On June 24, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre hosted The Dual Role of Football During the Holocaust, an online conversation with Paul Salmons, Kevin E. Simpson and Liz Berger, three scholars on sport and its place in modern Jewish history.
Paul Salmons (photo from vhec.org)
Salmons, an historian and curator, began with a grim chapter in football’s story: the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Upper Austria, where, from 1938 to 1945, some 200,000 prisoners were held and 100,000 died.
Immediately outside the camp, said Salmons, a football (soccer) field was constructed through the labour of the prisoners. SS soldiers formed a team that played league games on the pitch from 1943 to 1945.
Players, fans and officials would have had a clear view of the camp’s infirmary, where sick and dying prisoners were quarantined to prevent the spread of disease. There are reports, Salmons said, that the dead were taken out of the infirmary, past the field while a game was being played and up a pathway towards the gates of the camp. Additionally, he said, there were reports that the stench of burning bodies from the crematoria permeated the surrounding areas for the period of the camp’s existence.
“This is a very visible picture of the atrocities that are going on while they are cheering on their team, while they are celebrating those goals,” Salmons said. “What does that do in terms of the attitudes or the opinion of the footballers themselves? These members of the SS, this team of murderers, are being cheered on by the local people. Maybe in the pub that night they’re being bought a drink, maybe people are patting them on the back for the goals that they scored.”
Kevin E. Simpson (photo from vhec.org)
Simpson, an author and professor of psychology at John Brown University, discussed the prisoner experience at Terezin, north of Prague, a camp that housed Jews prominent in science, the arts and sports, and was used by the Nazis to deceive the outside world into thinking prisoners were treated well.
Football participation at the camp was so widespread that prisoners were able to create a league, Liga Terezin, and teams were formed by the nationality of the player or the particular job they were assigned, explained Simpson.
Female prisoners at the camps would design kits for the players; games were wildly popular and tickets were highly in demand, as photos from the camp illustrate. Hundreds of matches were played during a season, he said. With the liquidation of Terezin in October 1944, many of the players, like the rest of the prisoners, would be sent to Auschwitz, where they would die.
Among the professional players who were imprisoned at the camp was a standout Czechoslovakian goaltender, Jirka Taussig. Simpson cited an interview with Taussig, a survivor who later moved to the United States and would also be known as George Tesar. Of the games, Taussig said, “We were the stars of Terezin. Every Sunday afternoon, 3,500 fans came to watch the league matches. The youth saw us as a model to imitate.
“We gave them hope, and we represented life. In all the misery and suffering, hope was a rare thing,” said Taussig. “We played for them because we knew that shortly they would be sent east, and we felt that we gave them a little spark of light before their death.”
Liz Berger (photo from vhec.org)
Berger, a research consultant with UNESCO, spoke about the postwar period to the present, examining what sport has meant to Jewish communities and what the consequences are when that meaning is denied or weaponized.
“Sport is never just athletic competition. It’s one of the main domains through which societies talk about and express and sometimes form their deep values,” she said. Sport is a powerful tool for “communal recovery, identity transmission and the assertion of continued presence and vitality,” she noted.
At the same time, sport can be used as a venue for antisemitic or racist expression. Antisemitism in sport can be viewed as an indication of a society’s broader tolerance for antisemitism.
“Antisemitism in sport is not a lesser form of antisemitism. It’s not minor. It’s a manifestation of how a society relates to their Jewish communities if they have them or their concept of who Jews are if they don’t,” she said.
Berger pointed to football fandom, particularly in Europe, which is organized around tribal loyalties, class identities and historical memories. Fan support in Europe is frequently an expression of who a person is ethnically, historically and politically.
Meanwhile, Berger said, some European clubs, such as Tottenham Hotspur in England or Ajax in the Netherlands, are seen as Jewish teams, despite what might seem at times tenuous connections to the Jewish community. These teams have been the target of antisemitic hostility from the opposing fans and, conversely, demonstrate a form of solidarity with the Jewish community from supporters.
The day of the VHEC webinar happened to be a notable one in Canadian football. A few hours earlier, the men’s national team advanced beyond the preliminary round of the World Cup for the first time in its history. They were eliminated later in the tournament.
The VHEC will host two more football-related events: Football, History and Society, an online discussion with journalist Simon Kuper, on Aug. 25, and Holocaust Education in the Modern Stadium, a conversation at the Italian Cultural Centre, on Oct. 27. To watch the June 24 webinar, go to vhec.org/football_during_the_holocaust.
Sam Margolishas written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Lovena Galyide, left, and Polina Gruzinov took part in Tikva Housing’s recent fundraising campaign. (photo from Tikva Housing)
Polina Gruzinov sits in her Richmond apartment surrounded by photos of loved ones and artwork made by her daughter, Lovena Galyide, who lives in the same building just a few floors above her.
At 87, Gruzinov is living independently. “I have always dreamed of having a place of my own,” she said.
Born to a Jewish family in eastern Ukraine in 1939, Gruzinov was just 2 years old when her family fled advancing Nazi forces during the Second World War. Her mother came from Novo-Kovno, a Jewish agricultural colony, and neighbours had warned the family that Jews were in danger as the occupation approached.
“The only thing I still remember is when we were evacuating by train; it was shelled, and it was very loud,” she said.
That traumatic displacement began a journey that would take her family thousands of kilometres across the Soviet Union into Central Asia, where her mother worked in a hospital. During those years, Gruzinov’s father died in battle and her younger brother disappeared while attending boarding school in Kazakhstan.
After the war, stability remained elusive. When the family returned to Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, much of the city had been destroyed. Promised housing never materialized, and Gruzinov’s mother settled for a tiny apartment where the family shared cramped quarters with another woman and her child.
Gruzinov says she and her mother rarely discussed the suffering they experienced during the war years.
“The Holocaust wasn’t really talked about,” she said.
For Talia Mastai, associate managing director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre – which has documented the testimonies of hundreds of Holocaust survivors in British Columbia – stories like Gruzinov’s are an important reminder of the varied experiences of survivors.
“It wasn’t just limited to people in camps, people who were in hiding or people who were rescued,” Mastai said.
In the years that followed, Gruzinov built a career in telemechanics, married and gave birth to her daughter. Yet secure housing remained difficult to find. At one point, she lived with her husband, daughter, mother and aunt in just 20 square metres of living space.
The family later moved to Chechen-Ingushetia for her husband’s work assignment, where they lived in harsh conditions without many basic comforts. From their small temporary hut, they had to walk far to fetch water from a well, and heated the home with coal and wood.
“I couldn’t even let the child crawl on the floor,” she said.
