survivors

Survivor urges vigilance

Resilience and determination were the themes at an International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration at the Bayit synagogue in Richmond Jan. 27. It was the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Marie Doduck, a child survivor who was the youngest Jewish orphan admitted to Canada after the war, spoke of her survival story, as well as her life in Canada, and she urged vigilance in the face of rising contemporary antisemitism.

Doduck was born Mariette Rozen in Brussels, Belgium, in 1935, the youngest of 11 children. She was 5 years old when the Nazis invaded her hometown in 1940. She and her siblings were scattered across the city and countryside, hiding with non-Jewish families, in convents and orphanages, and at times assisting the resistance. While her parents and three of her siblings were killed, eight survived, a remarkable number given that an estimated 85% of Belgian Jewish children were murdered.

In 1947, she immigrated to Canada as a war orphan and, with three of her surviving siblings, was brought to Vancouver. Her memoir, A Childhood Unspoken, was published in 2023. (See the Independent’s review of the book at jewishindependent.ca/an-intense-urgent-read.)

Doduck spent the war years being shuffled from one place to another, even serving as a messenger between her siblings and for the resistance, because of her photographic memory.

“I lived mostly in darkness, literally in hiding places where the Nazis could not find me,” she recounted. “When I returned to Brussels years later, I could not recognize the city in the daylight, for my Brussels was a place of darkness.”

Her survival – and that of seven other siblings – is a result of series of near-miracles and near-misses.

“At one of the orphanages, the mother superior hid me in a rat-infested sewer after one of her nuns found out that I was a Jewish child and reported me to the Gestapo,” she said.

After liberation, Doduck was one of 1,123 orphans sponsored by Canadian Jewish Congress to migrate to Canada. Her adaptation to life in Vancouver, while smoother than many of the children, was very difficult.

“When I first tried to tell people what happened to me, they said, ‘Forget the past,’” she recalled. “We all find our own ways of dealing with pain. I became more resilient and learned from life’s harsh lessons to depend only on myself. I, as a child, had a strength to go on despite the mistrust, fear and pain that I then felt. I went on. I went on because I would not consider the alternative. Those lessons are, in a significant way, responsible for whom I am today.”

Doduck explained that the word “holocaust,” which came into the use in 1950s, originally meant a sacrifice burnt entirely on the altar. She contrasted her own experience with that nihilistic image.

“The person you see before you tonight, Marie Doduck, is a happy Jewish mother, a successful businesswoman, an author, a grandmother, a great-grandmother,” she said. “I’ve also been president of my synagogue and on the board of many Jewish organizations in our community.”

photo - Marie Doduck mingled with attendees after the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration at the Bayit — Marie Doduck mingled with attendees after the International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemoration at the Bayit. *(photo by Pat Johnson)*

She is a co-founder of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC).

Doduck’s personal story of success and happiness is replicated among countless survivors of the trauma of that time.

“Although our childhood was ripped away from us, we survived and continued and we thrived,” she said. “We have achieved so much for ourselves, our families, and for our community. And I and many others will continue to speak about our stories and to remember, to acknowledge those who perished, who cannot speak for themselves. It is estimated that only 11% of Jewish children who were alive in Europe in 1939 lived to see 1945. As many as 1.5 million of the six million Jews cruelly murdered by the Nazis were children under the age of 18.”

Doduck said the world needs to learn from the past.

“No society is immune to the danger of prejudice, antisemitism and racism, and we must work together to stand up when we see injustice in the world around us,” she said.

She explained that the vision of the VHEC is a world free of antisemitism, discrimination and genocide, with social justice and human rights for all.

“This noble idea can only be achieved when governments, schools, educators and organizations work together hand-in-hand to teach future generations about the danger of racism and discrimination,” Doduck said. “Together, we must remember the past and pass on the teaching of the Holocaust together.… We must make ‘never again’ a reality, not just an ideal.”

Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver, took exception to the term “survivor” to describe people like Doduck.

“They’re not survivors. They’re thrivers,” he said. “Survivors just get by. Survivors are what they thought we would have as a Jewish people after the Shoah. They thought we would have a group of survivors who could not make it in the world beyond the Shoah.”

The lives of these individuals defied expectations, he said.

“We have thrivers that not only found meaningful relationships, not only built families, not only had kids, but cured diseases and became artists and won Nobel Prizes,” said Shanken. “They did for the world, but the world didn’t do for them.”

The countries where survivors made their homes and contributed so much have become rampant with antisemitism, he said.

Shanken called on those in the room, especially elected officials, to demonstrate clear leadership.

“It is critical that people understand what is in bounds and what is out of bounds within our society…. I know it’s hard as politicians to get that done,” he said. “But I have to tell you, please, on our behalf, keep doing as much as you can because we need you.”

Parm Bains, member of Parliament for Steveston-Richmond East, sent greetings from Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Kelly Greene, member of the BC Legislature for Richmond-Steveston and minister for emergency management and climate readiness, brought greetings from Premier David Eby. Also in attendance were fellow MLAs Hon Chan (Richmond Centre), Steve Kooner (Richmond-Queensborough) and Teresa Wat (Richmond-Bridgeport).

Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie, in attendance with city councilors Laura Gillanders, Kash Heed, Andy Hobbs, Alexa Loo and Bill McNulty, read a proclamation from the city. He noted that there are fewer Jews in the world now than there were in 1939.

Doduck was joined in lighting memorial candles by three fellow survivors, Amalia Boe-Fishman, Miriam Dattel and Regine Fefer. Brodie and Dave Chauhan, chief superintendent of the Richmond RCMP, also participated in the candlelighting.

Sherri Barkoff, vice-president of the Bayit, emceed the event, which was presented by the Richmond Kehila Society, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre, the VHEC, the Bayit, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver.

Rabbi Levi Varnai welcomed guests to the event, Cantor Yaakov Orzech chanted El Moleh Rachamim, Café McMullen, program officer at the VHEC, spoke of the organization’s work, and violinist Lior Perry played before and during the ceremony, including a piece from the film Schindler’s List.

