How the legacy of Holocaust survivors lives on through poetry in Toronto
The legacy of Holocaust survivors who put their pain into poems in Toronto will be revived in song on Thursday, marking Holocaust Remembrance Day and commemorating the genocidal trauma they endured.
“What a legacy for them, this new incarnation,” said Dr. Paula David, founder of a poetry project dedicated to survivors at Baycrest Centre for geriatric care in Toronto.
It began 30 years ago when an influx of Holocaust survivors flooded into Baycrest, at one point amounting to nearly 65 per cent of their residents, according to David, who worked at the home as a social worker for over 20-years.
“We had to take a different approach to care,” David said.
She pointed to showering as an example. “Someone coming in the morning and saying, ‘Time to get up and go to the shower,’ that would be a trigger for a great number of survivors,” she said. At concentration camps, gas chambers were disguised as showers.
To provide a space for residents to openly speak about their trauma, she created a survivors group. With permission, David began taping their meetings, pulling sentences from their discussion and compiling them based on common themes, like hunger or fear.
Together, these fragmented sentences, which could be a compilation of 12 unique voices, became poems.
When David read them to the group, they resonated. “That’s exactly how I feel,” David remembers residents responding. “That’s just what’s going on in my mind, in my heart.”
“There is a beautiful rawness about them,” she added.
Eventually, they compiled the poems into a book that chronicled the experiences of victims of sexual violence, Josef Mengele’s human experimentation, forced sterilization and the internal-dilemma of stealing food for hungry children.
A book titled "Collective Poems" chronicles Holocaust survivor testimonies from the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in Toronto. “We dedicated it to their murdered families,” David said.
In honour of Holocaust Remembrance Day, their words will be brought to life, performed through a compilation of music titled, “Silent Tears,” premiering Thursday evening. “It’s taken on a life of its own,” David said.
“I find it incredibly sad it’s still relevant,” she said. “But also incredibly proud that what happened 30 years ago from people I know and cared about and who are gone is still relevant.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Air quality alerts issued as wildfire smoke spreads east from Western Canada
Wildfires have led Environment Canada to issue air quality advisories for parts of B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, as forecasters warn the smoke could drift farther east.
Steal a car, lose your driver's licence under new Ontario proposal
Repeat car thieves may face lengthy licence bans under proposed changes to Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act.
Ellen DeGeneres addresses the 'hurtful' end of her talk show in new stand-up set
Ellen DeGeneres is reflecting on how her talk show came to an end in her newest Netflix special, 'Ellen's Last Stand ... Up Tour.'
When you have a moment's notice to evacuate, what do you take?
Knowing what to have at home, or take with you for an evacuation, can be useful and even life-saving.
LIVE UPDATES Michael Cohen will face a bruising cross-examination by Trump's lawyers at the hush money trial
Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-foe returns to the witness stand Tuesday for a bruising round of questioning from the former president’s lawyers.
B.C. brings in law on name changes on day that child killer's new identity revealed
The BC NDP have tabled legislation aimed at stopping people who have committed certain heinous acts from changing their names.
Risks of handcuffing someone facedown long known; people die when police training fails to keep up
For decades, police across the United States have been warned that the common tactic of handcuffing someone facedown could turn deadly if officers pin them on the ground with too much pressure or for too long.
A healthy lifestyle can mitigate genetic risk for early death by 62%, study suggests
Even if your genetics put you at greater risk for early death, a healthy lifestyle could help you significantly combat it, according to a new study.
Sunchips, Munchies recalled by Frito Lay Canada for possible salmonella contamination
Frito Lay Canada is recalling two of its most popular snacks due to a possible risk of salmonella contamination.