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ANTIQUE WORLD MAP

Life in Poland

Thesis

Over the course of generations existing before and after the Holocaust, the Potash family was able to retain a strong Jewish identity, even through many varying experiences with different types of education. Prewar access to Jewish Education was minimal, and then shifted to no education during the war at all. Eventually post war opportunity for opportunity increased, and ultimately all current grandchildren have had the opportunity to attend Jewish day schools and summer camps.

Family Tree

Overview

Poland

Winnipeg

Toronto

USA

Great Grandparents in Poland

My Great Grandparents, Pina and Lazer Potash were both born in Szczurowice, Poland. They had two children: Mendel, my grandfather, and Motel. The family was considered financially well-off. The family was large, with many extended relatives living in the same town.

Pina Potash

Pina Gold was born in 1908 in Szczurowice, Poland. She later married Lazer Potash and changed her name from Gold to Potasz. For the early part of her life, she mainly lived in Szczurowice except for two or three years when she lived in Bohemia. In Bohemia, she picked up how to speak German which helped her later on when World War II broke out. She grew up Orthodox and especially loved to celebrate Jewish holidays. She was also very charitable; always giving someone a meal or some money. Pina survived the Holocaust with her two sons and moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba. She died at the age of seventy-four from cancer.

Photo

This is Jack and Pina Potash in later life after World War II had ended.

Lazer Potash

Lazer Potash

Eliezer or Lazer Potash was born in 1902 in Szczurowice, Poland. He owned a lumber business and was well known in the town’s community. He was an observant Jew and went to synagogue every Shabbat. Growing up, he received an education until about the third or fourth grade. After this, he was self taught. He learned how to read and write on his own. Unfortunately, he was among those who perished during the Holocaust and never immigrated to Canada with the rest of his family.

Morley Potash

My Grandfather, Mendel or Morley Potash, was born March 14, 1932 in South-Eastern Poland in a town called Szczurowice. He lived with his mother, Pina; father, Lazer; and brother, Motel/Martin. He is a survivor of the Holocaust. He moved with his mother, brother, and an uncle to Winnipeg, Canada after the war to start a new life. Years later, he moved to Toronto for career oppurtunities. There he met his wife Elizabeth Potash. With Liz, he had three children: Lorne, Tobi, and Randy.

Education -

Mendel/Morley Potash

Education

Before the war, Mendel went to a Polish kindergarten. Along with his secular education, he also attended a cheder. The cheder was the Jewish school that was part of their synagogue. When the war broke out, he had to stop going to school in order to survive. He was never able to complete his high school education in Poland. When he moved to Winnipeg as a teenager, a higher education was still not available to him because he had to work to support his family. He was never able to go to university either. However, there was a high school teacher that visited their house as a guest in Winnipeg, and she taught him some English. Learning to speak and understand English helped him and his family a lot. This teacher also changed his name from Mendel to Morley, so that he would fit into Canadian life more easily.

Photo

This is my Grandfather Mendel Potash at age four or five in Szczurowice.

Holocaust

Holocaust

My Grandfather grew up in a well-off family in a town in Poland called Szczurowice. His family's life was turned upside down when World War II broke out. His town was not the first to be invaded because it was in the Eastern part of Poland, which was promised to Stalin. They heard that the German's were coming but no one knew what that really meant. When the Germans finally arrived the family was initially able to avoid the trains to the camps. Eventually, they were forced to relocate into the Brody ghetto. After escaping the ghetto my grandfather, his mother, and brother hid in a hole deep in the forest for years. They had to carefully come out during the night and day to find food in the farmer’s fields. They were finally liberated by the Russian army and eventually immigrated to Canada.

