Rosenberg, Nathan

Nathan Rosenberg is a survivor of the Second World War and the Shoah. While so many Jews were caught up in that terrible period of history, Nathan and his family were fortunate to escape, and what makes their story different is that they escaped to the east, into the heart of the USSR. When their ghetto was being liquidated, the family was able to hide between two buildings, later coming out and walking in the direction of Russia. Eventually they were put on trains by Soviet forces, and sent into the heart of Siberia, where the family toiled away under difficult conditions. Once Operation Barbarossa took place, Polish Jews in the USSR were given a choice of where they wanted to go, and Nathan’s family made their way to Uzbekistan, hoping eventually to make it to Palestine. But the family’s choice proved challenging, and sadly much of Nathan’s family died against the backdrop of the Soviet hinterland. The survivors initially went to Poland as the war ended, and then to a DP camp in Austria, with later stops in Italy and France. While two siblings headed for Israel, Nathan made his way to Canada, where he built a life and career for himself, beginning in Timmins and later in Toronto.
Nathan was referred to us by author Alvin Abram, and he visited us in May 2018, when he was interviewed by Mr. Masters’ History 12 class.

Javasky, Ruth

Ruth Javasky was born in Poland in 1929. Her family owned a store prior to the war
and people would throw stones through the windows when the store was closed. In
1942 her sister was taken away from her family. The rise of anti-Semitism was rough
on her family as she was eventually taken away from them and sent to a labour camp.
During the war she worked in the camp cleaning an office because she was too young
to do any physical work. When the war ended she was liberated by the Russians and
she met up with her cousin. They traveled back to Poland and met up with her two uncles. Her
great uncle who lived in Canada sponsored them to move to Toronto. She and her
father moved to Toronto, where Ruth still lives.  Ruth was interviewed for this project at Baycrest on the 12th of January 2018

Hoffer, Lou

Lou Hoffer was born in the northern province of Bukovina, Romania in a small  town called Vijnitz. His exact date of birth is uncertain; however, it was around 1927. In 1939, the Russians and the Germans had invaded Poland making the neighbours to the north no longer under Polish rule but Russian. A  year later Russia gave Romania an ultimatum to withdraw from the two northern provinces, Bukovina and Bessarabia, within 24 hours and they did. The town of Viznitz in which Lou was growing up was now under Russian occupation. By 1941, everyone in the town of Viznitz was deported and sent across the Dniester River to the territory of Transnistria. On the way to the death camp to Transnistria, at the age of 12, Lou had seen the messages left behind by people who were taken prior to his deportation; that day he took an oath that he would make sure to share the truth with the world if he survived. The  conditions in the camps were so terrible that approximately 300,000 Jews died. In March of 1944, Lou and his family were liberated by the Soviet Army. With no place to go, he was fortunate enough to be allowed into Canada. He endured many hardships when he first arrived to Canada but at the end,  he succeeded and met his wife Magda with whom he raised a beautiful family.

Lou was interviewed for this project at Baycrest in January 2018 by a delegation of CHC2D students.

Israel, Guta

Guta Israel was born in Sandomierz, Poland, where she was one of seven siblings. The Germans invaded her hometown when she was 13, and the full weight of the Shoah hit soonafter. Polish Jews were quickly placed in ghettos, and while many were murdered in short order by the SS, Guta was among those selected for work. She was put in 3 separate concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Belsen. After she was liberated by British troops in 1945, she made her way at first back to Poland. But confronted with entrenched anti-Semitism, she moved to Canada with her husband, where they set out to build themselves a new life together.

Goldstein, Jacob

Jacob Goldstein was born in Lodz Poland on April 12, 1928. Growing up he had 4 siblings, his older brother Ali, his younger brother Yossi, and his younger sister Ettel . The city of Lodz was the second largest city in Poland.  There was a population size of around 600 000, of which 250 000 were Jewish. Jacob lived in a mixed community. As the Shoah began, the Goldstein family decided to try to stick together for as long as they could, as they went through a series of ghettos and camps.  Unfortunately, Jacob, his dad and his uncle were the only ones to survive.  

Jacob visited us at Baycrest in January 2018, where a delegation of CHC2D students interviewed him for this project.

