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
BREAKING Former Air Canada employees among suspects identified in gold heist at Pearson airport: police
Police say one former and one current employee of Air Canada are among the nine suspects that are facing charges in connection with the gold heist at Pearson International Airport last year.
'$6.66 per day': Advocacy groups disheartened by funding in budget for disability benefit
Advocacy groups across Canada are expressing widespread disappointment about the amount of funding earmarked in the 2024 federal budget for the long-awaited Canada Disability Benefit.
BREAKING Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter banned from NBA
Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter has been handed a lifetime ban from The National Basketball Association (NBA) following an investigation which found he disclosed confidential information to sports bettors, the league says.
Earthquake jolts southern Japan
An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.4 hit southern Japan late on Wednesday, said the Japan Meteorological Agency, without issuing a tsunami warning.
MPs summon ArriveCan contractor to the House to be admonished in rare parliamentary display
Enacting an extraordinarily rarely used parliamentary power, MPs have summoned an ArriveCan contractor to appear before the House of Commons on Wednesday afternoon to be admonished publicly for failing to answer their questions.
opinion Don Martin: Gusher of Liberal spending won't put out the fire in this dumpster
A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the Trudeau government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the 2024 federal budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set, writes political columnist Don Martin. But will it work before the next election?
Gas prices across Ontario expected to climb to levels not seen since 2022, analyst says
Ontario is going to see a big jump at the pumps later this week as gas prices in the province hit levels not seen in nearly two years, according to one industry analyst.
Ancient skeletons unearthed in France reveal Mafia-style killings
More than 5,500 years ago, two women were tied up and probably buried alive in a ritual sacrifice, using a form of torture associated today with the Italian Mafia, according to an analysis of skeletons discovered at an archeological site in southwest France.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon’s sons have released a single together
A new Lennon and McCartney collaboration is the last thing anybody expected.