Gruzinov eventually returned to Dnepropetrovsk and the marriage to her husband ended.
On her own, she continued to work while raising her daughter and caring for her mother. Then, in retirement, worsening economic conditions following the collapse of the Soviet Union forced her to consider a new life elsewhere.
“The situation in Ukraine was very difficult,” she said. “The pension was small; it wasn’t enough to live on. At that time, all the shelves were empty.”
In 1995, Gruzinov immigrated to Israel, settling in Ashkelon, about 20 kilometres from Gaza. Although she eventually moved into a retirement residence, instability remained part of daily life. From her window, she could see explosions in the distance during periods of conflict.
When her daughter settled in Vancouver, Gruzinov followed, arriving in Canada in 2016. But the high cost of living in Metro Vancouver meant the family’s housing struggles continued.
“When Mom came to Canada, I gave her my bedroom. The second bedroom was for my son, and I was sleeping in the living room,” Galyide said. “This was very tight for us, but rent was so expensive that I could not afford something bigger.”
Gruzinov continued to hope for a place of her own and, the following year, that dream became reality when she secured an apartment with Tikva Housing, which provides affordable housing solutions for Jewish individuals and families across Metro Vancouver. Today, Gruzinov lives independently in one of Tikva’s buildings, with her daughter close by and a renewed connection to the Jewish community.
“It’s very nice to have my own space but also having my daughter living in the same building,” she said.
Gruzinov is one of several Holocaust survivors supported by Tikva, where assistance from the Azrieli Foundation helps ensure they can age with dignity, financial security and connection.
“For many Holocaust survivors, housing stability is not something that can be taken for granted. Affordable housing allows them to remain connected to their communities and access the support they need,” said Anat Gogo, executive director of Tikva Housing, which owns 213 affordable units in eight buildings across Metro Vancouver and operates a rent relief program that provides short-term subsidies to people experiencing temporary financial crisis.
“Many survivors have experienced profound loss and displacement. While we cannot change what they endured, we can help ensure they have comfort, housing security and community in their later years,” said Gogo.
In 2025, Tikva first received funding from the Azrieli Foundation to support Holocaust survivors living in its housing units, helping the organization maintain significant rental subsidies in one of North America’s least affordable markets.
Naomi Azrieli, chair of the Azrieli Foundation. (photo from Azrieli Foundation)
The initiative is part of the Azrieli Foundation’s broader commitment to supporting low-income Holocaust survivors across Canada. In addition to Vancouver, the foundation supports housing programs in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto, working with local agencies that already serve survivors in their communities.
For Naomi Azrieli, chair of the Azrieli Foundation, those partnerships are essential.
“We always want to work with the trusted local agencies that are already there doing the work,” Azrieli said. “They know how best to respond to the specific needs of the populations they serve and they really help us maximize the impact of our funding.”
Azrieli has a deep understanding of the experiences of Holocaust survivors. Her own father, David Azrieli, has a story with remarkable similarities to that of Gruzinov and her family. Born in Poland, he fled to the USSR and eventually to Central Asia in 1941, shortly after the Nazi invasion – and he lived in Israel before building a successful international enterprise in Canada and Israel.
An equally ambitious philanthropist, in 1989 he established the Azrieli Foundation, which supports education, healthcare and research, Jewish life, the arts and Holocaust commemoration.
David Azrieli was a Holocaust survivor who was both an entrepreneur and philanthropist. “He always remembered the people who helped him along the way and, as a result, his legacy really highlights how resilience can pair with responsibility,” said his daughter, Naomi Azrieli. (photo from Azrieli Foundation)
“He always remembered the people who helped him along the way and, as a result, his legacy really highlights how resilience can pair with responsibility,” said Azrieli.
Last year, the Azrieli Foundation provided financial support to well over 1,600 low-income Holocaust survivors. Nearly 30% of the survivors helped were over the age of 90 – an age when housing stability, access to care and community connection become increasingly important.
Azrieli emphasized that the support is not charity.
“It is a reflection of respect and responsibility. It is because of our gratitude for all that survivors have endured and all that they have contributed,” she said. “They deserve care, they deserve dignity and they deserve to live in comfort today and always.”
In 2026, Tikva’s initiative expanded through a partnership with Jewish Family Services Vancouver, a Claims Conference partner organization, to identify Holocaust survivors living in market rentals who could benefit from additional support.
“Supporting survivors means ensuring they have access to the services and relationships they need to age with dignity,” said Tanja Demajo, executive director of JFS, which supports more than 160 Holocaust survivors through care management, financial assistance, home support, advocacy and social programs. “Remembrance is important, but so is responding to the realities survivors face today,” she said.
“What’s most meaningful for me,” said Galyide, “is that my mom struggled all her life, and now, at this moment, she is really happy.”
Geoffrey Druker, left, and Glen Steinman hold the City of Vancouver proclamation of April 7, 2026, as Rudolf Vrba Day. (photo from Vrba Projects / VHEC)
The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) welcomes the City of Vancouver’s Proclamation designating April 7, 2026, as “Rudolf Vrba Day.”
In the proclamation, Mayor Ken Sim notes that Rudolf Vrba, who was deported to Auschwitz at age 17, escaped from the camp on April 7, 1944, and risked his life to expose the reality of Nazi atrocities. His actions helped bring forward one of the earliest and most authoritative eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust. Vrba later made Vancouver his home, where he lived and worked for nearly four decades as a distinguished professor at the University of British Columbia.
Rudolf Vrba (photo from Vrba Projects / VHEC)
The proclamation further recognizes that the report produced by Vrba and co-escapee Alfred Wetzler – now known as the Vrba-Wetzler Report – is widely credited with helping halt the deportation of Hungarian Jews and contributing to the saving of more than 100,000 lives.
The VHEC recognizes this proclamation as honouring the historic legacy of Vrba and his continued relevance today as a man who devoted his life to the power of the individual to seek justice. Remembering Vrba is not only an act of historical necessity – it is a reminder of the moral courage ordinary individuals must summon, and of our shared responsibility to value and present the truth on behalf of humanity.
The VHEC is grateful to the City of Vancouver and Sim for making this proclamation. The centre also acknowledges the contributions of Vrba’s friends and supporters in Vancouver, including those who established a memorial monument to Vrba in Schara Tzedeck Cemetery. The proclamation was further supported by the efforts of Vrba Projects, a local group of volunteers – led by Geoffrey Druker, John Gruetzner and Glen Steinman – working to promote local, national and global recognition of Vrba. VHEC also thanks Robin Vrba, the widow of Vrba.
