On October 22, 2023, Paula Goldhar (née Lwowski) and Rose Lipszyc (née Handelsman) convened in the Learning Lab at the Toronto Holocaust Museum (THM) to share their testimonies and to celebrate their friendship.
Paula was born in Kielce, Poland in 1924, the youngest of eight children. She was seven when her family moved to Łódź. Her childhood days were spent schlepping between her public school and Bais Yaakov, and going to the movies. “Whenever there was a Shirley Temple movie” in particular, “I had to go. I begged and I pleaded until they took me. Sometimes I pretended I was Shirley Temple.”
Rose, on the other hand, was a little bit of a wild child. She could be found running on the cobblestones on Grodzka Street or defending herself against those who dared to tease her about her freckles. No one could have predicted that a few years later, Rose’s freckles would have been the least of her worries.
In 1940, the Germans forced Rose and her family out of their home. In October 1942, the Germans rounded up Rose and her family and took them to the town square in Bełżyce. Her mother and two brothers were deported to concentration camps and murdered. Rose lost approximately 50 family members during the Holocaust. She survived the war with her aunt, living under a false identity. In 1947, Rose attempted to illegally enter the former British Mandate Palestine. However, the British intercepted the boat she travelled on and interned her in Cyprus. In 1948, the British finally granted her entry into Israel. Rose married another Holocaust survivor, Jack Lipszyc, in 1949, and they immigrated to Canada in 1952. She worked in the McGregor Sock Factory and had three children. In 2021, Rose received the Order of Canada for her dedication as a Holocaust educator.
In 1942, Paula and her older sister were deported to the Skarżysko-Kamienna forced labour camp to work in an ammunition factory. In 1944, Paula was forced to work in another factory in Częstochowa, Poland. The Soviet Army liberated her on January 16, 1945. Following liberation, Paula and her sister found their brother in a nearby camp. The siblings stayed together in Poland until 1946, when they moved to Linz, Austria, and then to a displaced persons camp in Bavaria. Paula’s aunt sponsored her immigration to Canada, and she arrived in Toronto in 1947. She met her husband Yitzchak Goldhar in 1948 and like Rose also had three children.
Sometime after, Rose and Paula met when they separately joined the same bowling league. From strikes and spares, a friendship blossomed and evolved. Trips to Florida or Muskoka were planned; card games were won and lost.
In between bragging, and rightfully so, about their grandchildren and great-grandchildren’s smarts and accomplishments, Paula and Rose sat down with THM’s director of marketing and communications, Michelle Fishman, to expand on the friendships that afforded them the strength to survive the Holocaust, why education is our strongest resource against antisemitism, and how there is nothing quite like a good friend.
I want to start with what seems like a simple question, but over the past two weeks it is probably one of the most difficult to ask: Rose, how are you doing?
Rose: I thought this is going to be a fun and enjoyable [conversation about] memories of our lives together in Canada and how we try to educate children of what happened to us. The hatred is spreading again. And this is painful to me. I find it very difficult. But we have to go on, so let’s have some fun for a change.
I know it’s a difficult and challenging time and bringing a little light here today will be helpful. Paula, how are you doing?
Paula: Today, I’m okay. But most of the days over these past two weeks have not been good for me. I see the Holocaust again. Everything comes back. It brought back memories of when the Germans came into Łódź, where I lived. The army didn’t bother us until the SS came, about a week or two later. A lot of Jewish people decided to run to Russia, those were the lucky ones because the majority of them survived. We stayed and we waited. My father said moshiach will come; my father waited for moshiach but he never came. And I’m watching TV now and reading every article in the National Post. There was one article yesterday I wish I would not have read because they depicted what Hamas did.
You both had individuals who were instrumental in helping you make it through the Holocaust. Paula, can you tell us how being with Rivka, your older sister, throughout the war and the time in the camps helped you survive?
Paula: The last words I heard my mother say to my sister as we were walking away was “Look after her, look after her,” and she did. And I looked after her too. We helped each other. If you had somebody with you, you had a better chance of surviving. So my sister survived with me. We were together the whole time. My brother was married and his wife was sent away the day we were liberated. She was sent away and wound up in Bergen-Belsen, and my brother was crying. It was a bitter cold day. After six months my sister-in-law came back, it was a miracle she survived Bergen-Belsen, and she was lucky she worked in the kitchen.
I came in ’47 and I brought them [all] over in ’48, and a year and a half later my brother passed away suddenly, at age 37. I lost my faith I have to say, because of what I saw, what I lived through, but they [my siblings] continued theirs.