Langer, Manny

Manny Langer was born June 6th 1929, in Lodz Poland to a large Jewish family, with three sisters and two brothers. Before the beginning of the Second World War, his family had a successful Kosher dairy business. In the morning he attended Hebrew school, and in the afternoon Polish school. In addition to Hebrew school, Manny and his family belonged to a synagogue and went consistently every weekend. He described his life as nice, simple and friendly. The beginning of the war changed all that, and Manny found himself deported to the ghetto, where his life as a slave labourer began. He and his family endured tremendous hardships, and a succession of camps, from which Manny miraculously was able to emerge alive. After the war, he was able to reconnect with his siblings, and he moved to the US and then Canada to start his life anew. Since he has become a powerful speaker, urging today’s youth to find harmony and justice in a world that showed him the opposite.

Manny and his daughters visited Crestwood in January 2017, when they spoke to English 8 students and did an interview with a CHC2D students.

Frydrych, Aileen

Aileen Frydrych was born in the early 1930s to a Jewish family living in what was then known as Poland. Aileen who was originally named Hiya lived in Eastern Poland which is now part of Belarus. Aileen remembers the days when she first started school around 1939 when her town as occupied by Russia. Two years later Aileen’s small town was taken over by Germany. This drastically changed Aileen’s life. Being Jewish she was not allowed to attend school and when she wanted to go anywhere she would have to wear a yellow star. This showed other people that she was Jewish. Aileen went through many other hardships during the time of the Holocaust. This is her story and what she went through during these times.  

We met Aileen at Baycrest’s Cafe Europa in January 2018, when she was interviewed by a group of CHC2D students.

Baskin, Genya

Pollack, Sophie

Sophie Pollack, like other Jewish children living in Europe at the time of the Second World War, had her childhood snatched away from her at the hands of the Nazis. Born in Skierniewice, Poland, Sophie told us about her miraculous story of survival, after being placed in the Koluszki Ghetto and then just barely managing to escape and hide in a barn in the early years of the war. Only later did she find out that a few days after her escape, the Nazis had liquidated the Koluszki ghetto.  Sophie found a family that allowed her to hide with them in the winter and work on their farm during the summers. Sophie grants her survival during that period of time to the fact that she did not have the typical look of a Polish Jew, or at least what the Nazis believed a Polish Jew would look like. This was the only reason that she was able to live and to not be questioned about her true identity. However, as the years went by and the Nazi regime grew stronger and more frightening, her hiders could no longer take the risk of housing a Jew anymore and she had to go on her own.  She ended up surviving the war by hiding her Jewish identity in Germany, and she miraculously ended up finding her two sisters, spending the final years of the war with them. When the time of liberation came, she remembers the bombings, as she was in Germany at the time, but most of all she was just taken over by pure happiness. When the war finally came to an end, she went into a displaced persons camp (DP Camp). She stayed there until 1948, and her sister, as many people did in these camps, found a husband and got married.  Sophie is a Polish Jew, who not only survived the time of the war, but was actually able to reunite with her family, and go on to move to Canada and get married and have a family of her own.

Sitbon, Stefania

Stefania Sitbon is a Holocaust Survivor from Poland.  She was born just before the war began, so Stefania doesn’t remember the German invasion, or life before the war.  The memories she has are of her childhood, a time when things had changed dramatically.  Stefania grew up in the chaos and hunger of the Warsaw Ghetto, where her father had taken up resistance against the Nazis – he later participated in the uprising, which he survived.  With the help of a righteous Gentile, Stefania and the other members of her family found temporary refuge in the Warsaw Zoo, the subject of the recent film The Zookeeper’s Wife.  From there Stefania and her family were separated and sent to convents and surrounding villages, from which they were liberated in 1945.  Her reunited family spent the immediate postwar years in Austria and Poland, after which they emigrated to the new nation of Israel, later deciding to go to Canada.

Handler, Sid

Sid Handler was born In Vilnius, Lithuania in 1934 (at the time it was part of Poland and he was born with Polish citizenship) as Samuel Rezjewski. Through his childhood, he had lived close to lots of family, and was always surrounded by them. When the Holocaust Began and they were forced into the Vilna Ghetto and they moved his grandmother’s apartment in the Ghetto.  At the end of the Holocaust Sid and his mother, the only two surviving members of the family, escaped from HKP labour camp. Sid now lives in Newton, Massachusetts with his wife, two children, and 5 grandchildren. He is now 82 years old and living happily.   Sid Handler’s Oral History Project Interview, conducted by Zach Halpern,  took place on the 25th. Nov, 2016.