Vrba believed that history must be told without euphemism, distortion or sentimentality. He was a moral witness and a warrior for truth, guided by a strong internal code and a profound sense of personal responsibility. His memoir, I Escaped from Auschwitz, was first published in 1964 and remains one of the most important survivor accounts of the Holocaust.
In recent years, there has been renewed international recognition of Vrba’s legacy, including the publication of two major biographies: The Escape Artist: The Man Who Broke Out of Auschwitz to Warn the World by Jonathan Freedland, and Holocaust Hero: The Life and Times of Rudolf Vrba by Vancouver author and journalist Alan Twigg, who also curates the website rudolfvrba.com. (For more, also see jewishindependent.ca/new-bio-gives-vrba-his-due and jewishindependent.ca/vrba-monument-is-unveiled.)
The first English translations of the Vrba-Wetzler report, received by the US government in October 1944, are now preserved in the Records of the War Refugee Board at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library.
Douglas Century signs copies of his book Crash of the Heavens at the JCC Jewish Book Festival earlier this year. (photo by Tova Kornfeld)
Douglas Century’s Crash of the Heavens: The Remarkable Story of Hannah Senesh and the Only Military Mission to Rescue Europe’s Jews During World War II is a meticulously researched and spell-binding narrative of Senesh’s life, and pre- and postwar Europe and Palestine.
Senesh, born in 1921, grew up in a middle-class family in Budapest until the Nazis came to power in the 1930s. The rise of antisemitism drove her to join a Zionist youth group and she became obsessed with emigrating to British Palestine. In 1938, she made aliyah to a northern kibbutz, and part of her metamorphosis was to Hebraize her identity, changing her name from Aniko Szenes.
As word of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis started to leak out, Jews in Palestine (numbering about 600,000) sought ways to rescue their European brethren. British Intelligence MI9, tasked with assisting the escape of thousands of Allied POWs, needed people with local language skills and area knowledge. In 1943, Senesh was recruited, one of three Jewish women in a cohort of 37, to be trained as a paratrooper and radio operator. She made her first jump – into Yugoslavia – in March 1944, where she liaised with Partisan groups to carry out sabotage missions. Her hope was to cross into Hungary to save her family and others, but she was captured by Hungarian gendarmes, imprisoned, tortured, tried for treason and executed by firing squad on Nov. 7, 1944.
Sharing details from her diary, which Senesh kept from the age of 13, Century takes readers into her pains, her joys. Her poetry is part of her legacy: “A Walk to Caesarea” is almost a second national anthem in Israel, where many streets, parks and schools bear her name. Ironically, Hungarians know little about her.
The Independent interviewed Century by email.
JI: How did you first become interested in Senesh?
DC: I first learned about Hannah when I was about 8 years old at the I.L. Peretz Shul in Calgary. Our principal was a Holocaust survivor – he’d lived through the Shoah as a boy in Poland. He told us the story of Hannah’s courage, her refusal to give up her secret British radio codes despite months of horrific physical and psychological torture at the hands of the Gestapo.
At that age, I’m sure it was just the broad strokes of the story: she wouldn’t betray her people, she was sentenced to execution by firing squad when she was 23 years old.
Who could understand the concept of martyrdom at the age of 8? Certainly not me. But I did understand that this was a brave young woman who went to her death and wouldn’t beg for mercy “from hangmen and murderers” – those were her exact words.
She refused to wear a blindfold as she faced the firing squad, daring the Hungarian soldiers with rifles to look her in the eyes as shot.
To hear that story age 8 – well, it was amazing. It was also terrifying. Clearly, it’s haunted me since childhood.
JI: This is the first time you are writing about a woman. Was that decision purposeful?
DC: I never thought about it that way. I’ve tended to write books with male protagonists. Technically, though, the first book I ever published – when I was in my mid-20s – was a young adult biography of the Nobel-laureate novelist Toni Morrison.
I conceptualized this book as a military rescue mission – most of the action takes place between late 1943 and late 1944, with a “ticking-clock” thriller pacing – and, yes, in the book proposal, I consciously chose to focus on the three women Palmach commandos and parachutists: Hannah Senesh, Haviva Reik and Surika Braverman.
As I was writing … it became clear that the central storyline needed to be Hannah’s. To a lesser extent, I write about the other parachutists’ missions in Slovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia.
JI: What research did you do for the book?
DC: There are so many primary source documents available. All of Hannah’s poetry, diaries, letters and photographs are in the National Library of Israel archive. There are also many memoirs – most of them out of print – by the various parachutists. There are invaluable oral histories in the U.S. Holocaust Museum and at Yad Vashem. For four years, I felt like I was basically living in archives and military libraries, but I knew that I’d never do this story justice solely on previously published research.
I flew to Tel Aviv in the summer of 2023 to do what we used to call “shoe-leather reporting.” I spent weeks in Israel, retracing the footsteps of Hannah Senesh and the other parachutists. That summer of 2023, I met David Senesh – Hannah’s nephew – a renowned psychotherapist specializing in treating trauma. David was himself a POW and tortured by the Egyptians in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
I’ve become close friends with David and his wife…. They really gave me some valuable personal insights into the family dynamic – and I learned things that have never been in other books.
JI: Was there a particular demographic you were trying to capture?
DC: I set out to write this book for one reader – my daughter, Lena. She’s studying English and wants to be an author. My daughter was 22 when I finished the book; Hannah was 22 when she embarked on her paratrooper mission in March of 1944. My daughter said, “Thank God you’re not writing about another complex, sociopathic antihero! Hannah is a courageous and talented woman who the reader can actually admire.”
JI: How did you arrive at the book’s title?
DC: When I was pitching the idea to my literary agent, I was already writing about Hannah, but it was about to be the centenary of her birth in July 2021 and 150 IDF paratroopers were recreating her jump in a mission called Operation Crash of the Heavens. The title comes from Hannah’s most famous poem, “A Walk to Caesarea,” better known by its musical adaptation, “Eli, Eli.” It’s a very short poem, and Hannah’s next-to-last line in Hebrew is “barak hashamayim.”The literal translation is “the lightning in the sky,” but, to me, the most artful translation is, “the crash of the heavens.”
JI: What has the reception to the book been like?
DC: It’s been wonderful, warm and very appreciative. Even people who know about Hannah Senesh – especially people from Israel – tell me that I introduced stories and things they never knew before.
