Books published by publisher The Azrieli Foundation

When the train from Hungary to Auschwitz brings Judith face-to-face with death, her mother’s quick actions save her. At twenty-four years old, separated from her family, she struggles to stay alive in a system bent on humiliation and degradation, where surviving the daily violence is a matter of luck. Judith endures the destruction of her family, holding close the memories of those she loved. Feeling hopelessly alone after the war, she must figure out how to put her life back together and where to find home. Weaving together her story with those of cherished friends and family, Judith’s poetic reminiscences show how Dignity Endures even through the worst of human tragedies.

In 1944, as Budapest’s Jews begin to suffer under German occupation, eleven-year-old Zsuzsi (Susie) takes to her diary to write about her friends and family as she copes with what it means to be persecuted. Precocious and charming, Susie records the mundane along with the poignant as she describes her daily life in Budapest against the backdrop of the war. After the war, uncertain whether she made the right decision to emigrate, Susie writes all her feelings down in a new diary, the only place where she feels she truly belongs.

A happy-go-lucky boy, Leslie Mezei attends the local high school and plays in the parks and forests surrounding his town of Gõdõllõ, Hungary, until the spring of 1944, when Nazi tanks roll through its dusty streets and change his life forever. Leslie and his family flee to Budapest to avoid deportation, but Leslie's father is immediately taken by the Nazis. With one of his brothers already in a forced labour battalion and a sister deported to a concentration camp, Leslie and his remaining family move from place to place, seeking refuge and only just escaping capture a number of times. Finally, they find safety posing as non-Jewish refugees until the Soviets liberate Budapest in January 1945. Leslie and all of his siblings joyfully reunite and eventually make their way to pre-state Israel and Canada, where they rebuild their lives. In Montreal, Leslie meets his wife, Annie, who has a survival story of her own. In Tapestry of Survival the voices of Leslie, his sisters and Annie are woven together into a larger tale of courage, resilience and the search for healing.

Twelve-year-old Leslie Mezei, a lively, curious boy, doesn’t realize how precarious his life is as a Jew in German-occupied Hungary in 1944. His older sister Magda, aware of the growing danger from Nazis and Hungarian fascists, takes charge and bravely tries to direct the family’s survival, while his sister Klari, tough and determined, faces a brutal ordeal of her own. Confronting deportation, concentration camps and the constant threat of capture, the Mezei siblings carefully navigate the treacherous landscape of wartime Hungary. After the war, the family reunites briefly before setting out in different directions to start new lives, and in Montreal, Leslie meets his wife, Annie, who has a survival story of her own. In A Tapestry of Survival the voices of Leslie, Magda, Klari and Annie are woven together to reveal a larger tale of courage, resilience and the search for healing.

In the Krakow-Płaszów concentration camp, both Ephroim Jablon and Sam Weisberg quickly learn of the brutality of the new commandant, Amon Göth, in early 1943. His wrath is near inescapable. By sheer luck, Sam becomes the commandant’s houseboy, a privileged, yet risky, position. Ephroim gets a job in the carpentry workshop, making him similarly "useful," yet he still lives in constant fear. At sixteen years old, both feel like they are walking a tightrope where one wrong move can make them the target of Göth’s unpredictable volatility. They are both ultimately deported and sent on different trajectories ― Ephroim to Auschwitz and the Mauthausen camp system and Sam to the Gross-Rosen concentration camps ―but their experiences in Płaszów are an ever-present reminder that their fates can change in an instant. Carry the Torch and A Lasting Legacy are the different yet parallel stories of two men who, as the sole survivors of their immediate families, must find their own way after the war and decide whether to keep their histories in the past.

In the town of Buczacz, Poland, eleven-year-old Maxwell plays in the ruins of old castles and enjoys a quiet life with his family until the summer of 1941, when the Nazis invade and destroy his childhood forever. Maxwell narrowly escapes deportation and certain death, and soon finds himself all alone in the frozen woods, hiding from roving groups of Nazis and Ukrainian collaborators. Lonely and in despair, afraid and starving, Maxwell must rely on the kindness of a farmer and on his own resourcefulness and imagination to survive. In the harrowing yet inspiring journey of Chaos to Canvas, Maxwell eloquently describes his transformation from a boy dependent on his family to a teenager fighting to survive and, ultimately, to a man who finds himself through art in a life beyond war.

In 1944, after German forces invade Hungary, the Zionist youth organization that twelve-year-old Tibor belongs to goes underground to avoid detection. When Tibor is separated from his family, he must rely on the support of his network, a courageous group under immense pressure to save as many Jews as possible in Budapest. Inspired by these Unsung Heroes, Tibor joins the resistance effort and bravely acts as a courier for the group, delivering false identity documents and protective papers to Jews in danger. When the war ends and Tibor must face all that he has lost, his group remains his lifeline, giving him hope and helping him find freedom.

As ten-year-old Pinchas is deported from the Warsaw ghetto to the killing site of Majdanek and then to a series of concentration camps, he shuts himself off to the terrors surrounding him and tries his best not to be noticed, to become almost invisible. But after liberation, his photographic memory won't let his past fade away, and Pinchas struggles to deal with nightmares and flashbacks while trying to raise a family and heal his emotional scars. Memories in Focus vividly retells Pinchas's painful journey, describing the separation from his parents and twin sister, his struggle to stay alive under the cruellest of circumstances and the luck and moments of kindness that enabled him to survive.

René Goldman grows up entranced with the theatre, music, languages and geography. Enveloped by his parents’ love and protection, he wanders the streets of Luxembourg and then Brussels, carefree and prone to mischief. But in 1942, his family flees to France and eight-year-old René is separated from his parents and shunted between children’s homes and convents, where he must hide both his Jewish identity and his mounting anxiety. As René waits for his parents to return, even liberation day does not feel like freedom.

In the town of Buczacz, Poland, nine-year-old Maxwell's life is turned upside-down when the Soviets invade in 1939. His family eventually adapts, but nothing can prepare them for the Nazi invasion two years later. Soon Maxwell is alone in the woods, hiding from the roving groups of Ukrainians and Nazis searching for Jews, while depending on the few people he can trust. In the bitter journey of Chaos to Canvas, Maxwell transforms from a boy dependent on his family to a teenager fighting to survive and, ultimately, to a man who finds himself through art in a life beyond the war.

Fleeing Germany after the violence of the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938, young Joseph and his family find safety in Belgium, but all too soon they have to escape again — this time to France — when the Germans occupy Belgium in 1940. When the Germans then conquer France and Joseph’s family returns to Brussels, Joseph is forced to set out on his own, and at sixteen years old, he assumes a false identity and begins to live a dangerous double life. Joseph repeatedly eludes the Nazis’ grasp, eventually finding his way to the French Resistance and bravely fighting with the under¬ground until France is liberated. But Joseph’s years of fighting are not over, and when he arrives in pre-state Israel, he continues to do everything he can to secure his freedom.

Bronia Jablon is separated from her family, and even her husband has escaped into the woods without her. It is 1942, the height of Nazi persecution in Poland, and Bronia and her three-year-old daughter, Lucy, wonder how they will survive each day. Should they hide in their hometown or should they search for their family in the nearby ghetto? Starving and exhausted, Bronia does not know who they can trust when all of their old friends and neighbours are either collaborating with the Nazis or too terrified for their own lives to offer assistance. When they finally find help, a cold, dark cellar becomes both their haven and prison.