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Bucharest a city of contrast

Bucharest a city of contrast

There is an abundance of street art in Bucharest. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)

What could be more Israeli than the hora? Well, truth be told, the hora is not Israeli! The word hora comes from Romania. And, like the origins of the hora, the Romanian capital, Bucharest, is a place where the unexpected should be expected.

When you walk along Bucharest’s broad boulevards, one word comes to mind – palatial. There is the former Cantacuzino Palace, today’s George Enescu National Museum; the Elisabeta Palace, the private residence of the former Queen Elizabeth of Greece (born Princess Elisabeta of Romania), following her 1935 divorce from King George II of Greece; the former Royal Palace, today’s National Museum of Arts; the Romanian Athenaeum, today a major concert hall; the Palace of the Deposits and Consignments, still a bank, but today called the CEC Palace; and the Palace of Parliament.

Bucharest once had strong ties to Paris, and French is still mandated in schools. It was called Little Paris, so it should not be a surprise to see that Bucharest’s Manu-Auschnitt Palace is a copy of Paris’s Hôtel Biron (today’s Rodin Museum). While smaller in size, many older private homes were built with stunning stone (perhaps even cement) arches and columns, bas reliefs incorporating figures of lions, men and women, shields, gryphons, eagles, the angel of death, and various free-standing sculptures. In this home, the windows are in national-romantic and neo-Romanian style. Paris-inspired art deco metal work appears on door grills, door overhangs and the tops of buildings. Five classy examples of art deco building in Bucharest are 1 Piata Sfântul Stefan; the Ministry of Justice at 53 Bulevardul Regina Elisabeta; the Telephone Company Building on Calea Victoriei; the “Union” Building on 11 Strada Ion Campineanu; and 44 Calea Calarasilor.

photo - The Old Palace of the Chamber of Commerce in Bucharest, a city full of former palaces
The Old Palace of the Chamber of Commerce in Bucharest, a city full of former palaces. (photo by Deborah Rubin Fields)

In addition to the number of stunning palaces, there is also an abundance of street art. Some of this street art is commissioned and appears on the sides of various buildings. It is often colourful and imaginative. There is, however, a lot of graffiti, which, apparently, began to appear after the 1989 Romanian revolt against the communist regime. Graffiti is illegal, but, as I was told, the consequences depend on the discretion of who catches the graffiti artist or how fast the artist can run.

Jewish presence in Romania dates to Roman times, when the country was a province called Dacia. The first mention of Jews in Bucharest is from the 16th century. Jews came to Bucharest from two directions: Sephardi Jews came from the south, mainly from the Ottoman Empire; later, Ashkenazi Jews came from the north. The latter, from Galicia or Ukraine, settled in Bucharest after having lived in Moldavia. As in other European countries, Jews were at various times tolerated, even integrated into general city life.  At other times, however, they were punished in one way or another.

The Jewish population of Bucharest grew significantly, particularly in the second half of the 19th century. In 1835, some 2,600 Jews lived there; this number jumped to 5,900 in 1860. In the 1800s, nine synagogues were constructed and, by 1900, the total Jewish population had risen to 40,500, making Bucharest by far the largest Jewish community in Romanian territory. By 1930, the city’s Jewish population was 74,480. Jews settled in virtually all the city districts, especially in areas where economic growth was fastest. Bucharest’s Jews laboured as artisans, metalworkers, merchants and bankers.

In the early 19th century, there were several instances in which Jews were accused of ritual murder. This led to violence and pogroms. While, on the books, Jews were to be given citizenship, government after government dragged its feet in making emancipation stick. In general, being Christian was a prerequisite for Romanian citizenship, although a complex naturalization process was theoretically made available to Jews. When, in 1866, Jewish French lawyer Adolph Crémieux came to Bucharest to help push for Jewish political emancipation, rioters attacked Jewish shops and synagogues. Toward the end of the century, many antisemitic organizations existed, due in large part to nationalist leader Alexandru C. Cuza’s political activities. In particular, his followers organized antisemitic agitation against Jewish students at Bucharest University. 