I’ve spoken at a few schools: the Hannah Senesh Community Day School in Brooklyn, King David High School in Vancouver, Yeshiva University in New York. When I’m talking to teenagers, I try to contextualize the story by stressing how assimilated the Jews of Hungary were, especially in Budapest. They felt fully Hungarian. But then the series of so-called “Jewish Bills” came into effect, limiting the number of Jews in the professions, setting quotas for university – Hannah had wanted to study education and become a schoolteacher but that became impossible. Ultimately, Jews couldn’t own property, couldn’t have a telephone. They were stripped of all civil rights – by the Kingdom of Hungary, of course, not by Nazi Germany.
I ask high school kids and university students: Do you guys feel Canadian? You’re proud of Canada? Cheer for Canada in the Olympics? What if, overnight, the government said: “You’re not Canadian. Turn in your passport. You can’t go to university. You need to move out of your house – you can only live on certain streets in houses marked with a yellow star. You can’t be out in public past noon.” Why? Because Parliament passed a new law that says you’re no longer a Canadian – you’re a Jew. That means you’re an alien living among Canadians without the rights or privileges of a citizen. How would you feel? What would you do?
JI: You started this book before Oct. 7, 2023. Did that tragic event and its aftermath affect the way you wrote the narrative?
DC: Absolutely. I was deep into the writing process before Oct. 7, 2023. I knew that words like Zionism, Israel and Palestine were hot buttons when I started writing the book, but after Oct. 7, they became third rails.
I tried not to let it affect the way I was writing the book. Of course, seeing all the anti-Israel protests exploding on campuses and in city streets the past couple of years, hearing all the outright distortion of history, it affects a writer’s psyche. As we were designing maps for the book, for example, I insisted that they said, “British Mandate for Palestine” as well as “Eretz Israel.”… While writing the first draft, I had non-Jewish friends asking me, “Doug, what is Zionism?” and I realized that, in the post-Oct. 7 world, it was a critical question. I felt I should let Hannah define what Zionism meant to her. On Oct. 27, 1938, she writes in her diary: “I don’t know if I’ve already mentioned that I’ve become a Zionist. This word stands for a tremendous number of things. To me, it means, in short, that I now consciously and strongly feel I am a Jew, and am proud of it.” Full stop.
JI: If you would have been able to interview Senesh, what would you have asked?
DC: I have so many questions. I don’t want to give any plot spoilers, but there’s one story which hasn’t been told before in previous books. In the summer of 1944, Hannah helped a young Slovakian-Jewish woman named Matilda Glattstein to escape from the Gestapo prison in Budapest. Hannah learned that Matilda was pregnant and devised a complicated escape plan, which means she knew exactly how to break out of the prison and yet she herself didn’t. She saved another woman’s life – but not her own. I’d ask Hannah this question: “If you could rescue Matilda Glattstein, a pregnant woman with no military training, why didn’t you rescue yourself?” I’ve got my own theories, but I would love to ask Hannah.
JI: Why should people read your book?
DC: On the most basic level, I hope they want to read a compelling, exciting and emotional story of heroism during the darkest days of World War II. In hindsight, I didn’t write the book just for my daughter, or just for young Jewish women, or for anyone who aspires to do what Hannah did – become a poet or author and leave her mark on the world. Within the story, I’m asking some more universal questions: What do we mean by courage? Where does moral conviction come from?
We’re living in a crazy era, and it’s worth remembering that there are some causes for which it might be necessary to make the ultimate sacrifice….
JI: Tell me about your collaboration with Kosha Dillz?
DC: Kosha Dillz is someone I’ve known for years and years. His real name is Rami Even-Esh. [He’s] an Israeli-American rapper, filmmaker, social media personality and influencer. I sent him an ARC [advance reading copy] of Crash of the Heavens last October and we just started bouncing around ideas.
We agreed that, with this terrifying rise in antisemitism, it’s the perfect time to make the name Hannah Senesh – poet, paratrooper, Palmach commando – known to all the millions of people in their teens, 20s and 30s who are too busy “doom scrolling” to read the book. I figured, what better way to reach them than to have a gifted modern-day poet like Kosha Dillz breathe fresh energy and inspiration into her story? He wrote some amazing lyrics based on my book and we shot a video on the streets of New York for his song called “Hannah Senesh.”… You can find it on all the streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
JI: Are there any plans to use your book as the basis for a film or play?
DC: Yes, people have been talking about an adaptation, but the world of TV and film adaptations is so mercurial. Right now, we’re working on an adaptation of my previous book, The Last Boss of Brighton, about the life and times of a Soviet-born Jewish mobster – the aforementioned “complex, sociopathic antihero.”… At the same time, one of my earlier books – also about the Mafia in New York City – is being developed for a series…. But we’ll see what happens. Stay tuned.
Tova Kornfeld is a Vancouver freelance writer and lawyer.
Love runs through every word in Voices of Resilience: An Anthology of Stories Written by Children of Holocaust Survivors, edited by Deborah (Devora) Ross-Grayman with Wendy Bancroft and the writers.
This compelling, hopeful and inspiring collection of stories will be launched on May 25, 7 p.m., in the Floral Hall at VanDusen Botanical Garden in an event supported by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC). Some of the authors will share parts of their stories, and signed books will be available for purchase.
The 12 contributors of stories and poems are children of Holocaust survivors and members of the Vancouver Second-Generation (2G) Group, which Ross-Grayman joined in 1993 and of which she is now a facilitator. Bancroft, a former journalist and researcher, is a trained instructor of guided autobiography.
“After an extensive investigation to better understand the impact of the Shoah’s legacy, Wendy adapted and crafted themes for our group,” writes Ross-Grayman in the book’s preface.
“What began as a six-week course for six of us grew to a two-year writing project for 12 participants,” she explains. “Through laughter and tears, we marveled at the similarity in our felt experiences despite the varied external circumstances. At times it was challenging to face and hold our parents’ pain and loss; at times we were sleepless and anxious, but we supported each other, developed deep bonds, and persevered. Through listening and reflecting on each of the stories, our understanding of ourselves and each other grew as we shared what some of us had never shared and, with understanding, came to a deeper compassion for ourselves and our parents.
“Our narratives so impressed Wendy that she recommended organizing an anthology. We includedaccounts of our parents’ survival to honour their lives and illustrate examples of post-traumatic growth – the positive psychological changes that can unintentionally arise from a life crisis or traumatic event, even while acknowledging the profound distress such experiences entail.”
