About the Program

The Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program was established by the Azrieli Foundation in 2005 to collect, preserve and share the memoirs and diaries written by survivors of the twentieth-century Nazi genocide of the Jews of Europe who later made their way to Canada. The program is guided by the conviction that each survivor of the Holocaust has a remarkable story to tell, and that such stories play an important role in education about tolerance and diversity. Millions of individual stories are lost to us forever. By preserving the stories written by survivors and making them widely available to a broad audience, the program seeks to sustain the memory of all those who perished at the hands of hatred, abetted by indifference and apathy.

The Azrieli Series memoirs are moving tributes to people—strangers and friends—who risked their lives to help others, and who, through acts of kindness and decency in the darkest of moments, frequently helped the persecuted maintain faith in humanity and courage to endure. The accounts of how these survivors went on to build new lives in Canada after the war offers inspiration to all, as does their desire to share their experiences so that new generations can learn from them.

The Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program publishes a new multi-volume Series of original memoirs every 12-18 months and makes them widely available across Canada in English and French. The memoirs—published under the imprint of The Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs—are distributed free-of-charge to libraries, educational institutions and Holocaust-education programs across Canada, and to the general public at Azrieli Foundation educational events. All the volumes of the Series are also available for free download from this website, and e-Book versions of the memoirs will be available in the near future.

To date, the program has collected some 170 individual memoirs and ongoing outreach has inspired many survivors to write about their experiences. Series 1, made up of four volumes in English and three in French, was launched in 2007. Series 2, comprised of five volumes in English and three in French, came out in 2009. The seven volumes of Series 3 – four in English and three in French – were published in 2010. Several of the volumes published to date been recognized with awards such as the Independent Publisher Book Awards, the Canadian Jewish Book Awards, the Moonbeam Awards and the Pearson Prize.

In addition to editing the manuscripts for publication, the Program’s professional editorial and research staff fact-check the accounts and offer readers supplementary material, such as useful and user-friendly glossaries, introductions written by experts and helpful maps (many by renowned British historian Sir Martin Gilbert, a pioneer of historical atlases). The Program also researches and produces Resource Guides to accompany the books when they are read in an educational or book-club setting. Like the memoirs, these resource guides are available for free download from our website.

Every year the Program holds educational events in different locations across Canada at which survivor-authors read from their memoirs, take questions and engage in discussion with the audience. Such events have so far been held in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Halifax and plans are in the works for more. Since 2007, the Foundation has proudly welcomed Simone Veil, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Professor Nechama Tec, Father Patrick Desbois and Linda Hooper as key-note speakers.

The personal accounts of those who survived the Holocaust against all odds are as different as the people who wrote them, but all demonstrate the courage, strength, wit and luck that it took to prevail and survive in such terrible adversity. More than half a century later, the diversity of stories allows readers to put a face on what was lost, and to grasp the enormity of what happened to six million Jews—one story at a time.

Welcome to the Azrieli Foundation’s Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program! We invite you to browse this site, read our books, make use of these resources and come to our events.