Leibovics, Paula

Shulman, Saul

Born in the small town of Klimontov, Poland in 1938, Saul was only an infant when Europe transformed into a war zone. He was born into a loving family: his father was a banker, his mother was a homemaker, and he had two older brothers. Saul remembers very little of this briefly relatively peaceful life before his family was transferred to Tzozmer ghetto when he was three years old.

While Saul’s story is one of survival, it is also one of loss. Like many other families, the Shulmans were separated during the Holocaust, with no knowledge of each other’s whereabouts or well-being. Saul clearly remembers his tragic separation from his two older brothers.  After this traumatic experience, Saul and his mother were deported to a concentration camp. Sometime thereafter they were deported to Auschwitz; it is truly a miracle that Saul survived. He remembers the sleepless nights he endured in cramped barracks.

Eventually, Saul and his mother moved to Canada to start a new chapter of their lives. They arrived here in 1948, when Saul was nine years old.  While Saul suffered the devastating loss of his father, brother, grandparents, aunts and uncles, he was thrilled to discover that Perry survived the Holocaust after being liberated from Buchenwald, a German concentration camp.  Saul feels proud to live in a nation that espouses the values of diversity, anti-racism, and human rights.

We are proud to have heard his story, and are thankful that he invited us to his home in October 2016, where students Taylor Frankfort and Jonah Patel interviewed him.

Chase, Jean

Jean Chase is a survivor from Trembovla, Poland, a small village near Tarnopol.  Born in 1933, Jean was the only child of Chuna and Nechama Goldstein.  When the Nazis came, the family was relocated to the Tarnopol ghetto, and though she was very young Jean remembered many key moments from this period.  She recalled the aktions of the SS, as the population of the ghetto was steadily liquidated, and that her father, a local tailor, was spared at first.  When her parents were ultimately taken away, Jean bravely and miraculously escaped to the forests surrounding the town, beginning a pattern that she would repeat multiple times.  Upon learning of her parents’ murder, Jean found herself orphaned and depending on the locals who began to shelter in a rotating pattern.  She even remembered staying at the home of a Ukrainian policeman who told her that he had murdered her mother.  Jean made the decision to go another local village, Krovynka, where she connected with her friend Sylvia and members of her family who had escaped.  She spent some months there, almost discovered by the Germans while hiding in a hole; it was a period where she recalls that was like a wild animal.  With the end of the war, another period began, one which jean remembers as even worse in many ways – she was without family, and with nowhere to go.  She made her way to Kutno, staying in Poland and resuming school, but Poland offered her nothing, and she made her way to Israel with many other orphans.  While she met her husband there, Jean was not happy there either, and when family connections emerged in the United States, she was able to secure passage to Canada.  She raised her family there, and recovered her emotional health.  Jean was interviewed in August 2016, when Scott Masters and Savannah Yutman visited her in her home.

Friedman, Lili

Mahler, Sylvia

Sylvia Mahler is a survivor of the Holocaust. Sylvia does not know her age because her records were lost in the war, but she is registered as born in 1925. She grew up in Stopnica (Poland) and lived there until the war started. In 1941 Sylvia was taken to Skarzysko-Kamienna labour camp, where she was forced to work in an ammunition factory. After she was taken to Czestochowa and forced to work in another ammunition factory. In 1948 Sylvia moved to Canada with her husband and she has lived in Canada since then. Sadly, during the war her parents, sister and three brothers were killed and Sylvia was the only survivor of the Holocaust from her family. She sat down with Crestwood students in February 2016 in her room at Baycrest to share her story.

Good, Mendel

Nayman, Sol

Sol Nayman is a Holocaust Survivor from Poland.  He was born in 1935 to Yudel Najman and Sore Roize Rosenberg; his older sister Mania was born in 1928.  When the war came in 1939, simple, everyday life in their village was turned upside down.  The family was fortunate to escape to the forest, where they saw the Wehrmacht’s trucks and troops roll through and destroy what was in their path.  From there the Naymans managed to trace a path to the east, eventually making their way to the Soviet Union.  Once in the USSR, they had to deal with the wartime conditions in that nation, and they were forced into the vast reaches of Siberia, where Sol’s parents toiled away for many years.  As the war drew to a close, they made their way back to the west, to the Ukraine and eventually Germany itself, where they found themselves in the Wetzlar DP Camp.  Here life slowly came back to a state of relative normalcy, and after several years the family managed to emigrate to Canada.  Sol attended school, where he excelled, setting him on a path for success in later life.