The simultaneous holding of grief and contentment, even joy, is remarkable, as is the strength to continue, to grow, to heal – as much as healing is possible. The authors (in order of entries) – Gabriella Klein, Ross-Grayman, Henry Ross-Grayman, Jane Heyman, Marg Van Wielingen, Fran Alexander, Agi Rejto, Marianne Rev, Esther Chase, Barbara Gard, Olga Campbell and Sidi Schaffer – are open, sharing personal, vulnerable experiences on the page. The intergenerational impacts of trauma are clear from their diverse experiences, but so is the capacity for finding peace, for building community, for embracing one’s cultural roots while forging your own individual identity. While specific to the Holocaust, these stories, these remembrances, speak to a universal experience of living through and with historical trauma.
The anthology, put out by Amsterdam Publishers as part of the series Holocaust Survivor True Stories, is dedicated to the writers’ families; “to those who risked everything to save lives; to those who survived; to the millions who perished in the Holocaust; and to all people affected by war, displacement and genocide.” It is published in memory of Rev, who passed away in January.
Dr. Robert Krell, a psychiatrist, author, child survivor and founding president of the VHEC, wrote the book’s foreword, in which he shares some of his own story – he is both a Holocaust survivor and a 2G child – and offers emotional context. Dr. Chris Friedrichs, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, provides historical context.
Krell explains that, in general, “the second-generation consists of those born after the war, thousands in the displaced persons (DP) camps, which, for several years, recorded the highest birth rate in the world!” He talks about some of the experiences that 2G have in common, such as the need to sometimes parent their parents, how it feels to live “with the ghosts of the missing.”
“There are moments one cannot forget, must not forget, and these memories linger and reverberate throughout life, reviving the inner rage about the outrage committed against our parents and us,” writes Krell.
“It should therefore be no surprise that this collection of recollections reveals evidence of a surviving rage, problems with trust, confrontations with the meaning of death, and remarkable attempts to reinvigorate a life with meaning, including a meaningful spiritual engagement, whether within the Jewish traditions or not.”
“Mass murders were nothing new in history, but the Holocaust revealed that a once civilized society could orchestrate a program of extermination of human lives on a scale and in a manner that had never been imagined before,” writes Friedrichs. “It was so extensive and so unspeakably brutal that it gave rise to the very concept of genocide.”
Friedrichs writes concisely of the origins of the Holocaust, what happened and about how there are any survivors, as well as about some of the challenges survivors faced after the war.
“This volume reveals not only the enormous variety of what survivors went through but also the tremendous range of emotions and experiences that shaped the lives of their children,” he writes. “Though the Shoah ended 80 years ago, it is a living presence for all members of the Jewish people, and for none more so than those Jews whose own parents had survived this event without comparison in the modern history of humanity.”
In Voices of Resilience, each 2G writer’s chapter includes a brief biography, their parents’ survival stories and a few of their own stories or poems. Maps near the anthology’s beginning shows where all the authors were born and all the survivor parents’ birthplaces. The geography spans continents: Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.
Despite vastly different experiences, there are recurring topics: dealing with antisemitism; taking care of their survivor parent; feelings of insufficiency, fear and sadness; being conflicted about religion and feeling like an outsider even inside the Jewish community.
The writers have worked to make their lives and the larger world better, as did their parents. The word “love” is prominent in these stories, as is its expression in the enduring strength of the family relationships, the caring for others, as well as oneself, the compassion shown, the emotional connections forged.
“We offer our stories as a source of hope and the possibility of resilience in the aftermath of trauma,” writes Deborah Ross-Grayman in the afterword.
No one contribution is more quotable than another. The collection does indeed offer hope, as well as thought-provoking explorations of memory, displacement and the generational impacts of genocide.
To attend the launch, RSVP at vhec.org. The anthology is available on Amazon for those who can’t make it on the 25th.
Left to right: Minister and Solicitor General Nina Krieger, Holocaust survivor and keynote speaker Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, Premier David Eby and survivor Leo Vogel at the Legislative Assembly on April 14. (photo from Province of BC)
The annual Yom Hashoah commemoration ceremony at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia took place on April 14, with political leaders, Holocaust survivors and representatives of the Vancouver and Victoria Jewish communities in attendance.
Raj Chouhan, speaker of the Assembly, started the proceedings. “Now, more than ever, it is important that we reflect on and remember the atrocities of the Holocaust and I stand in solidarity with you as we honour survivors today,” he said.
“When I think about the Holocaust, I think of the six million lives of men, women and children lost, the grief, the decimation of entire communities,” said Premier David Eby. “Beyond that, there is the extinguishment of so much potential that could have improved the world.”
Trevor Halford, interim leader of the BC Conservative Party, echoed the premier’s sentiment, calling the Holocaust a genocide unprecedented in its scale. “We lost men, women and children.We never got to see their full potential of what they could be or how they could change and impact this world,” he said. “We must call out hate every time we see it. Every time. Each one of us.”
Jeremy Valeriote, representing the BC Green Party, said that Yom Hashoah is not only a day of mourning but a call to action. “It reminds us of the dangers of hatred, antisemitism and indifference, and challenges us to confront injustice wherever we see it,” he said.
Lillian Boraks-Nemetz, an author, educator and survivor, was the keynote speaker. She described a happy, ordinary childhood in Poland in the 1930s. Hers was an assimilated family that participated in Jewish life. Her father was a lawyer and her mother had a large social circle consisting of many friends, both Jewish and not Jewish. That all changed in September 1939.
“There isn’t a day that I don’t ask myself why I survived. How did I survive when six million of us perished, and 1.5 million were children? And one of them was my sister. I lost my cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends, and the list goes on and on,” Boraks-Nemetz said.
Commemorations, such as the one in Victoria, will hopefully ensure that an “apocalyptic event” like the Holocaust never happens again, Boraks-Nemetz said. Through education, she said, we sow the seeds of truth and understanding, the lesson that racism, intolerance and prejudice must have no place in society.
Through the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Boraks-Nemetz and other survivors have spoken to thousands of schoolchildren in the province. She thanked Eby’s government for mandating Holocaust education for students in Grade 10. “Through such actions, we may find a glimmer of hope for a better future,” she said.
Boraks-Nemetz is the author of several books that reflect on her experiences as a survivor and subsequent life in Canada. Her award-winning young adult novel, The Old Brown Suitcase (1994), is used in school curricula to teach about the Holocaust and multiculturalism. Her most recent books are volumes of poetry, Out of the Dark (2020) and Hidden Vision: Poems of Transformation (2024), written under the name Jagna Boraks.
Towards the end of the commemoration, survivors Leo Vogel and Arlette Baker joined Boraks-Nemetz on stage to honour the victims of Nazi terror.
During the ceremony, Rabbi Meir Kaplan led attendees in prayer, and he reflected on how, over the last 20 years, the room had gone from being filled with survivors to having just a handful. Local community member Ari Hershberg read Boraks-Nemetz’s poem, “A Survivor Remembers the Six Million.”
