In Their Own Words...

The Azrieli Foundation’s Elin Beaumont describes its Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program and how school libraries can help students access the stories.

School LIbraries in Canada
Fall 2009
ISSN 1710-8535
Volume 27, Number 3

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.

The Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program collects, archives and publishes these distinctive records. The first series of seven volumes – four in English and three in French – was launched in the fall of 2007. Series 1 was honoured with a 2008 Gold Medal at the 12th Annual Independent Publisher Book Awards in Los Angeles and one title, Bits and Pieces by Henia Reinhartz received the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem Award in the Holocaust Memoir and Literature category at the 2008 Canadian Jewish Book Awards in Toronto. Series 2 – comprised of five titles in English and three in French – was launched in Montreal and Toronto in June 2009.

The program has now collected some 170 individual memoirs and ongoing outreach has inspired many survivors to at last write about their experiences. Print editions of the Azrieli Series are available free of charge to libraries, schools and Holocaust-education programs across Canada, and to the general public at Azrieli Foundation educational events. Online editions of the books are available for free download on our web site, www.azrielifoundation.org.

Note: While many of the memoirs are suitable for readers 14+, the series as a whole is intended for senior high school and adult readers.

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