Rose, how did being with your aunt help in your survival?
Rose: There were actually three people that helped me survive. First and most of all, my mother. On the road to Sobibor, she decided there was no chance for us if they took away the able-bodied in 1942 and left the women and children to walk to the train station. She realized that we are going to our death, and she quietly threw away everything I carried, looked me straight in the face and said, “My dear child, we don’t have a chance, we are going to our death. But you might have a chance. I don’t believe the whole world has gone mad, there’s going to be somebody somewhere that’s gonna help. And you have to run, please run. I can’t.” So she pushed me off the road. I had a six-year-old brother and she couldn’t leave him alone. She died the same day in Sobibor with my brothers. My father, I have no idea where he died. I ran all day long to the Polish farm she must have mentioned.
My aunt was my mother’s youngest sister and she took me on. The Polish farmer gave us the birth certificates of his daughters. I went to Lublin and met up with my aunt and we both took on a different identity. I remember going through the Polish [checkpoint], they were checking us out. I was a youngster, quite undeveloped at 13, and they said as a child that they’re not going to take me to Germany. But my aunt said, “If she doesn’t go, I don’t go.” So they took me to Germany to work in a factory. That day my aunt became my sister. She was eight years older than me, only 21 at the time, and she took on a wild kid. Nevermind, it wasn’t easy. I got myself into trouble a lot of times.
Rose, at liberation you were left with very little family and loved ones. What did it mean for you at that time to have the support of friends and your aunt?
Rose: It was the most important thing. She was everything to me. But interesting enough, I didn’t understand the horror completely. If you wanted to talk to one another, we were so afraid, we used to go on a field and she used to say, “Do you think we’re going to survive?” And I said, “My mother told me so.” Actually it was funny, she was the adult and I was the youngster, and somehow she believed me. In a way I helped her, in a way we helped each other. It was a relationship that we didn’t even have to talk, we just looked at one another and we understood what one meant. It was a tremendous relationship. I like this friendship too, although we come from completely different backgrounds. I come from a more progressive Jewish family and she comes from a very religious home, but somehow it never mattered did it? No, it didn’t matter at all. We both have the same love for reading. We like to discuss politics and it’s a very nice relationship. She’s calm, I’m a little hyper.
I remember once we were sitting at bowling and I was very quiet. And one of the girls came over and said, “Rose is there anything wrong?” I said, “No, I just spent two days with Paula.”
When settling in Toronto, Paula this one’s for you, how did having other survivors around you when you came to Toronto aid in your ability to continue?
Paula: I came alone. I was 22 years old. I was single. You can only bring over a brother or sister, [someone] very close, but I was a niece. So my aunt and uncle brought me over, there was a lawyer that could arrange those things, they were like my parents to me. So he made papers that said I was born instead in 1930, which made me five years younger. I sent away the papers to the consulate when we were, at the time, in Germany. It took about six months. When I arrived the whole family was down at Union Station to see what a Holocaust survivor looked like. And I didn’t know anybody. I was scared. I was two weeks on the boat worrying about coming to a bunch of strangers: Would they like me? Would they accept me? Well, they happened to be wonderful to me. I met my husband about a year or two after. We needed people around us because we were alone. Friends became like family. So I had a bunch of new friends. And then when I met my husband he was the most wonderful gentleman.
There’s a picture of your husband, Yitzchak, in the “Life in Canada” gallery.
Rose: Mine too. Mine too.
Paula: I got so emotional. A friend called me over and he said, Yitzchak is in this picture. Without planning it, both me and my husband made it into the museum for generations and generations to come. My great-grandchildren, one day they will come to this museum and say, These are really my ancestors, I can’t believe it. They won’t be able to believe.
Rose, you were a driving force in Paula becoming a speaker here at the museum. Why did you think Paula should become a speaker?
Rose: It took me two years to talk her into it. There was such a small group of Polish Jewish people representing us and not too many of the Polish people were speakers. And she was from Poland and I was from Poland, and I started talking to her [about it] and she listened to me for a change.
We’re so glad that you talked her into it. Paula, what’s your version of the story? Why did you start speaking here?
Paula: It took me a while to speak. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to continue, that I’d break down, that I’d cry, but it’s amazing how as you get older you get stronger. People ask me: Do you hate the Germans? I said I don’t walk around hating anybody. I can forgive but I can never forget. If you hate somebody then you’re not yourself, you cannot be happy, you’ll always think about that person that you hate. It stands in front of you, it blocks other things. I have a husband. I have children. I’m going to bring them up living a peaceful, quiet life without any hate.