Nina Krieger, minister of public safety and solicitor general, and former executive director of the VHEC, essentially led the proceedings.
“It’s by engaging with the Holocaust that we consider questions like, What is at stake to remain a bystander?” she said. “What are our obligations in times of moral crisis? We learn about the dangers of denial and distortion of history and memory.”
Sam Margolishas written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.
Malka Pischanitskaya, centre, told her story of survival at the Vancouver community’s Yom Hashoah ceremony. Her daughter, Inna Turner, and granddaughter, Sophie Turner, also spoke at the April 14 event. (Rhonda Dent Photography)
Even before the Holocaust upended her life, Malka Pischanitskaya’s family was hobbled by poverty. Her father left before she was born, and she was largely raised by her grandmother and great-aunt while her mother worked elsewhere. After the Nazi invasion reached Romaniv, Ukraine, in 1941, when Malka was 10 years old, she saw Jews murdered in the streets. On Aug. 25, 1941, Romaniv’s Jews were rounded up for mass execution.
On that day, there was a pounding on the family’s front door and orders to assemble at a central location. What followed was chaos, crowds converging from all directions, families separated. Men were taken away and executed.
“The screams of men were just horrible,” she recalled.
Malka and her mother survived only because, after hours of terror, some mothers with children were unexpectedly released. Most of their family and community were murdered.
What followed were years of hiding, near-starvation and repeated brushes with death. The title of Pischanitskaya’s memoir, A Mother to My Mother, published by the Azrieli Foundation, comes from the reversal forced on her by war: her mother was so traumatized that young Malka often became the more practical, protective figure, begging for food and helping keep them alive. (See jewishindependent.ca/a-harrowing-survival-story.)
Pischanitskaya shared her story April 14 at the annual Yom Hashoah community event, marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, in conversation with Ellie Lawson, education manager of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.
Each day, Malka left her mother hidden – in a haystack, a trench, wherever they could remain unseen – and went from door to door in nearby villages, begging for bread. Malka had gone to a Ukrainian public school and spoke Ukrainian fluently, while her mother was identifiably Jewish by her accent. Sometimes people helped, sometimes they could not, but two people in particular probably ensured Malka and her mother lived.
One of those people was Lydia. When Malka first approached her, Lydia demurred. “My home is so empty,” she said. “Like a crystal bowl.”
Malka proposed that, if Lydia would hide her and her mother, she would continue to gather food and share it. Lydia agreed and, for more than a year, Malka and her mother lived hidden in Lydia’s home.
Eventually, neighbours became suspicious. Malka and her mother moved, this time to the home of a young orphan who, like Lydia, chose to help despite the risks.
Both women would be recognized at Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.
“They needed us as much as we needed them,” Pischanitskaya said of the relationships forged in desperation.
By the end of the war, nearly 40 members of her family were gone – and she began to rebuild a life. “I was not sitting and crying,” she said. “I was mobilized.”
They returned to Romaniv to find almost nothing left. Malka finished school, earned a teaching diploma in Zhytomyr in 1954. She married, had two children, lived in Tashkent and Uzhhorod, and immigrated to Vancouver in 1975. For decades, she did not speak about her Holocaust experiences.
Pischanitskaya’s daughter, Inna Turner, who joined her at the Yom Hashoah event, grew up with the emotional weight of that silence.
“I didn’t know she was a Holocaust survivor,” Turner said. “But I felt it.”
Turner said the silence had a profound effect on her life.
“I think many Holocaust survivors suffer from PTSD,” she said. “And, in the olden days we didn’t know much about it. We know more now, or at least we think we do, and we know that it affects an individual. But it affects not just an individual, it affects people who are the closest to the individual, like children, grandchildren, spouses, siblings, the family. Being a child of a Holocaust survivor, well, what can I say? Not a walk in the park, that’s for sure.”
Only years later did Pischanitskaya begin to speak – through a community of survivors, art and writing.
Pischanitskaya’s granddaughter, Sophie Turner, introduced her not only as a survivor, but as a grandmother who is strong and resilient. She sees her grandmother’s story as a responsibility she and others of her generation are obligated to sustain. “This is not only history,” she said. “It is living memory that we carry with us.”
Survivors lit candles representing six million lives lost, including one and a half million children. Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim and US Consul General Shawn Crowley were among the dignitaries who attended. Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, senior rabbi at Temple Sholom, which hosted the event with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, with support from the Jewish Federation’s annual campaign and the Province of British Columbia, welcomed attendees.
“We live in a time when the language of the Holocaust is being used in ways that empty it of meaning,” said Moskovitz, “Words like genocide, once anchored in specific historical reality, are now invoked casually…. Comparisons are made that collapse moral distinctions rather than clarify them. And, perhaps most troubling, the Holocaust itself is sometimes inverted – Jews recast not as victims, but as perpetrators. This is not just inaccurate, it is dangerous. The Holocaust was not a metaphor. It was not a slogan. It was the systematic, industrialized attempt to annihilate the Jewish people. Six million Jews were murdered, families were erased, entire communities were destroyed. That reality demands precision, honesty and reverence. And when that truth is blurred, something else is lost as well. Empathy is lost. Understanding is lost. And the moral clarity that the Holocaust calls us to carry into the world begins to fade.”
“Remembrance is not a passive state of being,” said Hannah Marazzi, executive director of the VHEC. “It is an act of moral choice … an act of resistance.”
In addition to mourning those murdered, she said, Yom Hashoah is about honouring survivors. “Those who endured unimaginable suffering and yet found the strength to go on,” she said. “Many rebuilt their lives here in Canada. Their resilience, wisdom and testimony have shaped not only this community, but the city of Vancouver, and continue to shape the work that we undertake at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre.”
A musical program included Abbygail Sandler, Cantor Michael Zoosman, Cantor Shani Cohen, Lisa Kesselman and Ellie Sherman. They were accompanied by Eric Wilson on cello, Erin Marks on oboe, Wendy Bross Stuart and Perry Ehrlich on piano. Cantor Yaacov Orzech chanted the memorial prayer El Moleh Rachamim.
BC students at the StandWithUs conference in Las Vegas March 15-18 included, left to right, Adar Latak, Alexis Moscovitz and Ethan Doctor. (photo by Pat Johnson)
What happens in Las Vegas doesn’t stay in Vegas. That was the defiant message from Roz Rothstein, the chief executive officer and co-founder of StandWithUs, as she welcomed about 1,000 Jewish and pro-Israel high school and college students, alumni, activists and assorted allies to the organization’s conference in the Nevada city, March 15 to 18. They assembled to become more informed and empowered, to return to their campuses and communities to advance the fight against antisemitism and antizionism.
