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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
Chava Sloma was born in Otwock, Poland in 1925. Though she recalled incidents of anti-Semitism, she said her prewar life was for the most part good. All that changed dramatically in September 1939 though; the family initially fled to Warsaw, but as the German army advanced, the decision was made to separate, and Chava and […]
The Crestwood Oral History Project is in the midst of its busy season! The CHCs are completing their oral history interviews – all 80+ of them. In the last week, we have had 2 in class visitors, and done one in home visit. Students from Mr. Masters’ class went to visit Kelman Cohen in his […]
For the past few months my grade 8 English class has been reading a book called, The Boy In The Striped Pajamas by John Boyne. The novel takes place during the Holocaust, so on a related note, last Tuesday, our class had the honour of meeting Holocaust survivor Sally Wasserman, who came to talk to […]
Read More… from Holocaust Education: Written By Zachary Halpern
This week Crestwood was visited by Faye Kieffer who spoke to Mrs. Winograd’s Grade 8 class about her experiences during the Holocaust. Faye is a hidden child survivor and she was born in Binyacorna, Poland in 1928. When the war broke out, Faye and her family were quickly moved to Ghettos. Her mother and siblings were taken […]
Rose Lipszyc was born in 1929 in Lublin, Poland. By all accounts, her life was a good one, full of family and happy memories. All that changed in the early days of the Second World War, when the Nazis invaded. Her family was sent to the ghetto, watching as the liquidations took their neighbours away. […]
Amek Adler was born April 20, 1928 in Lublin, Poland, and he grew up in Lodz. After Nazi occupation in 1939, his family escaped to Warsaw and then to Radom. In 1943, Amek was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and from there he survived the brutality of a series of work camps. The end of the war […]
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 […]
Fela Schwemer is a Holocaust Survivor from Poland. Fela lost most of her family during the war, as she made her way through a series of camps, where she was used as a slave labourer. Fela is a powerful storyteller, and her memory for the little details – the bobby pin that she desperately wanted […]
Sophie Krausz is a delightful 73yr. old woman who has been living at the Terraces of Baycrest since 2012. Sophie was born in Russia two months after the Holocaust commenced. She lived in Poland for 13 years. Sophie came to Canada in 1958. Sophie was the only child in her family. The family emigrated from […]
A survivor from Poland, Karol’s experience is different from many of the Polish Jews we have interviewed. When the war closed in, Karol and most of his immediate family made their way east, into the Soviet zone – his story reminds us of the Polish partition. From eastern Poland they entered the USSR, where they […]
Mr. David Jacobs was born in Tomaszów, Poland. He grew up within the small town, and soon joined his father in working at their family tailoring shop. At age 18, when the war broke out, Mr. Jacobs was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, where he served as a slave labourer. Mr. Jacobs traveled across Europe […]
Susan Pasternak, born Sissi Friedman was 7 months old when the war broke out in September of 1939. She was born on February 1st, 1939 in Zambriow, which is in northeastern Poland. Her parent’s names were Mordechai and Sarah Friedman and Susan was their first and only child. Her father had his own bakery shop […]
Paula Goldhar is a survivor from Poland. In December 2014 she shared her very compelling story with Mrs. Winograd’s English 8 class. Paula recounted the painful memories that made up her childhood in a very precise way, from the deprivations of the ghetto and the camps to the memories that still are with her every […]
Freda Rosenberg is a Holocaust Survivor from Radom, Poland. She survived the full weight of the war years, passing through a number of ghettoes and camps, including Auschwitz Birkenau. When the Red Army was approaching, she was forced on a death march, which she recounts in detail here. Surviving that ordeal too, Freda was liberated […]
Norma Orlan is a Holocaust Survivor from Jaworsno, Poland. A child when the German invasion began, she managed to survive a succession of labour camps during the war, including Gross Rosen. With the conclusion of the war she found herself in the Fohrenwald DP camp. She and new group of friends made their way out […]
Rachel Shtibel, nee Milbauer, a vivacious and outgoing music lover, lay hidden and silent in an underground bunker in Nazi-occupied Poland for nearly two years. A young child, she managed to survive the war, through her determination and good fortune. After the war, a recovered violin, case and photos hidden away by Rachel’s beloved Uncle Velvel […]
When Esther Fairbloom’s mother was pregnant she went to a ghetto in Tarnopol to deliver Esther. Her mother knew the Germans would come after them, so she sat down with her sister and made the choice to have her two children hidden. She had known the people at the local church and they agreed to […]
Hank Rosenbaum was born into a comfortable Jewish family in Warsaw in 1936. The German invasion of Poland turned life for the Rosenbaum family upside down. He and his family would spend the next 6 years in and out of ghettos- escaping and evading the Germans on multiple occasions. He spent the final years of […]
Martin Baranek was born August 15, 1930 in Starachowice, Poland. His was a small family, just him, his mother, his father, and his younger brother. In his early years, he was often bullied at school for being a Jew: anti-Semitism was a fact of life in Poland. Martin was 9 when the war started; as […]
Helen Rosenbaum was just under two years old when her family decided to escape the brutality of anti-Semitism in Poland by fleeing to the Soviet Union. Her family’s decision to flee would spare Helen the horrors of the death camps, but it wasn’t without struggles and terror. From the horrors of Nazi-occupied Poland, to the […]
Esther Steiman immigrated to Canada from Poland in 1935- a move that would forever alter her life and the life of her family. Arriving in Toronto, Esther and her family experienced many of the traditional hardships of the immigrant experience. Estherís story also gives a glimpse as to what it was like to learn about […]
Mel Goldberg was born in the summer of 1942, in Baila Rawska, Warsaw. He was born into a family with two brothers and one sister, but none survived the war. Mel’s town was liquidated in 1942 , and the family was sent to Treblinka, a death camp located in Poland. As Mel’s father had given […]
Flora Temou was born in Statitsa, Greece in 1936. She witnessed first hand the civil war that spread through Greece in the aftermath of World War 2. She describes the impact of witnessing the combat with her region, and her harrowing evacuation to Poland, along with other local children. In her interview, she describes the […]
Harry Bibla was born in 1930 in Miedzyrzec, Poland. As a 9 year-old boy, Harry witnessed the Nazi invasion and the immediate impact it had on his country. While Mr. Bibla initially was hidden with a Gentile family, when conditions became too dangerous he took to the forest to hide. When conditions in the forest […]
Simon Saks was born in Poland in 1932. He was taken by the Nazis from his home at the age of 7, and was imprisoned until his liberation at the age of 13. He had one year of education at a public school before that time. Simon at first was in the Warsaw Ghetto; there […]
Israel Cohen is a Survivor from Poland. Mr. Cohen was born is Lodz, Poland. He had two sisters. One was killed in the camps, and the other was murdered by the Polish a few months after the war. At first he was in the Lodz Ghetto, then Auschwitz, and then Kaufering until liberation. After liberation […]