Windwar, Hana

Hana Windwar was born in 1933 in Warsaw, Poland. She was six years old when the war began and she was the only child of her parents. She went to Russia with her parents. Her dad was taken to Russia, and forced into the army during the war.  Her mom needed to work and Hana was put in a orphanage. Hana went back to Germany after the war but lost contact with her mom.  She met her husband in 1948 when Hana and her mom were waiting emigrate to Israel. She was married in 1951, and moved to Canada in 1966. Crestwood students visited Hana at Baycrest in February 2016 to hear her story.

Dorchik, Mila

Mila Dorchik was born on May 12, 1924 in Szydlowiec, Poland. After the Nazis came into her town, they imposed a curfew and forced citizens to work for them. They did various jobs, such as cleaning the streets, houses, offices, and washrooms. In 1942, she was taken to Skarzysko-Kamienna labour camp and forced to work in an ammunition factory, producing bullets and lethal gas. In 1944 she was transferred to Czestochowa where she continued to do the same work. Mila was liberated in Czestochowa, on January 16, 1945 by the Russians. After the war, she returned to her hometown and stayed there for a short time and then moved to Germany. She lived there in a DP camp until 1948, when she immigrated to Israel. In 1961, she immigrated to Canada. Crestwood students visited Mila in her room at Baycrest in February of 2016 to hear her story.

Weisberg, Sam

On December 7th, 2015, six students from Crestwood Preparatory College went to the Baycrest Centre to interview Sam Weisberg, accompanied by his wife, Rosa.

Sam is a Holocaust survivor, born to a Jewish family in a German-speaking region of Poland called Silesia in 1927. He was taken to the Krakow ghetto, and later to multiple concentration camps including Plaszów (as featured in Schindler’s List) and Bergen Belsen. He lives in Toronto with his wife (also a survivor). They have a daughter, six grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren!

Lipszyc, Rose

Rose Lipszyc was born in 1929 in Lublin, Poland. On October 14, 1942 Rose escaped forced deportation. She survived the war under a false identity, posing as a teenage Polish child worker in Germany. Rose’s mother, father and two brothers were murdered by the Nazis. After liberation, Rose and her future husband Jack immigrated to Israel in 1948, but the climate did not agree with her, so they chose to immigrate to Canada in 1952, where they built a new life together.

We were fortunate to meet Rose in September 2015, when a group of students met her at Baycrest.  Guanghao, Victoria, Julian and Greg were impressed by Rose’s optimism and by her approach to Holocaust education.

Adler, Amek

Amek Adler was born in Lublin, Poland, in 1928 and grew up in Lodz. After Nazi occupation in 1939, his family escaped to Warsaw and then to Radom. In 1943, Amek was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and from there was sent to a series of work camps and eventually shipped to Dachau, where his father and one brother perished. Amek was liberated on April 28, 1945. Amek worked with the Israeli Irgun Tzvai Leumi to help illegal immigrants into Palestine, and when he heard that his mother had survived he moved on to Sweden, where he married and started his own family.   He immigrated to Canada in 1954, where he and his family built a new life for themselves.

We met Amek at Baycrest in September 2015, where he was interviewed for this project by Aaron Joshua, Jonah Patel, Charley Swartz, Rohan Narayanan, and Ted Kang.

Kon, Freda

Freda (Franka) Kon is from Lodz, Poland. Freda and her family had been a nice, normal life  when the tragedy of the Holocaust descended upon them.  They were put into the Lodz Ghetto, where they would stay for the next four year, condemned to slave labour and starvation.  But as a young woman, in a community with so many other young Jews, Freda was resilient, and she recalled how they managed to find ways to bring at least some joy into their lives.  Freda’s insights there are compelling, and they speak to the resistance that went on, even in the darkest moments.  In 1944, the tragedy of the Shoah persisted, and Freda and her family were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau; Freda subsequently was sent to Stutthof, and was forced on a death march at the war’s end.

She attributes her survival to her mother’s spirit, as the two were together through the duration of the Shoah. At war’s end Freda married and had a child before emigrating to Canada. We first met her at Baycrest’s Cafe Europa, and she was kind enough to invite us to her home, where Crestwood students Sy Greenberg, Alix Postan, Lindsey Swartzman, and Katherine Charness interviewed her in May 2011.  In 2014 Freda and her daughter travelled to Lodz, where Freda participated in ceremonies commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liquidation of the ghetto.  Savannah Yutman and Scott Masters visited Freda in July 2015, where she updated her interview and shared the story of her recent travels to Poland.