Life’s full range of emotions

Bonny Reichert will be in Vancouver on March 4 to talk about her new memoir, How to Share an Egg, as an epilogue to the JCC Jewish Book Festival, which runs Feb. 21-26. (photo by Kayla Rocca)

When Bonny Reichert was a kid, living in Edmonton, her baba, who had come to Canada as a teen on her own in the early 1900s to escape pogroms in Ukraine, would come to stay with her family for the weekend and “the house brightened,” writes Reichert in How to Share an Egg: A True Story of Hunger, Love and Plenty. “She arrived as though she were fleeing all over again, with parcels and packages and a giant soup pot wrapped in a tea towel, knotted to make a handle. Things were hot or cold or frozen. I didn’t know to wonder if she’d stayed up all night rolling and pinching and stuffing for us. Pekeleh, she called her bundles, little packages. Pekeleh also means burdens. Yiddish is like that.”

As with pekeleh, meaning both treats and worries, there have been many contrasts in Reichert’s life, opposite things or states of being existing simultaneously. Her memoir is fascinating for the challenges she has faced and the way in which she has dealt with them. Readers can hear the award-winning writer in conversation with Marsha Lederman on March 4, 7:30 p.m., at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver, in a JCC Jewish Book Festival epilogue event.

How to Share an Egg is the telling of Reichert’s dad’s survival story – a story he so wanted her to share. Experiencing years of difficulty putting pen to paper, she approaches it through her own journey with intergenerational trauma, which she has felt deeply from childhood. Her mother grew up with “a dad who was quick to anger” and an “exacting” mother who taught there was only one way to do things. “That this was the same person who rubbed my feet as I fell asleep seemed impossible,” writes Reichert about her efforts to reconcile her beloved baba with her mother’s mother.

Reichert’s maternal grandfather, who had come to Canada in 1913, died before she was born. On her paternal side, she had no grandparents – her dad was a 17-year-old orphan when he came to Canada in 1947. His parents and five sisters were all killed in the Holocaust. He was one of the 1,123 war orphans Canadian Jewish Congress helped enter the country when the doors were only just starting to open again for Jews.

The Jewish Independent spoke with Reichert by email about her memoir.

JI: You were 9 when your dad first mentioned the possibility that you would write his story. Then there was the trip to Poland in 2015 that was a breakthrough. When did you actually write the first words and, from that point, about how long did it take for you to write How to Share an Egg?

BR: The very earliest work on the book started on that first trip to Warsaw with my dad. I took a few notes and some important photos, but I didn’t yet know where I was headed. After the second trip to Poland, in 2016, I had even more research and notes, but I still wasn’t sure I had a book. The more formal outlining and writing began in late 2020, in the depths of the pandemic. Including the time I spent waiting for my editor’s feedback and the editing, the book took about four years to write. I was earning a master’s degree at the same time.

JI: You write about your personal journey with inherited trauma, and you share some of the healing milestones on that journey. In what ways was the process of writing the book cathartic?

BR: When you write a memoir like How to Share an Egg, your job is to look at yourself very closely, but with objectivity, because the self becomes the central character of the book. In that close examination, you come to name feelings you previously couldn’t name, and evaluate experiences and situations that your younger self might not have understood. All of this leads to greater understanding and greater self-compassion. This, coupled with the relief of finding a way to write this book my dad always wanted me to write, has indeed led to healing and catharsis.

JI: What does your dad think of the book?

BR: He loves it and says that it has given new meaning to his life at 95. A wonderful outcome.

JI: One theme of How to Share an Egg is you finding your voice, being able to stick up for yourself when bullied, to be yourself in the face of others’ expectations (notably, your father’s). From where did you get the courage to be this open?

BR: You can’t decide to write a memoir and then hide from the personal. Readers want to see all of that raw emotion on the page. For the memoir to be successful, the true, honest person in the book should resonate with the true person inside the reader. At a certain point, I realized all of this, and I came to see I was writing about the universal human experience and there is no shame in being human. In other words, I practised radical self-acceptance to get the job done.

JI: You comment in the book about pekeleh meaning both bundles and burdens. Judaism is full of those instances, holding joy and sorrow at the same time. Can you speak about that, in the context of How to Share an Egg?

BR: People often hold a pretty stereotypical idea of what Holocaust survivors and their families are like – severely traumatized, loaded down with psychological and emotional problems, etc. I wanted to address that – to challenge it and expand on it. There is sorrow and trauma, of course, but there is also so much joy and gratitude and celebration. So, the book is meant to express this fuller range of emotion. Part of my decision to write it as a food memoir was to offer the reader pleasure and comfort, even against the backdrop of the Holocaust. A Jewish approach, for sure.

JI: Hedy Bohm, who you mention in your memoir, just had her own survivor memoir published by the Azrieli Foundation. What is the importance of having these stories out in the world?

BR: Yes, I’m so happy for Hedy. She is a wonderful person. Preserving these stories has always been of the utmost importance – firsthand testimony is obviously critical. I also believe a plurality of stories and approaches brings the humanity back into the unfathomable numbers and statistics.

JI: How often have you been to Vancouver, and what are you looking forward to most about your March visit?

BR: I was just there in the fall for the Vancouver Writer Fest! I have friends I’m looking forward to seeing and I’m hoping for some nice weather so I can walk and admire your beautiful city.

For the full schedule and tickets to the book festival, go to jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival.

Survival in the forest

The harrowing new memoir by Vancouver’s Evelyn Kahn, They Never Left Me: A Holocaust Memoir of Maternal Courage and Triumph, written with her daughter Hodie Kahn, tells of a family’s survival while hiding in the forests of Eastern Europe.

