The Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs
Since the end of World War II, over 30,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors have immigrated to Canada. Who they are, where they came from, what they experienced and how they built new lives for themselves and their families is an important part of our Canadian heritage. The Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs is guided by the conviction that each survivor of the Holocaust has a remarkable story to tell, and that such stories play an important role in education about tolerance and diversity. Millions of individual stories are lost to us forever. By preserving the stories written by survivors and making them widely available to a broad audience, the Holocaust Survivor Memoirs series seeks to sustain the memory of all those who perished at the hands of hatred, abetted by indifference and apathy. The personal accounts of those who survived against all odds are as different as the people who wrote them, but all demonstrate the courage, strength, wit and luck that it took to prevail and survive in such terrible adversity. The memoirs are also moving tributes to people – strangers and friends – who risked their lives to help others, and who, through acts of kindness and decency in the darkest of moments, frequently helped the persecuted maintain faith in humanity and courage to endure. These accounts offer inspiration to all, as does the survivors’ desire to share their experiences so that new generations can learn from them. Recognizing that most survivor memoirs never find a publisher, the Azrieli Foundation established the Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program to collect, archive and publish these distinctive records.
The Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program is a not-for-profit program. All revenues to the Azrieli Foundation from the sale of the Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs go toward continuing the publication and educational work of the Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program.
Published by the Azrieli Foundation
Distributed by Second Story Press
Visit the Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Website
Titles from The Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs
I didn’t see anyone outside the pit, so I jumped out…. I had the feeling that my mother was running beside me and calling out to me, “Michael, run faster and don’t look bac...
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For the second time, I found myself about to be interrogated…. I wouldn’t confess to being Jewish this time, knowing it would mean certain death. How could I die now, after all we had ...
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I was stubborn. I didn't want to stay in Auschwitz. I didn't want to go to the gas chambers. I didn't want to be cremated. I didn't want to die there, and I kept pushing back.
Felix Opatow...
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I dove into the frigid river, the sudden shock leaving me gasping. By the time that I was two-thirds across the river, my strength was fading. ... Somehow, I managed to reach the shore - the unoccu...
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I had always liked ot play make-believe, but somehow they made me understand that this game was real. I never gave away my secret.
As Eva Marx writes in her memoir, One of the Lucky Ones, ...
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The more we felt the Germans' heavy boots in our lives, the more I knew I had to leave... but I was scared. Where was I going to go? What would I live on?
When the Nazis invade her small town of Z...
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I asked myself, Am I a criminal doomed for execution? I was determined to run away ... that thought never left my mind.
On the run in Nazi-occupied Poland, thirteen-year-old orphan Marian Finkelma...
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The mountains were almost 3,000 metres high... We had to climb to the peaks, where it was frozen and slippery. One single misstep could mean certain death.
Hiding from the Nazis in the forests of ...
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I was surprised that Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist, would talk to me not as a Jew but as a normal person.... I thought that I must be having a nice dream.
For six desperate years, Willie...
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There was a feeling of imminent danger... we were all subject to the mad and ever-changing rules of Hitler's Germany. We were desperate to find a safe haven.
As Hitler's army sweeps into Czechoslo...
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William Tannenzapf never wavers in his determination to survive and save his wife and baby girl from the evil gripping his hometown of Stanislawow. Blond, cherubic, Renate Krakauer was a "miracle b...
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In Germany I was "Jewboy"; in Brussels I was "boche" in France I was "undesirable"; in Portugal I was a "refugee"; and in Jamaica I was simply a non-entity... I was a pariah in an exploding world.
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I am the daughter of nobody. I have no sisters. I am nobody's granddaughter or daughter-in-law, aunt or cousin. Who am I? My past is all gone. It disappeared...
Ann Szedlecki was a Hollywood film-...
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"Don't move. Don't open the door." My knees had turned to jelly and I was trembling uncontrollably. Sina grabbed her raincoat and declared, "I'm leaving. They'll be back and I don't want to end up ...
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I feel my brother's hand, trembling but strong, grab onto mine. I hear his words, urging me to run, take hold of my body and move my legs. We run, his hand holding mine ... to me it feels like free...
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My family and I were in hiding. Suddenly I heard someone panting on the stairs... we didn't breathe. Who was coming now?
Lodz, Poland, 1944. As teenaged Henia Rosenfarb sits with her family in a s...
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Rachel Milbauer, a vivacious and outgoing music lover, lay hidden and silent with her family and a family friend in an underground bunker in Nazi-occupied Poland for nearly two years. Adam Shtibel,...
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Into a new world I was brought by a dream Never to see blood spilled againBut can I really throw awayThe dreams that soiled my youth?
A young boy who loved soccer as much as he loved to write, Spr...
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He pointed his gun and bayonet at me and ordered me to stop, my jaw was bleeding, hanging down. I could not speak and I was shivering.
Nineteen-year-old Tommy Dick is killed, only to resurface. ...
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