Szczurowice

Mendel Potash was only seven years old when the war broke out. The town he lived in had poor protection, and the German's were able to defeat the soldiers in the town in two days. The town was too small to be targeted with bombs, however, there was a presence of warplanes. The Jews in my grandfather’s hometown were forced to close their shops and businesses. Germans would park in the back of their house and take whatever they wanted from them. The Jews were unable to do anything about it. My Grandfather, along with the other Jews, were stripped of all their furniture and forced to sleep on straw in their empty houses.  In 1941, there was the first round up in their town to liquidate the Jews. For this round up, My Grandfather and his  brother hid in an overgrown garden, but a Polish man turned them in. The Jews were packed into buggies and sent to a building where they were given no food,, no water, and had no bathrooms.  When they started transporting people by train from the building, Mendel and his family survived  because there was no room left on the trains when they got to them.  This type of situation occurred a few times. Lazer, my great grandfather paid off some of the officers so they were left behind. Lazer also worked at a German military substation and got to know some of the officers. They tipped him off three times, so that he knew when it was unsafe and had to disappear. During one of the roundups, some of Mendel's grandparents and relatives were taken on the trains and never seen again. During another one of the roundups, he and his brother were told by his father to walk to his Aunt Pesia's house in Brody, where he would hide in her cornfields. Later, his parents would join him.

The Brody Ghetto

While they were in Brody, the Germans came and rounded up the Jews. They built a ghetto in part of the city and forced all of the Jews into it. They had a house before they moved into the ghetto and so they were able to make an exchange for a house when they moved into the ghetto. There were about thirty or forty people living in the house with them. They had no showers or water. The ghetto had barbed wire and was a small area overcrowded with tons of Jews. Many Jews starved in the ghetto. They were only able to survive because some Poles and Ukrainians would sneak up to the fence and exchange food for items. Lazer also snuck out of the ghetto twice and went to farmers to get food. Other than starvation, lots of people died from Typhoid Fever that was going around the ghetto. Pina, my great grandmother had some Aspirins and whenever any of the relatives became sick, she would give them aspirin to make them better. This is what saved them from dying of disease. My Grandfather's Uncle Ben and Uncle Jack joined them later in the ghetto. On the way there, Uncle Ben had gathered building materials and brought it with him to the ghetto. They used these materials to build a false wall in their ghetto house. On May 21, 1943 the Germans liquidated the Brody ghetto. They set fires, burned people alive, had executions in the streets and forests, and others were taken by trains to concentration camps. My grandfather and his family hid behind their false wall. Soldiers came in multiple times, but never found them. After a few days, they started to leave in small groups. My grandfather's immediate family were the last to leave.

Photo of Brody

This is a picture of Brody during the time of World War II. The filled-in pink is that part of Brody that the ghetto was located in.

Life in the Forest

Life in the Forest

In their time outside of the ghetto, my great grandfather, Lazer, (my grandfather's father) came down with Typhoid Fever. Pina, his wife, had run out of Aspirins and had nothing to treat him. As he grew sicker, he started to not recognize them and would at times scream. He was a major risk to his family. One day while they went to find food and water, they lay him down in a cornfield. When they returned, he was gone and never seen again. He was most likely screaming and the farmers found him and turned him in. Lazer had hid money with people he trusted around the town. When Mendel went to go collect it from one of them, the wife screamed for the neighbors and called her dogs to attack him. Luckily for my Zaidy, he knew the dogs and they so they didn't end up hurting him. This same woman started screaming again, and so my Zaidy escaped. My grandfather, his mother and brother hid in the forest for a long time. Then, for eight months, they hid with a farmer. The husband was known for turning people in but when he found out they were hiding with them, he chose to ignore it and help them. They eventually had to move out because the Ukrainian militia was coming to his farm every night and so it became too dangerous. They moved back into the forest and dug a hole. The three of them lived in the hole. They would go out during the day to get food, but they had to be very careful because there were many hunters around. One day they met the Wawryk family who helped them and gave them food. They would come to their house every once in a while for food. They would steal potatoes from other farms for food. They were able to reunite with their Uncle Jack and another man that they knew from their hometown. Both men joined them in the forest. One of the biggest problem in the forest was lice.