When I watch television now, I am so worried about the situation. The hostages are the biggest problem. There are about 200 of them. I saw on the National Post the front page has tables and 200 empty chairs waiting for the hostages for a Shabbat dinner. When I saw that it broke my heart. I don’t cry too often, but I must say in the last two weeks, I cried. I cried quite a few times.
I think a lot of people have seen that image and it’s definitely something that is indescribable and unthinkable on so many levels. I know Rose shares your sentiments and the idea of hatred.
Rose: It’s like a nightmare coming back to haunt us, a terrible, terrible nightmare, to me it feels like a cloud has covered the sky and I’m waiting for the sunshine. We thought the last years of our life were going to have joy and pleasure where I could enjoy my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren. Give us the time, let us live for God’s sakes. What do they want from us? Let them choose somebody else for a change. It is like hell coming back. I get busy with something and a moment later I feel that stone on my heart. And I can’t for a minute remember why and then it comes back to me. It’s hell. Well let's hope it's going to come to peace, let’s hope they find a way, let’s hope people stop hating each other. I don’t understand why they hate each other all the time, why there’s so much hate and so little love.
I think being here and learning together is hopefully contributing to that idea of hope and education creating change.
Rose: One day at a time. One school at a time. And we should try and spread the idea of how terrible hate is. It destroys the people who hate because they lose total control of what’s right and wrong.
I think that you’ve educated thousands with your stories.
Rose: We tried our best. What made it so interesting to me is the response that I used to get from the children. I think that convinced me that I’m doing the right thing.
A young man once told me: “I’ve listened to a lot of speakers and I’ve heard a lot of stories and I’ve read a lot but nobody brought the dead people to life like you did.” I then realized I’m doing something very important—I brought my mother, my parents and my aunts to life, they were among us. So I really appreciate those years. It actually made a life for me [after my husband died]. And thank you, Michelle, you were a great help all through the years. And all the volunteers that used to help us, thank you very much.
Now more than ever it seems we need some wisdom from our survivors who have faced genocide and have overcome such tragedy. Usually I would phrase this final question as what is your message to future generations, but in this current climate I want to ask what is your message to this generation.
Paula: Tolerate everybody. Love people for who they are. Every person born on this earth has a right to live in peace and happiness. Be tolerant.
Rose: She took all my words away. That’s what I always thought. Because you might be surprised by how much you can learn from other people if you give them a chance. Open up your mind and your heart and you will be surprised.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
On October 22, 2023, Paula Goldhar (née Lwowski) and Rose Lipszyc (née Handelsman) convened in the Learning Lab at the Toronto Holocaust Museum (THM) to share their testimonies and to celebrate their friendship.
Paula was born in Kielce, Poland in 1924, the youngest of eight children. She was seven when her family moved to Łódź. Her childhood days were spent schlepping between her public school and Bais Yaakov, and going to the movies. “Whenever there was a Shirley Temple movie” in particular, “I had to go. I begged and I pleaded until they took me. Sometimes I pretended I was Shirley Temple.”
Rose, on the other hand, was a little bit of a wild child. She could be found running on the cobblestones on Grodzka Street or defending herself against those who dared to tease her about her freckles. No one could have predicted that a few years later, Rose’s freckles would have been the least of her worries.
In 1940, the Germans forced Rose and her family out of their home. In October 1942, the Germans rounded up Rose and her family and took them to the town square in Bełżyce. Her mother and two brothers were deported to concentration camps and murdered. Rose lost approximately 50 family members during the Holocaust. She survived the war with her aunt, living under a false identity. In 1947, Rose attempted to illegally enter the former British Mandate Palestine. However, the British intercepted the boat she travelled on and interned her in Cyprus. In 1948, the British finally granted her entry into Israel. Rose married another Holocaust survivor, Jack Lipszyc, in 1949, and they immigrated to Canada in 1952. She worked in the McGregor Sock Factory and had three children. In 2021, Rose received the Order of Canada for her dedication as a Holocaust educator.
In 1942, Paula and her older sister were deported to the Skarżysko-Kamienna forced labour camp to work in an ammunition factory. In 1944, Paula was forced to work in another factory in Częstochowa, Poland. The Soviet Army liberated her on January 16, 1945. Following liberation, Paula and her sister found their brother in a nearby camp. The siblings stayed together in Poland until 1946, when they moved to Linz, Austria, and then to a displaced persons camp in Bavaria. Paula’s aunt sponsored her immigration to Canada, and she arrived in Toronto in 1947. She met her husband Yitzchak Goldhar in 1948 and like Rose also had three children.
