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
DEVELOPING Man sets self on fire outside New York court where Trump trial underway
A man set himself on fire on Friday outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump's historic hush-money trial was taking place as jury selection wrapped up, but officials said he did not appear to have been targeting Trump.
Mandisa, Grammy award-winning 'American Idol' alum, dead at 47
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
She set out to find a husband in a year. Then she matched with a guy on a dating app on the other side of the world
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
'It could be catastrophic': Woman says natural supplement contained hidden painkiller drug
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
Young people 'tortured' if stolen vehicle operations fail, Montreal police tell MPs
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
Vicious attack on a dog ends with charges for northern Ont. suspect
Police in Sault Ste. Marie charged a 22-year-old man with animal cruelty following an attack on a dog Thursday morning.
The Body Shop Canada explores sale as demand outpaces inventory: court filing
The Body Shop Canada is exploring a sale as it struggles to get its hands on enough inventory to keep up with "robust" sales after announcing it would file for creditor protection and close 33 stores.
Tropical fish stolen from Beachburg, Ont. restaurant found and returned
Ontario Provincial Police have landed a suspect following a fishy theft in Beachburg, Ont.
U.S. FAA launches investigation into unauthorized personnel in cockpit of Colorado Rockies flight to Toronto
The U.S.’s Federal Aviation Administration is investigating a video that appears to show unauthorized personnel in the cockpit of a charted Colorado Rockies flight to Toronto.