After Germany, Romania is directly responsible for more Jewish deaths in the Shoah than any other country. For most of the Second World War, Romania allied with Nazi Germany. According to official Romanian statistics, between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews were murdered or died in territories under Romanian administration during the war. Antisemitic legislation downgraded the identity of Jewish citizens to second-rate status: they lost the rights to education and health care, their property was confiscated, and they were forced to perform hard labour. In September 1942, approximately 1,000 Jews were deported to Transnistria.

Despite such treatment, most of Bucharest’s large Jewish community was spared the worst horrors of the Holocaust. Between 1941 and 1943, Bucharest-based Chilean charge d’affaires Samuel del Campo saved the lives of more than 1,200 Romanian and Polish Jews by issuing them Chilean passports, thus preventing their deportation to Nazi concentration camps.  A memorial stands in front of the former Ashkenazi Great Synagogue, commemorating the January 1941 paramilitary Iron Guard’s (Legionnaires’) savage murder of 125 Bucharest Jews, an action reminiscent of Nazi techniques, with the skinning of the victims and the hanging of them on meat hooks. 

Shortly after the Second World War, Bucharest experienced a great influx of Jews, as refugees arrived from concentration camps and from several areas in Romania where they continued to feel unsafe. By 1947, the Jewish population had grown to 150,000.

After the first years of the communist regime and the closing of Jewish welfare and religious institutions, Bucharest continued to be a centre of Jewish communal and cultural life due, in large part, to Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen, who coped with the inconsistencies and peculiarities of Romanian official policy – particularly during the 1965-1989 dictatorship of Nicolae Ceausescu. When former US ambassador Alfred Moses first visited Bucharest in 1976, a young Jew approached him saying, “Don’t believe what they tell you. The situation here is terrible, especially for Jews. We are blamed for everything that goes wrong. Help us get out. There is no future for Jews in Romania. Everything you hear is a lie, a lie, a lie.”

After the rebirth of the state of Israel, many Jews made aliyah. By 2000, only 3,500 Jews were left in Bucharest. Today’s Jewish life in Bucharest focuses on three synagogues, a community centre, a kosher restaurant and the Centre for the Study of the History of Romanian Jews. 

In 2021, a Romanian survey reported one-fourth of respondents saying they didn’t know or couldn’t say exactly what the Holocaust was. Another 35% said they couldn’t identify the Holocaust’s significance for Romania. In 2022, the populist Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) opposition party called Holocaust education a “minor topic” when it was mandated in Romanian high schools. This party currently holds 12% of parliament seats and some people predict it will become a major political force in the near future.

On a more positive note, a few years after the death of Jewish Romanian Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, at age 87, Bucharest memorialized him with a bust in the Piata Elie Wiesel. 

Finally, if you hear what sounds like a Slavic language spoken in Bucharest, it might just be Ukrainian. Since Russia began its attack on Ukraine two years ago, 11,000 Ukrainian men of conscription age have illegally fled to Romania. It is too early to say how this population will impact Bucharest life. 

Deborah Rubin Fields is an Israel-based features writer. She is also the author of Take a Peek Inside: A Child’s Guide to Radiology Exams, published in English, Hebrew and Arabic.

Format ImagePosted on September 20, 2024September 18, 2024Author Deborah Rubin FieldsCategories TravelTags Bucharest, Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants, history, murals, palaces, Romania, street art
Reflecting back 80 years

Reflecting back 80 years

At the community’s commemoration of Yom Hashoah, child survivor Janos Benisz spoke about his experiences during the Holocaust. (photo by Rhonda Dent)

Over the past year, Janos Benisz has watched the news of Ukrainian parents fleeing to Poland and elsewhere in Europe to find safety for their families. While “overjoyed” for the families finding refuge today, he cannot help but reflect back eight decades to his own family’s catastrophic history in that violence-ravaged region.

Benisz was born in the summer of 1938 in the Hungarian city of Esztergom. He is one of the very few children to survive the Nazi concentration camps and is now one of an even smaller number of survivors alive to share their stories of survival. He spoke April 17 at the annual Yom Hashoah Commemoration presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, on the 80th anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Benisz lost his mother in 1943, when she was 38, after she went to hospital for a routine procedure but was, he said, murdered by a fascist there. His father remarried and his stepmother would prove a saviour for the boy.

The following year, the Nazis began rounding up Hungarian Jews and preparing to transport them to forced labour and death camps.