Liberation

Liberation

One day they heard the Russian army from the forest. The Russians were very good to them. There were people living in my Zaidy's home after liberation and the Russian soldiers kicked them out. .They had to leave after only staying in their house for one night because the area was too dangerous. Some of his uncles were drafted into the Russian army. My Zaidy eventually went to a displacement camp run by a youth aliyah group, where the intention was for the children to be taken to Israel. At one point after liberation the survivors were given the choice to be taken to see Auschwitz. My Zaidy decided to go and see it . My Zaidy later ended up in a displacement camp called St. Ottilien. My grandfather was there for sixth months. When he moved to Germany his name was changed from Potasz to Potash because it was more German-sounding. David Ben Gurion spoke to them once at St. Ottilien. After a little while there, his mother came back and picked up his brother and his cousin Max. My Zaidy decided to stay because he had plans to take a boat to Israel and get into a Kibbutz. During this time my grandfather got to witness the Nuremberg trials. He did not end up going to Israel and instead rejoined his mother and brother. At this point my Zaidy was about fourteen years old. His Uncle Jack felt an obligation to help his mother, Pina, because he was her husband's brother, and they followed Orthodox customs (Canadian Judaism). At this time the Canadian government was giving visas to people who were willing to come and work on farms. They applied to go to Canada, because that was the first opportunity they had for freedom in a new country. Their boat ride to Canada was about two and a half weeks and Mendel had to help work in the kitchen.

Photos

These are some of my Grandfathers displaced persons papers that were given to us by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

This is a picture of St. Ottilien Monastary in Upper Bavaria. My Grandfather was treated well there after the war.

These are pictures of my Grandfather with other boys at Aschau, a displaced persons camp located in the American Zone in Munich. Some of them are wearing German Youth uniforms because that is what they found to wear. In the first picture, Mendel is farthest on the right.

This is my Grandfather in Bindermichl around 1947. In the first photo, he is alongside a friend he met from Romania. He is on the left. In the second photo, he is with the volleyball team at Bindermichl. He is in the back row, the second from the right.

This is a photo of the USS General Sturgis, the ship that took my Grandfather and his family to Canada. The ship was painted in its USS colors.

Early Life in Canada

Life After the War

It was their Uncle Aaron Gladstone that hosted them in Winnipeg. Even though they were allowed into Canada for farm work, they never actually did any (Canadian Judaism). They didn't live great, but they were living. Mendel got a job at sixteen at Globe Electric to support his family. Because he was working to support his family, he didn't have time to receive any education. One of the most difficult things for them to adjust to in Canada was the cold temperatures. Morley then later moved to Toronto for better job opportunity.

Morley and Liz

While working in Toronto, a woman named Elizabeth came into his department. She became a private secretary at the company. Later on they started dating. Elizabeth was a Roman Catholic and had to convert (Sarna) before they got married in 1966. My Grandfathers side had a difficult time accepting Liz into their family. The rest of his family wanted nothing to do with anyone who was not Jewish. In fact, his brother Martin was the only one who came to his wedding. They had a conservative wedding. It took Pina about ten years to come around to their relationship. Elizabeth and Morley had three children: Lorne, Tobi (my mother), and Randy. All of his children were named after relatives that perished in the Holocaust.

Photos

These are pictures of my Grandparents, Morley and Liz, when they were dating and then at their wedding.

Growing up in Canada

Moving to the USA

My mother, Tobi Ellen Potash, was born on April 25, 1971, in Toronto, Ontario. She grew up with her older brother, Lorne; and her younger brother, Randy. They grew up as conservative Jews who valued Jewish traditions such as, Shabbat dinners, Passover seders, and Hannukah candle lighting. They did not attend synagogue regularly, but always went on the high holidays (Sarna). She and her brothers all had a Jewish Day School at some point. Lorne went until sixth grade, and then transitioned into public school so that Tobi and Randy could also have Jewish educations. They could not afford to send all three of their children at once. Tobi attended Associated Hebrew Day School until grade 9. Randy had the same amount of Jewish Education as his sister did (Jewish Education - Canadian Judaism and Sarna). My mother never had a Bat Mitzvah because my Grandfather was raised observant, where women traditionally did not read from the Torah. Instead, she had a sweet sixteen. Randy and Tobi both attended a Canadian Young Judea sleepaway camp over the summer. The only reason that Lorne did not attend a Jewish camp was because he was not interested in it. My mother began her career as a teacher around 1997. She worked at the United Synagogue Day School because being a teacher at a Jewish Day School was important to her. She worked there for three years, before she met my father, Stuart Bassin.