They Never Left Me includes some of the most debasing inhumanity imaginable. Perhaps most shocking, though, is that human beings can withstand what the author and her family experienced and somehow endure and begin again in a post-Holocaust world, to raise a successful family and find meaning and happiness.

image - They Never Left Me book cover — Evelyn Kahn wrote They Never Left Me: A Holocaust Memoir of Maternal Courage and Triumph with her daughter, Hodie Kahn. On Oct. 19, at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue, Evelyn Kahn will talk about the book with Dr. Robert Krell.

Stories of Chava’s (Evelyn’s) early years, typical of traditional Eastern European Jewish shtetl life – her father’s preparations for morning prayers, her mother baking round challah for Rosh Hashanah, a live fish floating around in preparation for gefilte – read as ominously ordinary, knowing as we do a little of what is to come.

From their hometown of Eishyshok, a shtetl in Poland that historically had shifted between Lithuania, Poland and then, tragically, between the Nazis and the Soviets, the family moved a few dozen kilometres to Lida, in what is now Belarus. This relocation, an economic move driven by her father’s proficiency in the Russian language, was the least dramatic move of Chava Landsman’s young life. Nonetheless, that move might have been the first of many near-miracles that saved the lives of Chava and the women in her family.

“On the eve of Rosh Hashanah 1941, Eishyshok’s Jews were rounded up and locked in the synagogue and two schools. After three days, they were herded to the horse market.… Over the next two days, the Jews were taken in groups of 250 – first the men and then the women and children – to the old Jewish cemetery. They were ordered to undress and stand at the edge of large open ditches, where they were shot to death by Lithuanian police. Babies were bashed to death against headstones or tossed into the air for sharpshooting practice led by the chief of police, Ostrauskas, before their tiny lifeless or quivering bodies were thrown into the killing pits to join their parents. Everyone was murdered.”

The final victim of the massacre was the town rabbi, “shot after being forced to witness the murder of his entire flock.”

As the Nazis invaded Lida, the family witnessed the aerial bombardment and made the decision to flee. They headed south, and sought refuge in another shtetl, Zhetel. But this was a brief refuge – not an escape. Death was chasing them.

Chava’s father was rounded up during a cull of intelligentsia on July 23, 1941, barely a month after they arrived.

“We watched in misery as Papa climbed into the back of a truck and was driven away,” she writes. “I never saw my father again.”

Chava’s Uncle Chaim and Rivke’s husband Shael were conscripted into the Red Army, leaving the women as the only family together in the Zhetel ghetto, which was created in February 1942. Chaim was captured by the Nazis, but incredibly escaped a POW camp and returned to Zhetel, where he became a Partisan in the forest and was killed. On April 30, 1942, the first liquidation began in the Zhetel ghetto.

“My own memory of the procession along the street is of being corralled into a narrow funnel and of feeling smothered by the crush of human bodies around me,” she writes. “I remember telling my mother I could not breathe. I was worried I might pass out and be trampled. People were on top of one another – on top of me – crying and tearing their hair out. I wanted Mama to pick me up, but it was impossible. We were compressed like livestock in a cattle chute. I just held onto Mama’s hand and prayed that mine would not slip out of hers.”

In terror, Chava told her mother she was being suffocated.

“She bent down close to me and I will never forget her tearful words,” Kahn writes. “My child, it is better that you should suffocate here than my eyes should witness you being murdered.

“I took in what she said and then simply asked, ‘Does it hurt to die, Mama?’ She assured me it was a peaceful experience. ‘Neyn mayn kind, es iz vey a feygele, git a brum’ (‘No my child, it is like a chirp of a bird’).

“Her answer quieted my fears and calmed me. I was never afraid of death from that moment on. I never remember feeling despair. On the contrary, I was exceptionally calm and clear throughout the nightmare to come.”

Somehow, the women survived the first liquidation. When the second and what would be the final liquidation of the ghetto began on Aug. 6, 1942, 3,000 Jews were herded to the Jewish cemetery and murdered. Knowing what was to come, Chava’s mother Basia decided to risk going into hiding – a choice between instant death and likely later death for disobedience. Again, it was a lifesaving decision.

Basia, Chava and her grandmother (Bobe) Hoda fled to the forest. Miraculously, with the help of a non-Jewish friend of the family, they were reunited with Chava’s Aunt Rivke, and the three adult women and Chava would endure the horrors of life in the woods for two years. (Shael fought with the Red Army through the war and survived, but he and Rivke did not reunite.)

The women largely fended for themselves with some assistance from Partisans and the occasional righteous non-Jew. Like other Jews in the forests at the time, they formed fluctuating ad hoc survival “family groups” of a dozen or as many as 20 people.

“We had learned the rules of the ghetto and we had survived. Now we would have to learn the rules of the forest. And we would have to learn them very, very well and very, very quickly. We could either adapt and hopefully live or not adapt and definitely die.

“We lived with the constant nervous anticipation of being discovered and killed at any moment. We were careful to speak quietly. We were always alert. We became as hypersensitized and wary as the creatures of the forest.”

In winter, they sheltered in holes in the ground.

“Needless to say, hygiene and maintaining our health in the forest was hugely challenging,” Kahn writes. “We were malnourished and vitamin deficient. We were unwashed and unkempt. We wore the same clothes day after day with no relief. We were filthy skeletons, bulked up only by the layers of our lice-infested clothing, which we wore 24 hours a day. I often wonder how we managed to survive those two years without bathing.”

Basia’s doggedness saved her family. Even at 40 degrees below zero and with snow to her thighs, she would trudge out of the woods to beg or steal provisions from local farmers.

“It is true that many (most) farmers were unfeeling or, worse, informers. But it is important to acknowledge that there were those who hung onto their humanity during the war, righteous gentiles who were sympathetic and compassionate and gave us food and other necessities,” Kahn writes.

It is estimated that only one-half to one-third of the Jews who hid in forests survived to liberation. And, when “liberation” did come, and the Nazis were defeated, antisemitism remained. Many ordinary Russians, Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians thought they had seen the last of the Jews and were not welcoming to the few straggling remnants who found their way back home.

