Inspired by Jewish Values and the Vision and Resilience of Our Founder, David J
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Inspired by Jewish values and the vision and resilience of our founder, David J. Azrieli z”l, the Azrieli Foundation’s mission is to improve the lives of present and future generations through Education, Research, Healthcare and the Arts mainly in Canada and Israel. The foundation has eight priority funding areas with support reaching a diversity of people, places and needs. Our vision is to remember the past, heal the present and enhance the future of the Jewish people and all humanity. The publication of the Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs is guid- ed by the conviction that each survivor of the Holocaust has a remarkable story to tell, and that the personal accounts of those who survived against all odds are as different as the people who wrote them. Recognizing that most survivor memoirs never find a publisher, the Azrieli Foundation established the not-for-profit Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program to collect, archive and publish these distinctive records. All revenues to the Azrieli Foundation from the sale of the Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs go toward continuing the publication and edu- cational work of the Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program. In telling these stories, the writers have liberated themselves. For so many years we did not speak about it, even when we became free people living in a free society. Now, when at last we are writing about what happened to us in this dark period of history, knowing that our stories will be read and live on, it is possible for us to feel truly free. These unique historical documents put a face on what was lost, and allow readers to grasp the enormity of what happened to six million Jews – one story at a time. David J. Azrieli, C.M., C.Q., M.Arch. Holocaust survivor and founder, The Azrieli Foundation Highlights: 75 Years since Liberation Page 13 Page 39 Page 43 At ten years old, liberated Detailed account of lib- Liberated from a death while in hiding and passing eration after being in six march as a Catholic concentration camps Returns home to devas- Orphaned after the war, Examines dynamics be- tating loss, feeling like a reunites with one family tween Jews and Germans stranger in her hometown member in 1946 while living in Germany Spends close to three years for two years after the war Discusses the struggles be- in a displaced persons tween her Catholic identity Returns to Poland, and to camp in Italy, waiting to and reclaiming her Jewish Auschwitz-Birkenau, in find a home identity 1975 New Titles 4 new titles In Dreams Together: The Diary of Leslie Fazekas Leslie Fazekas My dear Judy! September 1, which I some of which he used to write his have been awaiting for so long, will accompanying post-war memoir, be here soon. I have thought a lot included in this volume. about this day. It is the day when you and I are supposed to be reunited. I About the author imagined that I would be waiting for Leslie Fazekas was born in Debrecen, you in the late summer sunshine. You Hungary, in 1925. After the war, he would come toward me, joyously, and reunited with Judy and they married then we would never have to part on May 19, 1949. In 1956, they fled from each other again. Hungary and immigrated to Toronto, where Leslie worked as a draftsman, a draft In the summer of 1944, Leslie computer programmer and a systems Fazekas and his family are deported analyst and consultant. Leslie and from their hometown of Debrecen, Judy live in Toronto and they have Hungary, to Vienna, Austria, as two sons, two grandchildren and two forced labourers. It is only after great-grandchildren. They celebrated the war that they discover that seventy years of marriage in 2019. most of the cattle car trains from 6×9 paperback their hometown were destined for 184 pages with photos Auschwitz. Fate and fortune have isbn 978 1 988065 69 4 intervened to save their lives, and $14.95 in the devastating circumstances of June 2020 their captivity, Leslie details all of his experiences in diary entries and letters to his girlfriend, Judit, who he was separated from in Vienna. Leslie’s diary entries and letters from August 10, 1944, to April 2, 1945, are not only love letters but also ISBN 9781988065694 precious archival documents and a testimony of his family’s survival during a harrowing time. In 1955, Leslie continued writing in a diary, a practice he kept until 7819889 065694 2013 and which has produced ap- proximately 550 pages of life writing, 5 new titles Fragments of Hope Rachel Lisogurski and Chana Broder