Tobi and Stuart

My mother was introduced to my father through mutual friends. At the time, he lived in Maryland, and she lived in Toronto. She was visiting an old friend of hers from Associated that moved to Maryland. After a year of long distance dating, in 2000, my mother decided to move to Maryland to test out what their relationship would be like. She was the one who moved, because his job required him to stay where he was, whereas she could get a job teaching at the Jewish day school in Maryland, Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School. My parents got married in August 2001, at Adath Israel in Toronto. In 2003 they had their first child: me. Within the week that I was born, they joined Bnai Israel congregation. In 2005, my brother, Jonah was born; and in 2008, my little sister; Brielle was born. For thirteen years my mother stayed at home raising her children, and was also a important board member at our synagogue. Recently, she returned to work at CESJDS, as an ESOL specialist. My mother got her United States citizenship around 2015. She is a citizen of Canada, the USA, and Ireland.

Photos

This is a picture of my parents getting married.

Photos of my mother growing up

This is my mother at her sweet sixteen in Toronto.

These are photos of my mom at a young age. The photo on the left is from her days at Associated.

This is a photo of my Mom and her family at her sweet sixteen. From left to right: Morley, Randy, Tobi, Liz, Lorne.

Current Generation

I was born on July 11, 2003, in Washington DC. Like my siblings, I am a duel citizen of Canada and the United States. I have only attened Jewish Day schools throughout my life time. All the way from pre-school at my synagogue to the current tenth grade at the CESJDS upper school. I also, like my siblings, attend the same Canadian Young Judea sleep away camp in Canada during the summer. Summer 2019 will be my sixth year attending. My family is conversative when it comes to our observance. We attend synagogue on high holidays, and sometimes we will keep shabbat. We see the importance in having seders and celebrating the Jewish holidays (Sarna).

Photos of me and my family

This is a picture of me at Camp Solelim in Sudbury, Ontario. I am the fifth from the right.

This is me and some friends from school at Zimriyah this year. I am in the back row, seventh from the right.

These are some photos of me and my family when I was younger.

Trend

Trend

All of the grandchildren, which includes my family and my cousins, that have branched from the generation of my Grandfather from the Holocaust have continued into strong Jewish background of educations. We all have attended Jewish Day Schools for at least a number of years, and most of us continue to do so. We also all attend the Canadian Young Judea camps which furthers our Jewish educations during the summer. This generation has had a different education from the generation (parents) before us, because we have all had the opportunity to have long Jewish Educations. Our parents were able to have Jewish educations, though they were controlled by their financial statuses. My Grandfather received a very minimal amount of Jewish Education, and also received a limited amount of education in general. My great Grandfather was able to receive an education until about the third or fourth grade.

Overtime, the education within the generations strengthened both in quantity and also with the relation to Judaism.

My generation of family that moved to Canada after the Holocaust did not have to assimilate into Canadian culture too much. Canada was very good about keeping everyone's individuality through their multiculturalism act. Canada is also seen as a "Salad bowl," instead of a melting pot, because everyone keeps their own culture and can still be Canadian (Canadian Judaism).

Photos

These are photos over my family, cousins, and Grandparents. My cousins names are Ethan and Caia Potash.

Bibliography

1. Bassin, Tobi Potash. Interview by the author. Rockville, MD, USA. May 27, 2019.

2. My Jewish Learning. Canadian Jewry: Canada's multicultural society has shaped

its Jewish community. Accessed June 8, 2019.

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/canadian-jewry/.

3. Potash, Morley. Interview by the author. Rockville, MD, USA. May 27, 2019.

4. Mendel's Story: Hide and Seek, Surviving the Holocaust.

Compiled by Elizabeth Potash and Lorne Potash. Edited by Tobi Potash. N.p.:

Lulu, 2016.

5. Sarna, Jonathan D. American Judaism: A History. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004.

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