The three generations of women – Bobe Hoda, mother Basia, Aunt Rivke and Chava, as well as Rivke’s baby, Joseph, who was born in and knew life only in the forest – remarkably survived and proceeded through a series of displaced persons camps, with schooling and vocational training for the young survivors. They had no family in the new state of Israel and so America seemed the more logical destination. At age 16-and-a-half, Chaya/Evelyn, her mother, aunt, cousin and grandmother were greeted at New York by the Statue of Liberty and a coterie of cousins. Eventually, Evelyn reconnected with a young man from Eishyshok, Leon (Leibke) Kaganowicz, who would become Leon Kahn and, because of American migration quotas, a Canadian who lived in Vancouver. Together, they became stalwarts of the Vancouver community.

Leon Kahn passed in 2003. His memoir, No Time To Mourn: The True Story of a Jewish Partisan Fighter, was published in 1978 and reissued in 2004. It will be released again this fall.

Evelyn has two sons, Mark and Saul, and daughter Hodie, as well as seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

The idyllic start of Chava’s life, surrounded by a tight and loving family and community, juxtaposes horrifically with the abrupt cataclysm of history that would follow. The survival of three generations of women in the forests of Eastern Europe is a monument to human resolve and resilience. They Never Left Me is a momentous contribution to the literature of the Holocaust.

An event featuring Evelyn Kahn in conversation about the memoir with Dr. Robert Krell will take place on Oct. 19, 2 p.m., at Schara Tzedeck Synagogue, presented by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, Ronsdale Press and Schara Tzedeck.

Vrba monument to be unveiled

photo - Rudolf Vrba, in the 1960s — Rudolf Vrba, in the 1960s. *(photo from University of British Columbia. Archives)*

Rudolf Vrba’s escape from Auschwitz and testimony helped alert the world to the horrors of the Holocaust, and Vrba is credited with saving the lives of more than 100,000 Hungarian Jews. On Oct. 26, 2 p.m., at Schara Tzedeck Cemetery Chapel in New Westminster, a commemoration ceremony will be held for Vrba. The program will feature reflections on his life, legacy and enduring impact from Dr. Robert Krell and Dr. Joseph Ragaz, and will conclude with the dedication of a memorial monument in Vrba’s honour.

Community milestones … for July 2025

photo - David Bercovici-Artieda’s The Fast Runner was nominated for six Leo Awards, with Bercovici-Artieda taking home the award for cinematography — David Bercovici-Artieda’s *The Fast Runner* was nominated for six Leo Awards, with Bercovici-Artieda taking home the award for cinematography. *(photo © David Bercovici-Artieda)*

The short film The Fast Runner, which was shot in the Greater Victoria area, won a 2025 Leo Award in cinematography for David Bercovici-Artieda. Bercovici-Artieda was also nominated for best direction, and the piece had six nominations in total.

The Leo Awards are a Project of the Motion Picture Arts & Sciences Foundation of British Columbia. This year, there were more than 1,300 eligible entries in 16 different program categories.

In addition to nominations for direction and cinematography, The Fast Runner was nominated for screenwriting (Michael Adams), production design (Sarah Monteith), costume design (Constance Moerman and Josie Saldat) and make-up (Teia Dumaresq, Akina McCrea, Lindsay Pilkey, Donia Nikoo, Naomi Burnell and Mayhanna Haslam).

“It’s not just about telling a story,” Bercovici-Artieda, the son of a Holocaust survivor, told the Independent earlier this year. “It’s about honouring the memory of those who lived through unimaginable horrors, including my own father. Every frame, every scene and every creative choice carries the weight of history – my family’s history.” (See jewishindependent.ca/balancing-education-and-art.)

For more about Bercovici-Artieda, the film and the many other awards and recognition it has received, visit thefastrunnerfilm.com.

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At its annual general meeting last month, the Vancouver Holocaust Centre Society for Education and Remembrance presented its annual Life Fellow Award to Sidi Schaffer and Keith Morgan. The award is given to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to Holocaust education and remembrance.

Sidi is a Holocaust survivor and talented artist whose life and work are powerful testaments to resilience and remembrance.

photo - Sidi Schaffer — Sidi Schaffer *(photo from VHEC)*

Born in northern Romania, Sidi was just a child when she and her family were forced into the Czernowitz ghetto in 1940, and later deported to the Djurin concentration camp in what’s now Ukraine. They endured unimaginable hardship for four years before returning to Romania in 1945. Sidi later moved to Israel, where she earned her degree in art education, and eventually settled in Canada with her husband David and their three sons.

After completing a bachelor of fine arts at the University of Alberta, Sidi continued to use art as a way of processing and sharing her experience. Her piece “Earth, Don’t Cover Their Blood” (featured in the VHEC’s 1998 Gesher Project) remains a moving tribute to those lost – and a powerful educational tool.

Sidi continues to share her story and use her art to bear witness as a long-time member of the VHEC’s Child Survivor Group.

Keith, a best-selling author and award-winning journalist, has dedicated his work to preserving Holocaust memory.

photo - Keith Morgan — Keith Morgan (photo from VHEC)

Born in Blackpool, England, in 1954, he moved to Vancouver in 1980, where he became a columnist on cars and motoring for the Province and Sun newspapers.

In 1997, he wrote a newspaper feature about Ruth Kron Sigal and her community impact. Moved by Ruth’s family story and motivated by his own limited knowledge of the Holocaust in the Baltics, Keith collaborated with Ruth, the eldest daughter of Meyer and Gita Kron, on her memoir, Ruta’s Closet (Shavl Publishing, 2008), about the murder of 200,000 Lithuanian Jews during the Holocaust and the Kron Sigal family’s survival during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania.

Keith worked on Ruta’s Closet while working as a journalist, researching daily, conducting interviews and using his holidays to travel across Europe, Israel and North America. Since its publication in 2008, the book has become a vital educational resource. According to historian Sir Martin Gilbert, it is “one of the finest Holocaust memoirs.”