I often wonder now how I could even tives of both mother and daughter, have thought of running away. Where Fragments of Hope brings light into a did I get my faith in the future? But world of darkness. my mind was always busy. The ques- tion of where I would hide didn't stop About the authors hammering in my head. How will we Rachel Lisogurski (1911–1998) was hide? What will I do? And every time born in the village of Grodzisk, I thought about it, I reached the same Poland, and her daughter, Chana decision: I'll try; I have nothing to Broder, was born in Siemiatycze, lose. And I did have some hope — Poland, in 1938. After the war, the I knew so many gentiles. Maybe one Lisogurski family spent two and a half draft of them would help us. years in the Cremona displaced per- sons camp in Italy before immigrating When Rachel and her hus- to Montreal in 1948. In 1967, Rachel band, Abraham, escape from the wrote her memoir, then titled Out of Siemiatycze ghetto one cold win- the Depths. In 1972, Chana moved ter night in 1942 with their four- to Israel, where she taught English year-old daughter, Chana, they are as a foreign language for more than 6×9 paperback desperate for refuge. Turned away twenty years. Chana completed her 226 pages with photos by the one person they thought they memoir in 2017, after reuniting with isbn 978 1 988065 58 8 could depend on, they are forced the descendants of the Polish people $14.95 to ask for help from strangers and who saved her family’s life during June 2020 acquaintances. During the twenty- the Holocaust and having them one months that they are hidden recognized as Righteous Among the by courageous farmers, Rachel and Nations. Chana Broder lives in Israel. Abraham fiercely protect Chana, who is taught never to cry, never to make a sound. After liberation, as Rachel and Abraham are haunted by the past, Chana’s childhood truly ISBN 9781988065588 begins. Too young then to fully understand what they have survived, it is only later in life that Chana real- izes she must preserve her family’s legacy and honour those who res- 7819889 065588 cued them. Told from the perspec- 6 new titles A Cry in Unison Judy Cohen The women burst out in a cry — in About the author unison. Our prayer was the sound Judy Weissenberg Cohen was born of this incredible cry of hundreds of in Debrecen, Hungary, on September women. It seemed to give us solace. 17, 1928. After the war, she lived in the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons In Debrecen, Hungary, Judy grows camp in Germany. She immigrated up in a warm and lively family, but to Montreal in 1948, where she first when the Nazis invade in 1944, she worked in the garment industry, is crowded into a ghetto with the and then in an office and in public other Jews in the area, her life now relations. She married her hus- shaped by fear and hopelessness. band, Sidney, in 1961 and raised two draft When the cattle cars take Judy and children. Judy is an active speaker her family to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Holocaust and human rights she truly leaves her precious child- educator, and in 2001 she founded the hood behind as she scrambles to website “Women and the Holocaust,” survive in the shadow of the gas which collects testimony, literature chambers, one brutal day at a time. and scholarly material exploring Clinging to her sisters, to friends, the unique experiences of women in 6×9 paperback and to fleeting life-affirming mo- the Holocaust. Judy Cohen lives in 232 pages with photos ments, Judy survives the camps and Toronto. isbn 978 1 988065 70 0 a death march on “a never-ending $14.95 road paved with utter, unadulterated June 2020 misery.” Liberated at last, she returns home, only to discover the true magnitude of her loss. Judy then sets out to answer the question of how to find belonging and meaning after so much devastation, creating a new life for herself in Canada and mak- ing it her mission to give a voice to ISBN 9781988065700 women who survived the Holocaust. 9 781988 065700 Anthologies 8 anthologies Sustaining Memories: Stories of Canadian Holocaust Survivors Paula Draper (editor) As the years go by, when I try to Sustaining Memories gives voice to remember the faces of each member Canadian Jews who suffered through of my family, I see only an outline, ghettos, camps, hiding, fighting a shadow, a blurry image, yet each in the underground, as refugees image is covered with a halo. That is in foreign countries or passing as the memory etched in my mind. They non-Jews in daily fear of betrayal. have never aged, nor have I witnessed Between 1946 and the 1980s, they all their funerals or seen the monuments built new lives in Canada.