Sometime after, Rose and Paula met when they separately joined the same bowling league. From strikes and spares, a friendship blossomed and evolved. Trips to Florida or Muskoka were planned; card games were won and lost.
In between bragging, and rightfully so, about their grandchildren and great-grandchildren’s smarts and accomplishments, Paula and Rose sat down with THM’s director of marketing and communications, Michelle Fishman, to expand on the friendships that afforded them the strength to survive the Holocaust, why education is our strongest resource against antisemitism, and how there is nothing quite like a good friend.
I want to start with what seems like a simple question, but over the past two weeks it is probably one of the most difficult to ask: Rose, how are you doing?
Rose: I thought this is going to be a fun and enjoyable [conversation about] memories of our lives together in Canada and how we try to educate children of what happened to us. The hatred is spreading again. And this is painful to me. I find it very difficult. But we have to go on, so let’s have some fun for a change.
I know it’s a difficult and challenging time and bringing a little light here today will be helpful. Paula, how are you doing?
Paula: Today, I’m okay. But most of the days over these past two weeks have not been good for me. I see the Holocaust again. Everything comes back. It brought back memories of when the Germans came into Łódź, where I lived. The army didn’t bother us until the SS came, about a week or two later. A lot of Jewish people decided to run to Russia, those were the lucky ones because the majority of them survived. We stayed and we waited. My father said moshiach will come; my father waited for moshiach but he never came. And I’m watching TV now and reading every article in the National Post. There was one article yesterday I wish I would not have read because they depicted what Hamas did.
You both had individuals who were instrumental in helping you make it through the Holocaust. Paula, can you tell us how being with Rivka, your older sister, throughout the war and the time in the camps helped you survive?
Paula: The last words I heard my mother say to my sister as we were walking away was “Look after her, look after her,” and she did. And I looked after her too. We helped each other. If you had somebody with you, you had a better chance of surviving. So my sister survived with me. We were together the whole time. My brother was married and his wife was sent away the day we were liberated. She was sent away and wound up in Bergen-Belsen, and my brother was crying. It was a bitter cold day. After six months my sister-in-law came back, it was a miracle she survived Bergen-Belsen, and she was lucky she worked in the kitchen.
I came in ’47 and I brought them [all] over in ’48, and a year and a half later my brother passed away suddenly, at age 37. I lost my faith I have to say, because of what I saw, what I lived through, but they [my siblings] continued theirs.
Rose, how did being with your aunt help in your survival?
Rose: There were actually three people that helped me survive. First and most of all, my mother. On the road to Sobibor, she decided there was no chance for us if they took away the able-bodied in 1942 and left the women and children to walk to the train station. She realized that we are going to our death, and she quietly threw away everything I carried, looked me straight in the face and said, “My dear child, we don’t have a chance, we are going to our death. But you might have a chance. I don’t believe the whole world has gone mad, there’s going to be somebody somewhere that’s gonna help. And you have to run, please run. I can’t.” So she pushed me off the road. I had a six-year-old brother and she couldn’t leave him alone. She died the same day in Sobibor with my brothers. My father, I have no idea where he died. I ran all day long to the Polish farm she must have mentioned.
My aunt was my mother’s youngest sister and she took me on. The Polish farmer gave us the birth certificates of his daughters. I went to Lublin and met up with my aunt and we both took on a different identity. I remember going through the Polish [checkpoint], they were checking us out. I was a youngster, quite undeveloped at 13, and they said as a child that they’re not going to take me to Germany. But my aunt said, “If she doesn’t go, I don’t go.” So they took me to Germany to work in a factory. That day my aunt became my sister. She was eight years older than me, only 21 at the time, and she took on a wild kid. Nevermind, it wasn’t easy. I got myself into trouble a lot of times.
Rose, at liberation you were left with very little family and loved ones. What did it mean for you at that time to have the support of friends and your aunt?