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Wendy Cocchia, lieutenant governor of British Columbia, has accepted to serve as honorary patron of the Holocaust Theatre Production Society’s Survivors program. Patronage, in the spirit of supporting and encouraging meaningful initiatives, is a role of the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, rooted in the Crown’s tradition of recognizing and uplifting worthy endeavours.

The play Survivors, by Wendy Kout, is an hour-long educational drama that enacts the story of the Holocaust through eyewitness testimony of 10 survivors. Young and diverse audiences relate to the young and diverse cast, who are guides on the perilous journey of their ever-changing world. The survivors in the play also provide life lessons and encouragement to speak up and act up against hatred and bullying today. Suitable for young adult and adult audiences, this play about the past is a warning and a wakeup call for the present and the future.

As of June 30, Survivors was booked for more than 30 performances across Vancouver Island, bringing the society’s Holocaust education program to middle and high schools, both public and private, as far north as Campbell River.

Thank you to the Victoria Foundation for their support, which will ensure that the program can be delivered to Victoria schools in October.

Visit holocausttheatre.com for more information and to watch the trailer.

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Last month, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre presented the 2025 Meyer and Gita Kron and Ruth Kron Sigal Award for Excellence in Holocaust Education to Chantel Parsons. Chantel has consistently demonstrated an exceptional commitment to Holocaust education throughout her career, significantly impacting her students, colleagues and the broader school community.

photo - Chantel Parsons — Chantel Parsons *(photo from VHEC)*

Chantel is a geography and history teacher at Mark R. Isfeld Secondary School in the Comox Valley. The teacher’s Genocide 12 course, which centres on the Holocaust, remains one of the most popular senior-level electives at her school, drawing students eager to engage deeply with this critical history.

Chantel’s approach to Holocaust education is marked by historical precision, critical inquiry and meaningful impact. Her students explore complex issues around historical responsibility and the roles of perpetrators, victims, bystanders and resistors, challenging simplified narratives and examining the complexities of human behaviour during the Holocaust.

The lasting influence of her teaching is reflected in the words of a former student: “You were probably one of the best teachers I had. The focus you put on the atrocities in WWII, and the effort you put into teaching us how to recognize the patterns that lead up to events like this made me question a lot of things I probably wouldn’t have otherwise…. I often think back to things I learned in your class.”

A distinctive feature of Chantel’s teaching is her focus on Holocaust denial and distortion – topics often underrepresented in high school curricula. Her students study landmark Canadian legal cases concerning Holocaust denial, and benefit from guest speakers and witnesses connected to these cases.

Despite teaching in the smaller community of Courtenay, Chantel’s students access extensive enrichment opportunities through VHEC’s online programs. This year, her class participated in multiple live Zoom workshops, survivor speaker presentations, virtual exhibition tours and accessed a wealth of online teaching materials.

The Kron Sigal Award was established in memory of Meyer and Gita Kron and their daughter Ruth Kron Sigal, Lithuanian Jewish survivors of the Holocaust who reestablished their lives in Vancouver. Through their lifelong involvement with education and community, the family touched the lives of thousands of students. The award in their name is presented annually to British Columbian teachers who have demonstrated excellence and commitment to teaching students about the Holocaust and its important lessons for humankind.

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photo - Gerri Klein (centre, seated) with some of her graduating colleagues at the 50th anniversary of the Winnipeg Health Science Centre School of Nursing — Gerri Klein (centre, seated) with some of her graduating colleagues at the 50th anniversary of the Winnipeg Health Science Centre School of Nursing. *(photo from Gerri Klein)*

Gerri Klein recently celebrated 50 years as a nurse! She was part of the first nursing class from the Winnipeg Health Science Centre School of Nursing.

During her career, Gerri, who now has a master’s in nursing (2003, University of British Columbia), has been honoured with the Canadian Diabetes Educator of the Year Award in 2020 and a Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of BC 2023 Nursing Award of Excellence: Excellence in Advancing Nursing Knowledge and Research. She currently works as a diabetes educator at BC Diabetes in Vancouver.

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photo - Dr. Aaron Klein — Dr. Aaron Klein *(photo from Gerri Klein)*

Aaron Klein graduated from the University of Toronto with a doctor of philosophy, aerospace studies, department of mechanical and industrial engineering, on June 17, 2025. Aaron, who is working and living in Toronto, stays busy raising his young family with his wife Carolyn.

Learning from one another

The Jewish Regional Communities Conference April 27-28 brought together Jewish communities from throughout the province to network, engage and learn. (photo from Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver)

The Jewish Regional Communities Conference was the first of its kind. The April 27-28 event included Jewish communities from throughout the province and was a time for everyone to come together, connect, hear various speakers and participate in workshops.

The conference kicked off with a message from Ezra Shanken, chief executive officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver. He talked about how the conference was 10 years in the making.

“This conference started with a simple question, how do we support Jewish life, everywhere in BC, in every place where people are trying to connect, trying to build community on their own?” he said. “How do we support them? For years, we’ve been hearing that regional communities want more connection to each other, more access to resources and more chances to share what’s working. So, we listened, we had conversations, we showed up, we learned a lot, and now we’re here together to move the conversation forward – because vibrant Jewish life doesn’t look the same everywhere, and it shouldn’t. What matters is that it reflects you – you in this room, your people and your values. Federation’s job is not to decide what that looks like. Our job is to walk alongside you, to listen and to help open doors.”

Shanken’s statement encompassed what the conference was about: having regional communities coming together to network, engage and learn. The conference had numerous breakout sessions where attendees could learn about different subjects.

One session was on developing leaders in small communities, which was led by Lyssa Anolik, community connector, Squamish/South Sea to Sky, at Jewish Federation. In the workshop, attendees brainstormed on various questions, and ideas were discussed on how to motivate and support volunteers, create visions for each community, and event planning.

Another keynote speaker was Rabbi Mike Uram, chief Jewish learning officer for Jewish Federations of North America. The presentation was held over Zoom and questions were welcomed throughout. One person asked how to maintain relationships within a community, especially if they are challenging. Uram, who had worked with the late John McKnight and John Kretzmann at Northwestern University, said they had advice on this topic.

