Desperate to leave Hungary after his experiences, Kanitz ran away from home when he was 13. He was picked up and brought back, but he left again, the second time with his mother's blessing. He walked to the Austrian border, and from there traveled to Italy and then to Sheffield in England, where he found a job polishing knives. "I love the English. They were the first people to treat me like I was a human being." The family was later reunited and emigrated to Canada, where Tereza Kanitz was killed by a drunk driver in Terrace, British Columbia in 1964.