“Like a plague of locusts, the SS came marching into our city,” he recalled. “As they marched past our house, there was a great fear in our family. My father closed the windows and pulled the curtains down and his fear was passed on to me. The next day, we left our home and on the front of our white stucco home was a yellow Magen David. Within hours, an SS commander came to our house and put stickers on our valuables.”

His father took young Janos and his stepmother to relations who were Catholic. It was the last time he saw his father.

“Life was wonderful for six weeks until one of the neighbours reported us and informed that Jews were in this home,” said Benisz.

An SS officer accompanied by Hungarian Arrow Cross fascists knocked on the door and seized Janos and his stepmother, who were sent to the Strasshof concentration camp, in Austria. They remained there for eight or nine months, until liberated by Soviet forces. Benisz credits his stepmother’s determination for his survival.

“It was like a lioness protecting her cub,” he said. “She would go into the circle where the food was, or the slop was, with the big cup and she would always bring food to me. I would drink it and that sustained me.”

After liberation, Janos, 7, and his now-mother made their way back to Esztergom. The devastation was nearly total.

“I had many, many cousins and they all were massacred,” he said. “My mother’s family … it was like the earth had opened up and killed them all.”

The experiences left Janos’s stepmother mentally broken and Janos was placed in an orphanage.

“The only thing I remember is cod liver oil in the morning and brushing my teeth with about 10 or 15 guys beside me brushing their teeth as well,” he said. “After two-and-a-half years in the orphanage, somebody from the Joint [Distribution Committee] picked me up, took me to the train station. There were 14 or 15 other Jewish orphans there and they told us, ‘You’re going to America – North America.’”

The group first spent six months in France, where “they tried to educate us,” he said, but the young survivors were like “a bunch of wild animals.”

The group arrived in Halifax on Dec. 3, 1948. They were given hot soup and delicious sandwiches, as well as ice cream, of which Benisz said he must have eaten a gallon with his bare hands.

On the train across Canada, orphans disembarked at different cities and Benisz arrived in Winnipeg in the midst of a blizzard.

“My first Canadian Jewish home proved to be a disaster,” he said. “I was bounced around like a basketball between foster homes.… I was never part of the family. I was always an outsider.”

The terrors that followed him from Europe, which led to screaming in the night, did not make him a welcome addition to potential foster homes.

“Who wants to have a stranger’s scream waking [one] up every night?” he asked.

He was put in a reformatory for about six months before a Jewish welfare agency rescued him and found him suitable housing and got him caught up in his education.

At a young age, Benisz got a job as a copy boy at the Winnipeg Free Press. A life in the news business followed, especially covering sports, which he did at newspapers across Western Canada. An editor changed his byline from Janos Benisz to Jack Bennett, which became his professional designation.

Eventually, he arrived to a new job at a Vancouver daily just as the press launched what would become a year-long strike. Jack Diamond, the late Jewish businessman and philanthropist, gave Benisz a job. Years later, after a corporate buyout, Benisz had a $25,000 windfall and he and a partner opened a business in Gastown, “and, over the next 15, 18 years, we made a lot of money.”

He spoke of his gratitude for the community of survivors, especially the Child Survivors Group, based at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. For two decades, he has spoken to school groups and others about his Holocaust experiences.

“I speak on behalf of the six million who have no voice, that includes 1.5 million children who were murdered,” he said.

At the commemorative event, Rabbi Dan Moskovitz of Temple Sholom reflected on the longer, formal name of the day, which is Yom HaZikaron laShoah ve-laG’vurah, Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day. He emphasized the resistance and revolt inherent in both the name of the day and the fact that Yom Hashoah is marked annually on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

“Our sacred purpose is so much more important, so much more vital, because the life-memory is fading. We gather here this evening at the twilight of an era. As the Survivors’ Declaration hauntingly observes, the age of the Holocaust survivors is drawing to a close. Before long, no one will be left to say, I was there, I saw, I remember what happened…. It is in this void that the deniers and the distortionists will come, they always do, as they have continually on every night and every day since even before the liberation of the camps, to say that this didn’t happen, that it wasn’t so bad or the relativism of comparing trauma to trauma.”

There is one significant difference between the contemporary generation and the generation of the 1930s, said the rabbi.