“If you make a map of everything that’s wrong and then try to fix it, it creates a whole bunch of unanticipated negative consequences,” said Uram. “One of those consequences is that, when you’re thinking about things from a position of scarcity, then there’s always a debate about what is the one magic bullet answer that’s going to solve the issue, and both of them talked about [how,] just by flipping the conversation and beginning with the assets that you have – like, how do you map out what works? – that it actually dispels some political infighting, because you’re not approaching what is the future of the community. So that, I think, works across the board as a way of preventing burnout in leadership.”

He added, “One of the tricks is to make sure that you’re pitching the future and the conversation you’re having as a community way off at the horizon and thinking about all the things we could do, rather than fighting about how we’ve divided the pie as we have it, because that actually does, I think, tend to bring out people’s fear and a little bit of animosity and that kind of zero-sum thinking.”

The rest of the presentation talked about different theories or strategies that can build lasting and prosperous regional communities.

In addition to other speakers and breakout sessions, there was a conversation with Nova music festival survivors Raz Shifer and Inbal Binder, who participated in many activities when visiting Vancouver from Israel. Both talked about who they are and their own experiences on Oct. 7. (See jewishindependent.ca/healing-from-trauma-of-oct-7.)

photo - Nova music festival survivors Inbal Binder, left, and Raz Shifer spoke at the conference — Nova music festival survivors Inbal Binder, left, and Raz Shifer spoke at the conference. *(photo from Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver)*

Having had trouble getting back to work after the horrific tragedy, the two attended a program at Healing Space Rishpon.

“We went there three times a week … and we made ceramics and candles,” said Shifer. “From just creating with our own hands, it helped us process all the trauma and just feel useful…. For me, it really made movement again in my life and then I met Inbal – we’re good friends now.”

Speaking at the conference was challenging, said Shifer.

“Almost the day before I came here,” she said, “it was like, oh my God, how am I going to do it? I think the twist that came after is the power of the group. I heard that you all came from different places – but we are all Jewish, and it’s something that I expect here in many kinds of communities.”

Chloe Heuchert is an historian specializing in Canadian Jewish history. During her master’s program at Trinity Western University, she focused on Jewish internment in Quebec during the Second World War.

A childhood spent on the run

Survivor Miriam Dattel, right, with the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s Ellie Lawson at the Yom Hashoah commemoration April 23. (screenshot)

Miriam Dattel was born Branka Friedman, in September 1940, in the Croatian city of Zagreb, then part of Yugoslavia. She was about six months old when the Nazis invaded and her family began a life in hiding. Fleeing ahead of the Nazis and their collaborators, the family survived together through a series of close calls, lifesaving tips from compassionate officials, luck, determination and exhausting treks through the wilderness in search of refuge.

Dattel shared her family’s story at the annual Yom Hashoah commemoration at Temple Sholom on April 23.

Upon invading Yugoslavia in April 1941, the Nazis, aided by their Croatian fascist Ustaše collaborators, immediately instituted the Nuremberg Laws and set up the first concentration camps in Yugoslavia. Dattel’s father and uncle were thrown out of the university and all Jews were forced to don the yellow star – including on young Branka/Miriam’s baby carriage.

The family was set to flee to Budapest, where they believed they would find refuge with family. When the day came, the baby Branka was ill, so her grandmother, Irma Stern, was sent on ahead. It was the last time the family saw her.

In her haste, the grandmother left behind her prayer book, which was her ubiquitous companion. Branka’s mother viewed the holy book as a fortuitous omen that all would be well in the end. At the commemoration last month, Dattel held the prayer book, now more than a century old and suffering the inevitable evidence of time.

Eventually, the family fled – but not to Hungary. Branca/Miriam, her parents, Andor and Margita Friedman, and her aunt and uncle, Lili and Fritz, were transported with the help of a friend of her uncle’s southwest to the Croatian city of Split on the Adriatic coast. Sections of the city were controlled by the Italian fascists and others by the Croatian regime.

One day, her father was tipped off by a high-ranking Italian officer that the Croatians were preparing to deport Jews from the areas of Split they controlled. He returned home in the middle of the night and evacuated the family to the Italian side. Eventually, the family’s race against fate continued, with a journey under false identities by ship to northern Italy.

“In 1943, when eventually Mussolini was finished, the Germans took over,” Dattel said in a video at the ceremony. Again, her father was tipped off by an Italian official, who warned him to disappear.

“From then on, from what I saw in my father’s diary, we went through 18 different hiding places,” she said, noting assistance from underground operatives.

As a child forced to race from one place to another, few distinct memories remain. However, in various barns where they took refuge, people would roast chestnuts and that remains an evocative taste-memory for her.

Ovaltine is another. And it is a flavour from the very moment that may have saved the life of Miriam and her family.

The group – now six with the addition of her newborn cousin Gerardo – had made their way through northern Italy, around Lake Como and toward the Swiss border. After walking for hours, crossing under fences and trudging through difficult terrain, they came to the frontier of Switzerland.

“There were two Swiss border guards there,” said Dattel. “They said the border is closed. And my father said, impossible, you are not going to let two kids be killed. My recollection is this Swiss soldier [with] a German Shepherd coming towards me, lifting me up and carrying me to the station, to the border house.”

There, the guard gave her Ovaltine and, while she has tried to recreate the flavour, it has never tasted the same.

The family members were placed in refugee camps, Miriam separated from her parents. In Switzerland, the family lived out the war, returning to Zagreb afterward before Miriam and her parents made their way to Israel.

About 1.5 million Jewish children were murdered in the Holocaust. Miriam was one of an estimated six to 11% who survived. In addition to the video screened at the event, Dattel spoke on stage with Ellie Lawson, the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre’s education manager.