Among the delegates were about 100 Canadians, including 15 BC students, as well as Vancouverite Zara Nybo, StandWithUs Canada’s campus and high school manager for Western Canada.
StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy and education organization, provides leadership training and educational programs to students at hundreds of schools, as well as operating many other initiatives, including legal supports for Jewish and pro-Israel individuals and groups.
Among the BC students were four Leventhal high school interns and 10 Emerson fellows, who are part of the organization’s college and university track, Nybo said.
Students are selected based on demonstrated leadership in pro-Israel activism. They attend two immersive educational international conferences like the Vegas meeting during their year of service and are required to initiate several Israel-related programs in their communities or on campus.
Delegates heard from a roster of noted speakers in plenary sessions and more intimate, often hands-on breakout sessions.
The intensive morning to late-night schedule included speakers like New York Times columnist Bret Stephens; singer, dancer and online influencer Montana Tucker; sociologist David Hirsh, who is head of the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism; Loay Alshareef, a Saudi-born activist who advocates for normalization with Israel; Luai Ahmed, a Yemeni-Swedish journalist; Oct. 7 survivors, including Omer Shem Tov, who was held hostage for 505 days; and scores of others.
New York Times columnist Bret Stephens (photo by Pat Johnson)
Stephens, the New York Times columnist, spoke of the revolutionary impact the potential fall of the Iranian regime could have on regional and global affairs but also warned of unintended consequences.
“Regime change is not at all easy,” he said. “There are all kinds of imponderables.”
The state could spiral into chaos and even more bloody and brutal repression than the government has already brought down on anti-regime protesters, he said.
“I do think there is, in fact, quite a plausible scenario [of regime change] – not now, not during this war, but in six months or a year – if [it’s] a militarily crippled and humiliated regime that is still under sanctions, still cannot pay its bills, cannot pay its civil servants, cannot pay its soldiers,” said Stephens.
Iranian street activists, he said, need to “kick this regime when it’s down.”
“If anyone can do it, 90 million Iranians, 88% of whom, at least, despise the regime and had the courage to come out and cheer when the late ayatollah was killed … I think that that creates conditions in which I can see it happen,” he said.
Ahmed spoke of his ideological and physical journey from being an antisemitic young man in Yemen to a new life in Sweden advancing coexistence with Jews.
“It is our duty as reformist Arab Muslims to stand with our Israeli and Iranian brothers and sisters to reject radical Islam, to fight radical Islam,” he said. “It is our duty to fight the terrorists who occupied my country, who believe that firing ballistic missiles at Jews is more important than feeding the starving population of Yemen.
“Radical Islam occupied Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza,” he said. “Radical Islam married my mother off at the age of 8. Radical Islam is our problem and, today, I stand here as a Yemeni who was taught to hate Jews. And I’m telling you something that radical Islamists fear the most: Jews and Israel are not our enemies.”
Alshareef shared a similar transformation.
“I used to be hardcore antizionist,” he said. “I used to be deeply antisemitic. In my local mosque, I repeated after my imams, ‘Death to Israel, death to Jews, death to Zionists,’ without ever having met a Jew or a Zionist before. Today, thank God, I no longer believe in that cancerous ideology that not only impacts the Jewish community, but it also impacts my community as well.… A society that learns to hate Jews more than loving our own children is not a healthy society.”
Loay Alshareef, a Saudi-born activist who advocates for normalization with Israel. (photo by Pat Johnson)
After Oct. 7, 2023, Alshareef decided to visit Israel.
“I learned that the Jewish community and Israelis were desperate for peace, that the vast majority of Jews and Israelis do not want war with us,” he said. “They want peace, and they are very desperate for this peace. That is something that no one had ever told me until I went to Israel myself to see the truth. I then took it upon myself to try to hammer this newfound truth to my friends and family members. And, since then, I’ve been creating content, sharing the hidden truths about Israelis and Jews that my society either dismisses or is completely unaware of.”
Students shared their experiences with antisemitism and bias from teachers, administrators and fellow students. A high school student explained how he helped get an ahistoric and antisemitic handout removed from his school’s curriculum – it had gone unchallenged since 1998. In plenaries and breakouts, individuals shared personal experiences of harassment, discrimination and loss of friendships.
StandWithUs does not only educate but also uses the law to seek fair outcomes in cases of discrimination.
The conference heard from Yael Lerman, founding director of Saidoff Law, a legal arm of StandWithUs, which includes a team of attorneys backed by a network of hundreds of pro bono lawyers and law firms.
“Imagine being a Jewish student in a high school where there are very few other Jewish kids,” Lerman said. “Day after day, classmates taunt you. They call you ‘dirty Jew’ and ‘Zio,’ they send antisemitic messages. Sometimes, they shove you or punch you. You never know when the next message or the next attack is coming. The school knows about it. Nothing changes. Then you reach out to StandWithUs Saidoff Law. Our attorneys step in. We represent you, we fight for you, and we win. We secure a transfer to a new school, and the original school must pay for it for the rest of your time in high school.”
No student should ever face antisemitism alone, Lerman said.
“Since Oct. 7, we’ve seen a dramatic rise in legal complaints, not only on campuses, but across everyday community spaces,” she continued.
“Recently, one man went to pick up a clothing order at a store where he had been a loyal customer for several years. The clerk looked at his kippa and muttered, ‘You Jews think you can get everything you want.’
“Later that day, he received an email telling him he was banned from the store and the entire chain. So, he reported the incident to StandWithUs. Our lawyer filed a complaint with the appropriate government agency and negotiated a settlement. The store had to lift the ban and compensate him. That is what accountability looks like,” said Lerman.
The conference heard diverse emotional testimonies.
Shem Tov shared the harrowing story of dancing at the Nova festival and, minutes later, being thrown in the back of a pickup truck and transported across the border into Gaza, beginning a nightmarish ordeal of 505 days of being shuttled between locations and then confined in underground labyrinths. For 50 consecutive days, at one point, he was held in complete darkness in a cell where he could not stand up.
“They used to abuse me physically and mentally,” he said of his captors. “There wasn’t any human interaction, I would say.”
Shem Tov was held in near-starvation even as he saw piled boxes of United Nations-supplied rations.
His captors once took him to a house above a tunnel that had been rigged with explosives and told him he would be forced to trigger an explosive blast when Israeli soldiers entered the boobytrapped structure. When they threatened to kill him if he refused, Shem Tov told them they could shoot him, but he would not do it.