“That difference is that we have the experience that they didn’t have. We know it can happen because it did,” he said. “We know the antisemitism, if it is not confronted vigourously, forcefully and immediately defeated, can develop into monstrous dimensions. So, we don’t have the luxury or the privilege to say, let’s wait and see how things will develop, how this turns out.”

The VHEC’s Abby Wener Herlin, granddaughter of survivors Aurelia and David Gold, spoke as a representative of the third generation.

“In our family, in order to build a life and live each day, they could not speak about their experiences,” she recalled of her late grandparents. “In order to protect themselves and us from the atrocities and traumas of their past, they shared very little.

“There is a sense of weight that comes from being the grandchild of Holocaust survivors,” Wener Herlin continued, “to know that I am part of the last generation that will ever hear those stories firsthand. I feel it is my duty and responsibility to carry it forward and it is my duty to remember.”

In a video presentation, former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler discussed the 1994 genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, as well as the Holocaust, and said that what makes both historical instances so horrific are not just the horrors themselves but that both atrocities were preventable.

“Nobody could say that we did not know. We knew but we did not act,” said Cotler.

He addressed remarks specifically to survivors: “You have endured the worst of inhumanity, but somehow you found the resources of your own humanity, the ability to carry on, to build families and to make an enduring contribution to Canada and to the communities in which you settled.”

Corinne Zimmerman, board president of the VHEC, read from a statement Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released for Yom Hashoah and Moskovitz read a message from B.C. Premier David Eby. Sarah Kirby-Yung, Vancouver city councilor, read a proclamation from Mayor Ken Sim.

Cantor Yaacov Orzech chanted El Moleh Rachamim, the memorial prayer for the martyrs. An extensive musical program, produced by Wendy Bross Stuart and Ron Stuart, featured Bross Stuart on piano, Eric Wilson on cello, with Cantor Shani Cohen, Kat Palmer, Lisa Osipov Milton singing, as well as eight young voices collectively dubbed the Yom Hashoah Singers.

The evening was presented by the VHEC with the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver and Temple Sholom.

Format ImagePosted on April 28, 2023April 26, 2023Author Pat JohnsonCategories LocalTags Abby Wener Herlin, Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants, child survivor, Corinne Zimmerman, Dan Moskovitz, immigration, Irwin Cotler, Janos Benisz, survivors, Temple Sholom, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, VHEC, Yaacov Orzech, Yom Hashoah

Beware of scam letter

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is alerting Holocaust survivors and their families not to be taken in by an “odious” scam that promises to unlock Swiss bank accounts in exchange for personal information.

CIJA became aware of a campaign that appears to be targeting the Jewish community and which in one case advised a Calgary resident that one of their relatives killed during the Holocaust had left $75 million in a Swiss bank account. The letter bears the name of a consulting firm, a New York address and phone number. Sara Saber-Freedman, CIJA executive vice-president, said she contacted the letter writer by phone, but when she refused to give him her cell number, he hung up on her.

In the letter, copies of which were sent to others in Canada, the writer claims he is able to access the funds if the recipient of the letter provides extensive personal information. Saber-Freedman said, “It’s exactly like every other one of those scams that you read about and you get by email all the time.”

While frauds of this type prey on people’s trusting nature, this particular fraud “is revolting,” she said. “To use the Holocaust in this context is just vile.” Survivors are elderly and can be vulnerable to this sort of pitch, she added.

Sidney Zoltak, co-president of the Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants, said similar “sick kinds of operations” have come up before, promising survivors they could recover funds on insurance policies and properties in Poland. He advised survivors and their families to pursue claims through reputable organizations. While the current campaign did not ask for money up front, Zoltak said, “this is the beginning. Once you get to speak to someone who is really smooth, they can talk you into a lot of things.” They prey on the vulnerable and they’re ready “to take away their last savings and leave them penniless. They don’t care as long as they score,” he added.

Saber-Freedman said she has informed U.S. law enforcement and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre about the letters.

– For more national Jewish news, visit cjnews.com.

Posted on April 11, 2014May 6, 2014Author Paul Lungen CJNCategories NationalTags Canadian Jewish Holocaust Survivors and Descendants, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, CIJA, Sara Saber-Freedman, Sidney Zoltak
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