Claire Sicherman, a granddaughter of survivors, was the third-generation descendent speaker. She spoke of being consumed by grief in early life and growing up in a family filled with silences. (Sicherman shared her story of trauma and recovery earlier this year. See jewishindependent.ca/healing-trauma-possible.)

Hannah Marazzi, acting executive director of the VHEC, noted that this year marks the 82nd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a symbol of defiance in the face of annihilation. In addition to remembering the millions of lives lost and the resilience of survivors, she said, “We remember the young Jewish fighters who rose up against the Nazis and whose courage continues to inspire us to stand against oppression in all of its forms.”

Rabbi Carey Brown, associate rabbi of Temple Sholom, welcomed attendees to the synagogue and reflected on the past’s lessons for the present.

Dr. Abby Wener Herlin, associate director of programs and community relations for the VHEC and a member of the third generation, introduced survivors, who lit candles of remembrance.

Cantor Shani Cohen chanted El Moleh Rachamim, the memorial prayer for the martyrs.

Wendy Bross Stuart was responsible for musical direction and arrangement, and played piano. Eric Wilson played cello. Cantor Michael Zoosman, Erin Aberle-Palm, Matthew Mintsis and Lorenzo Tesler-Mabe sang.

As is traditional, the annual ceremony ended with the singing of “Zog Nit Keynmol,” “The Partisan Song.”

Theatre from a Jewish lens

Laen Hershler performing REMNANTS. Hershler brings an interactive version of Dr. Hank Greenspan’s play, which is based on 40 years of conversations with Holocaust survivors, to the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture on June 8. He will be joined by Vancouver Playback Theatre. (photo from grad.ubc.ca)

In June, Laen Hershler celebrates his first year as artistic director of Theatre Terrific. He also hosts, on June 8, Listening with Survivors, “an evening of deep listening and shared reflection as monologues from Holocaust survivors open into a live, interactive performance with Vancouver Playback Theatre.”

“I was deeply honoured and excited to step in as the artistic director of Theatre Terrific,” he told the Jewish Independent. “This community has always felt like home to me, both as a person and an artist. I look forward to continuing this welcoming tradition.”

“Theatre Terrific Society is a trailblazing mixed-ability theatre company that has been championing inclusivity in the arts since 1985,” reads the website. The society is “dedicated to tackling the challenges of accessibility, representation and inclusion in the arts by breaking down stereotypes and fostering empathy across diverse communities. It creates work that resonates with universal human experiences, bridging differences through storytelling. With a compassionate yet bold approach to theatre-making, it cultivates spaces where respect, rigour and risk drive the creative process.”

Theatre Terrific’s last production, called Proximity: The Space Between Us, was well received at the Vancouver Fringe Festival last September. Directed by Hershler and Susan Bertoia, it was created with the cast and is about the struggles of aspiring artists.

photo - In June, Laen Hershler celebrates his first year as artistic director of Theatre Terrific — In June, Laen Hershler celebrates his first year as artistic director of Theatre Terrific. (photo from instagram.com/theatreterrificvan)

Hershler is also an actor and improviser, and he is pursuing a doctorate in research-based theatre at the University of British Columbia. He is part of Vancouver Playback Theatre, as well, and, as an observant Jew, he performs complete with head-covering and tzitzit.

“Since my shift to diligently keeping Shabbat about eight years ago, my acting career moved from mainstream theatre, which almost always necessitates working on Friday/Saturday nights, to applied forms of theatre,” he said. “These include playback theatre, forum theatre and academically situated theatre, which are much less dependent on weekend shows. I love performing in these types of shows since they tend to be very socially engaged and meaningful projects.”

Hershler’s responsibilities at Theatre Terrific include arranging all the classes, courses and productions, and hiring the instructors, directors and other artists for TT’s projects. He teaches, directs and sometimes performs in the company’s offerings, and works on establishing connections with the broader community of theatre companies regionally and internationally, especially all-abilities arts organizations.

“I love the meaningfulness of the work, the creative freedom and the amazing human beings I get to work with,” he said. “I appreciate the opportunity to create work and opportunities for theatre artists of all abilities and to produce meaningful and evocative theatre. The challenge of the work – which is learning to hold a radically inclusive space that allows for high-level artistic work while including artists across spectrums of physical, neurodiverse and cognitive abilities – is also something I cherish.”

Hershler’s theatre career began at the Jewish Young People’s Theatre of Vancouver, which was based out of the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture. The program was guided by Lynna Goldhar Smith, who he credits as being a huge influence – he began classes with her when he was 8 years old and stayed with YPT until he was 14. He said a large percentage of people that he acted with in YPT are still involved in the arts today.

Since graduating with his master’s at the University of Cape Town in 2011, Hershler has been an instructor in the education faculty at UBC in Vancouver and in the creative studies faculty at UBC in Kelowna. He began his career as a performer and educator touring and giving workshops in France, Korea, Australia, Kenya, South Africa and elsewhere on various aspects and uses of physical theatre for both children and adults.

“I loved my role as the Tooth Prince while performing for 5-year-olds (and their parents) at one of the most prestigious theatres in Seoul, Korea,” he said.

A couple of years ago, at the Peretz Centre and at Or Shalom, Hershler performed the one-man show REMNANTS, which was written by Dr. Hank Greenspan and first produced, for radio, in 1991. Based on 40 years of conversations with Holocaust survivors, the work delves into the survivors’ experiences, exploring themes such as loneliness, rage, storytelling and the dynamics of relationships across generations.

“It was a deeply meaningful project,” said Hershler, who is bringing REMNANTS back to the Peretz Centre on June 8, in a different form.

“In this version,” said Hershler in an email, “these monologues will open into a space for collective reflection, storytelling and discussion through playback theatre – a form of theatre that invites the audience’s voices and experiences into the performance itself, creating a space for deep listening and dialogue. For this, we will be joined by Vancouver Playback Theatre.”

The evening will be about listening to the Holocaust survivors, as well as one another, he said, “to find overlap and connection with our own lives, today, in this moment in time – to learn with, to learn from, to learn alongside.”

