Les Mitelman is a Crestwood grandfather; his grandson Liam Stern was in Grade 8 at the time this interview was completed. Les was born in Tarnopol, Poland on July 21, 1938, so he was only a baby when the war began, so growing up he had to learn the unspeakable and horrible lessons the Shoah
Ron Goldstein was born August 16, 1923 , in London, England. His parents, looking to escape the anti-Semitism and lack of opportunity, had immigrated to England from Poland in the years before the Great War. They went on to raise a large family, and Ron was the 10th in a family of 11. Ron left
Sonia Ger grew up in Pinsk, Poland. Her family had their own house with a bakery in the front, run by the father and his brother. When the Nazis invaded Poland, they were moved into a ghetto. Sonia’s father opened up another bakery in the ghetto. He made friends with the German soldiers by selling
Walter Swirski was born in Poland on May 7, 1922. His family lived in a small village, where they were prosperous farmers; Walter’s father owned a share in a flour mill, and had been an officer in the Soviet-Polish war. Walter had one brother and was going to school when the Second World War broke
Mina Zaidman was born in Miedzyrzec, Poland, in 1934. She lived in a small house with her parents and younger brother. She was only 4 ½ when the war broke out and does not really remember much about life before that. Before Germany invaded Miedzyrzec, the Russian army occupied the city as part of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact settlement. When the
Bill Peon served in the Canadian army during the Second World War. He was born in Toronto, where he grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression. With the coming of the war, he enlisted, and with basic training he was assigned to the Service Corps, designated as a truck driver. He spent additional
Marvin Woznicki was born in Silesia, Poland in 1925. Marvin grew up there in a house with his parents, his brother and his two sisters. Marvin attended grade school in Poland up to Grade 4. He had a happy childhood in his early years growing up, until all of that changed. Marvin was only fourteen
Renate Krakauer is a child survivor from Poland. She was born in Stanislawow, Poland just as the war began, in what was at that time the Soviet zone of occupation. Life was relatively normal until 1941, when the Nazis broke the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact and headed east into the USSR. Suddenly the Jews of Stanislawow
Judith Hubert was born in a small town in the eastern part of Poland. Her father was an artist and her mother helped to maintain the family store. As a young girl she lived a charmed life, going to a Hebrew school and learning ballet. All of that ended abruptly in 1939: the war started when
Seymour Zweig was born in 1921 in Lodz, Poland. After the Nazis invaded, Zweig was forced to flee to Russia, where he spent the remainder of the war. In Russia, he joined the army and did war work in an aluminum factory, where he even worked alongside German prisoners of war. After the war, Zweig
Andrew Tylman was born in November 1933, and he grew up in the town of Sochaczew, Poland. His early life took place in a largely Jewish milieu,and the family was prosperous, vacationing in Glowno and prominent in the community. The onset of the war changed the situation dramatically; as violence in his small town began
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
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
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
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
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
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,
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
Genya Baskin is a the Holocaust survivor. She was born in Poland in 1932 and lived with her parents, siblings and grandmother. When she was about five years old, she and her family had to leave Poland when the Germans invaded. Genya and her family had moved to different places during the war, spending most of
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
Eugene Katz was born in Dyszna, Poland in in 1927. He was one of five children, growing up in a Jewish family not too far from Vilna; he recalls a difficult life, beset by hunger and poverty, but also filled with family and friends. When war came in 1939, Eugene’s family was in eastern Poland,
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,
Jenny Pietrzyk was born in 1920s Poland, and she was a teenager by the time the war came. Finding herself in eastern Poland, Jenny and her family were in the Soviet zone, based on the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact. While the early years brought deprivation, the real onslaught for Jenny and her family came in
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
Paula Leibovics was born on September 25, 1933 in Ostrowiec, Poland. Paula grew up with her five older siblings and parents, but sadly, her father and two sisters were killed during the Holocaust. When the War started, Paula was just six years old. During the Holocaust, Paula was sent to Auschwitz, and was there for
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
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
Lili Friedman is a child survivor from the Holocaust and a longtime supporter of our program here at Crestwood. Born in Poland at the outset of the war, Lili grew up in the Lodz ghetto, from where she remembers snippets of her childhood. She and her family were deported to Auschwitz with the liquidation of the
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
Mendel Good was born in March,1925 in Nowy-Sacz, Poland, which was a very religious and mostly Jewish city. He had a happy family and it was big and close. Mendel had two brothers and a little sister. After the Nazi invasion, Mendel stayed in camps from the age 14 to the age of 21. He
