneva Convention, and below deck, locked in the ships bottom compartment, were the Jewish refugees, sleeping on the metal floor with no sanitation facilities.  Many suffered from dysentery.  The Geneva Convention did not apply to refugees.  Upon arrival in Quebec City on July 13, 1940, the refugees were met by armed Canadian soldiers who were informed that the new arrivals were "enemy aliens", Nazi sympathizers.  The new arrivals were escorted from the ship to trains used to transport them to internment camps.  Henry was sent to Camp Newington in Sherbrooke, Quebec.  This camp was an abandoned railway engine repair shop.  It was cold, the windows were broken and there were no mattresses.  There was one water faucet for approximately 900 people and only 9 toilets.  Prisoners were given POW issued blue uniforms marked by a 12-inch red circular patch on their back that looked like a target.  If a prisoner ran for the barbed wire fence that surrounded the camp he was shot.  Over time, the prisoners were enlisted to clean up the camp.  They were housed in army barracks with bunk beds, foot lockers and clean sanitary facilities.  They were under military discipline but rules were gradually eased as the inmates posed no danger, internees were allowed to get books and set up education classes.  The camp internees needed to officially immigrate to Canada before they could be released.  They needed a Canadian sponsor, prospects of a job and a place to stay. Henry received official authorization to leave Camp Newington in November 1942.  He found employment at Universal Button Fastening and Button Company of Canada Limited in Walkerville, Ontario as a toolmaker in March, 1944.  Henry attended Windsor-Walkerville Vocational classes from 1944-1945.  Henry received Certificate of Naturalization and became a Canadian citizen in November, 1946.