Hershler would like to do more Jewish storytelling.

“I would love to create work that brings down the mystical tales of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, an interest I inherited from my father, who has long been a storyteller of Nachman tales…. Being Jewish is who I am, and it pulsates through all the work I do,” he said. “All my artistic work emerges from this prism, from a Jewish lens, from a Jewish neshamah (soul).”

For tickets to Listening with Survivors, go to peretz-centre.org. For more information about Theatre Terrific, visit theatreterrific.ca.

Cassandra Freeman is a freelance journalist and improv comedy performer living in Vancouver.

Healing trauma possible

Claire Sicherman read from her book Imprint, about intergenerational trauma, at UBC Hillel on Jan. 21. (photo by Pat Johnson)

Understanding of intergenerational trauma has expanded in recent decades. Two granddaughters of Holocaust survivors discussed the larger phenomenon and their personal experiences recently at the University of British Columbia’s Hillel House, part of Hillel’s Holocaust Awareness Week.

Claire Sicherman, author, workshop facilitator and trauma-informed somatic writing coach, shared her experiences and read from her book, Imprint: A Memoir of Trauma in the Third Generation, which was published in 2017. She was in conversation with Dr. Abby Wener Herlin, associate director of programs and community relations at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, which co-sponsored the Jan. 21 event with Hillel BC.

Sicherman attributed to psychologist Dr. Arielle Schwartz the definition of intergenerational trauma as the ways in which the unresolved experiences of traumas, losses and griefs of one generation can become a legacy that is passed down to the next generation.

“In other words,” said Sicherman, “the experiences of my grandparents are passed down through my parents to me.”

In addition to the “nurture” component of family legacies, there is the “nature” component of epigenetics, which Sicherman described as “the study of how genes turn on and off in response to environmental change.”

“I’ve heard it talked about like it’s sort of like light switches switching on and off in the body,” she explained. “Whatever switches switched on for my grandparents would then be switched on, passed down to my parent, passed down to me.”

Experts in the field say it’s not a biological prison, Sicherman said. “They are actually malleable, so what you’re born with, you are not necessarily stuck with. We do have the ability to change certain things. There is hope in that.”

Growing up, Sicherman knew little or nothing about inherited trauma.

“When I started reading about it, I began to understand that what was going on with me wasn’t really my fault or that it wasn’t really something wrong with me,” she said. “It was just that I was carrying this huge thing.”

Reading excerpts from her book, Sicherman recounted being “disconnected from my body.” The inherited trauma manifested as a nervous system on overdrive and a tendency to hypervigilance. She was always ready to bolt out the door, looking for exit signs, aware of potential dangers, unable to fully rest, and prone to stress and anxiety.

She said that untold stories often pass more powerfully from generation to generation than stories that are recounted.

“When you think about that,” said Sicherman, “it’s what we don’t talk about that has more weight. It’s the silence. It’s the secrets.… That’s why it’s also important to me to speak out about these things, because it’s healing that goes across generations.”

Her survivor grandparents thought they were protecting their children through silence, Sicherman said. In response, the second generation learned not to ask questions.

There were other silences. In addition to the limited discussion around the Holocaust, Sicherman did not learn until well into her own adulthood that, when she was 4 years old, her grandfather had taken his own life, and not died of a heart attack, as she had been led to believe.

As someone who writes about and works with others on issues of healing intergenerational trauma, she urges people to embrace the totality of what they have inherited.

“Aside from trauma, what are the legacies that your ancestors bring to you?” she asked. “What are the gifts? What are the strengths? That’s also an important question to ask yourself, and a way of connecting with Jewish heritage. What are the strengths of your lineage? Is it survival? Is it tenacity? Is it humour? Is it creativity? Those are questions that you can ask yourself.”

Her son, Ben Sicherman, a UBC student, was present and also spoke of his family’s legacy of trauma. He described struggling with anxiety when he was younger and learning mechanisms for addressing issues through his parents’ modeling. He also spoke of carrying the legacy of his ancestors in ways like choosing 18 as his hockey number, not only because it represents chai, life, but because the numbers on his great-grandmother’s Auschwitz tattoo added up to the number 18.

Intergenerational trauma is a major component of her life’s work, said Sicherman.

“I do feel a sense of obligation, as a third generation,” she said. “But I also feel like this is part of my calling, too. It’s very meaningful. It’s an obligation that is not homework. It’s part of what I was set out to do.”

Oct. 7 heroes support Team Israel-Premier Tech

Oct. 7 survivors Sharon Shabo, left, and Avida Bachar lead Team Israel-Premier Tech riders in the team’s final training session before the Tour de France started on June 29 in Florence, Italy. (photo by Noa Arnon)

Three injured heroes from the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks came to support Team Israel-Premier Tech at the Tour de France. As well, they held signs bearing the names of hostages, some of whom are their close friends, and called for their release. Alongside them stood Israel-Premier Tech owners Sylvan Adams and Ron Baron.

“My friends from the kibbutz are suffering there. We can’t wait another moment,” said Avida Bachar. He lost his son and wife, who were murdered in their shelter in Be’eri on the morning of Oct. 7, while he himself was severely injured and lost his leg. Despite adapting to his prosthetic, Bachar insisted on riding his bike for the first time since his injury to lead the Israeli team in their final training session. “It was an immense moment, one of the most emotional of my life,” he said.

Joining Bachar was his good friend Sharon Shabo, who was seriously injured in a Hamas ambush on the morning of Oct. 7 while riding his bike, and 20-year-old Oded Gelbstein, a young combat engineer soldier who was critically wounded in Gaza and is currently undergoing rehabilitation in Florence.

“Avida and Sharon will be our great inspiration at the Tour de France,” said Adams to the team riders before the race started.

The Tour de France lasts three weeks, during which the riders cycle more than 3,400 kilometres. Twenty-two teams are taking part in the 21-stage race, which culminates in Nice, France, on July 21.

– Courtesy Team Israel-Premier Tech