After Shem Tov’s presentation, hundreds of students rushed to the front of the hall, surrounding the former hostage and dancing ecstatically as music blared and massive screens declared: “We are dancing again.”
The executive director of StandWithUs Australia, Michael Gencher, led a memorial for the 15 victims murdered during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach last Dec. 14.
Sami Steigmann, a child survivor of the Holocaust, spoke of the series of flukes and strokes of luck that saved his life.
In addition to Canada and all regions of the United States, student delegations came from Europe, Latin America and Australia. Due to war-related airspace closures, only two delegates were able to travel from Israel for the event.
BC delegates spoke to the Independent about their experiences.
Adar Latak, a University of Victoria psychology student in his final year, said he gained confidence at the conference and made important connections.
“You’re meeting Jews from around the world, and that’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s easy to get brought down by everything, and coming here really lifts your spirits. You’re with other Jews, you’re all facing the same thing, and you’re all talking about it, and you’re giving each other advice and tips, and it is really just a beautiful thing.”
Alexis Moscovitz, a second-year physical and health education student, also at the University of Victoria, echoed Latak’s sense of community.
“Obviously, everybody has different experiences, but it’s all basically the same,” she said. “We’re all fighting antisemitism on our campuses and so, having a support system, amazing staff here, it’s just amazing to be able to be with people that you know are experiencing the same things.”
Vancouverite Ethan Doctor, a Langara College student, has faced threats on campus, including being followed and intimidated by a group of masked and keffiyeh-clad activists. His experience as an Emerson Fellow helped him navigate the college bureaucracy, seeking appropriate security and prevention steps.
“If it wasn’t for organizations like StandWithUs, I wouldn’t know how to properly deal with it and wouldn’t know the proper steps to take,” said Doctor. “I am just eternally grateful to organizations like this.”
Michael Dickson, executive director of StandWithUs Israel, left, speaks with Omer Shem Tov, who was held hostage in Gaza for 505 days. (photo by Pat Johnson)
Jesse Primerano, executive director of StandWithUs Canada, told the Independent his group’s role is to help young pro-Israel activists, but also people of all ages, find their voices.
“In many cases, they don’t feel comfortable with the facts, to engage with people who are coming at them very aggressively,” he said. “So, our job is to help them understand the facts and how to communicate them to people who disagree.”
Earlier, Primerano briefed the convention on the state of affairs in Canada.
“We look back on times [of] the Holocaust, and I think what we said for many generations was that, as long as our government didn’t turn on us, we would be safe in the countries that we live,” he said. “And, you know, since Oct. 7, antisemitism has become emboldened in a way in Canada that it feels like our politicians know the only way to stay in office is to take an anti-Israel position.
“So, we’ve seen our mayor of Toronto be unwilling to come to an Oct. 7 vigil, unwilling to come to an Israeli flag-raising,” Primerano continued. “Our prime minister in Canada said that he would arrest Bibi [Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu] should he come to Canada. He put an arms embargo on Israel and, most importantly, as I’m sure many of you are aware, he rewarded Hamas with support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“That type of rhetoric and action from our government has spilled into the streets because it has emboldened those who are willing to take shots at the Jewish community. And I mean that both literally and figuratively. Just [days earlier] in Toronto, we had three synagogues that were shot overnight in four days,” he said.
StandWithUs partners with many different groups, Primerano said, but because they work extensively with university students, some people might wonder how they fit with agencies like Hillel.
“Hillel is, in many ways, the voice on campus,” he said. “They are the coordinators of Jewish life. Their goal and their work and their ultimate obligation is to bring Jewish students and their allies together. Our job is, once those students are together, to help supplement the work that Hillel is doing with Israel education, with helping awareness towards antisemitism. Hillel has a wide array of responsibilities that go far beyond just advocacy. Our job is to supplement their work, to work with them as a partner and bring our resources into their space while they bring the students here to meet our resources.”
At the Vegas conference, StandWithUs unveiled SWUBOT, a free, downloadable artificial intelligence tool providing at-the-fingertips information on Israel, antisemitism and activism.
StandWithUs was marking 25 years since Rothstein founded the group with her husband, Jerry Rothstein, who is the organization’s chief operating officer, and Esther Renzer, who is the president.
Alix West Lefler plays Frida in The Fast Runner. (photo from thefastrunnerfilm.com)
The Fast Runner, a 15-minute short from director David Bercovici-Artieda is about a young girl’s courage during the Holocaust. (See jewishindependent.ca/balancing-education-and-art.) The film screens April 19, 7 p.m., at the Rothstein Theatre, as part of the event Out of the Shadows: Reclaiming Jewish Stories.
The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, Bercovici-Artieda, playwright Mark Leiren-Young and Simon Fraser University professor Dr. Lilach Marom; author and Globe & Mail columnist Marsha Lederman is moderator. The event is co-presented by Chutzpah! Plus and Pacific Legal Education & Outreach Society, with partial proceeds supporting the Antisemitism Legal Hotline (antisemitismlegalhelp.org). For tickets ($18/$36/$54), go to chutzpahfestival.com/out-of-shadows.
Co-stars Evan Roberts, left, Jerry Callaghan, centre, and Carl Powell in rehearsal for Bema Productions’ presentation of Perseverance, April 22 to May 3. (photo by Becca Elliot)
Jerry Callaghan and Andrea Eggenberger (photo by Becca Elliot)
Bema Productions in Victoria presents Perseverance, by L.E. McCullough, from April 22 to May 3. The play is adapted from the 2019 memoir One Holocaust Survivor’s Journey from Poland to America, written by Melvin Goldman and his daughter, Lee Goldman Kikel. It brings to the stage a timely story of healing and renewal.
Few visitors to the G&S Jewelry Store in Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighbourhood during the 1960s and 1970s were aware that the cheerful proprietor, Melvin (né Mieczyslaw) Goldman, had spent his teens enduring the horrors of Auschwitz before arriving in postwar America as a penniless refugee intent on reclaiming his life and reshaping his family’s destiny. The play depicts Goldman’s irrepressible spirituality and unflagging love for humanity as he worked to replace darkness with light, one piece of handcrafted jewelry at a time.
Angela Henry and Jerry Callaghan (photo by Becca Elliot)
Bema Productions’ mounting of Perseverance stars Jerry Callaghan, Andrea Eggenberger, Carl Powell, Angela Henry and Evan Roberts. All performances take place in Bema’s Black Box Theatre at Congregation Emanu-El. For tickets ($25), go to ticketowl.io/bemaproductions.