Rose: It was the most important thing. She was everything to me. But interesting enough, I didn’t understand the horror completely. If you wanted to talk to one another, we were so afraid, we used to go on a field and she used to say, “Do you think we’re going to survive?” And I said, “My mother told me so.” Actually it was funny, she was the adult and I was the youngster, and somehow she believed me. In a way I helped her, in a way we helped each other. It was a relationship that we didn’t even have to talk, we just looked at one another and we understood what one meant. It was a tremendous relationship. I like this friendship too, although we come from completely different backgrounds. I come from a more progressive Jewish family and she comes from a very religious home, but somehow it never mattered did it? No, it didn’t matter at all. We both have the same love for reading. We like to discuss politics and it’s a very nice relationship. She’s calm, I’m a little hyper.
I remember once we were sitting at bowling and I was very quiet. And one of the girls came over and said, “Rose is there anything wrong?” I said, “No, I just spent two days with Paula.”
When settling in Toronto, Paula this one’s for you, how did having other survivors around you when you came to Toronto aid in your ability to continue?
Paula: I came alone. I was 22 years old. I was single. You can only bring over a brother or sister, [someone] very close, but I was a niece. So my aunt and uncle brought me over, there was a lawyer that could arrange those things, they were like my parents to me. So he made papers that said I was born instead in 1930, which made me five years younger. I sent away the papers to the consulate when we were, at the time, in Germany. It took about six months. When I arrived the whole family was down at Union Station to see what a Holocaust survivor looked like. And I didn’t know anybody. I was scared. I was two weeks on the boat worrying about coming to a bunch of strangers: Would they like me? Would they accept me? Well, they happened to be wonderful to me. I met my husband about a year or two after. We needed people around us because we were alone. Friends became like family. So I had a bunch of new friends. And then when I met my husband he was the most wonderful gentleman.
There’s a picture of your husband, Yitzchak, in the “Life in Canada” gallery.
Rose: Mine too. Mine too.
Paula: I got so emotional. A friend called me over and he said, Yitzchak is in this picture. Without planning it, both me and my husband made it into the museum for generations and generations to come. My great-grandchildren, one day they will come to this museum and say, These are really my ancestors, I can’t believe it. They won’t be able to believe.
Rose, you were a driving force in Paula becoming a speaker here at the museum. Why did you think Paula should become a speaker?
Rose: It took me two years to talk her into it. There was such a small group of Polish Jewish people representing us and not too many of the Polish people were speakers. And she was from Poland and I was from Poland, and I started talking to her [about it] and she listened to me for a change.
We’re so glad that you talked her into it. Paula, what’s your version of the story? Why did you start speaking here?
Paula: It took me a while to speak. I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to continue, that I’d break down, that I’d cry, but it’s amazing how as you get older you get stronger. People ask me: Do you hate the Germans? I said I don’t walk around hating anybody. I can forgive but I can never forget. If you hate somebody then you’re not yourself, you cannot be happy, you’ll always think about that person that you hate. It stands in front of you, it blocks other things. I have a husband. I have children. I’m going to bring them up living a peaceful, quiet life without any hate.
When I watch television now, I am so worried about the situation. The hostages are the biggest problem. There are about 200 of them. I saw on the National Post the front page has tables and 200 empty chairs waiting for the hostages for a Shabbat dinner. When I saw that it broke my heart. I don’t cry too often, but I must say in the last two weeks, I cried. I cried quite a few times.
I think a lot of people have seen that image and it’s definitely something that is indescribable and unthinkable on so many levels. I know Rose shares your sentiments and the idea of hatred.
Rose: It’s like a nightmare coming back to haunt us, a terrible, terrible nightmare, to me it feels like a cloud has covered the sky and I’m waiting for the sunshine. We thought the last years of our life were going to have joy and pleasure where I could enjoy my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren. Give us the time, let us live for God’s sakes. What do they want from us? Let them choose somebody else for a change. It is like hell coming back. I get busy with something and a moment later I feel that stone on my heart. And I can’t for a minute remember why and then it comes back to me. It’s hell. Well let's hope it's going to come to peace, let’s hope they find a way, let’s hope people stop hating each other. I don’t understand why they hate each other all the time, why there’s so much hate and so little love.
I think being here and learning together is hopefully contributing to that idea of hope and education creating change.
Rose: One day at a time. One school at a time. And we should try and spread the idea of how terrible hate is. It destroys the people who hate because they lose total control of what’s right and wrong.
I think that you’ve educated thousands with your stories.
Rose: We tried our best. What made it so interesting to me is the response that I used to get from the children. I think that convinced me that I’m doing the right thing.
A young man once told me: “I’ve listened to a lot of speakers and I’ve heard a lot of stories and I’ve read a lot but nobody brought the dead people to life like you did.” I then realized I’m doing something very important—I brought my mother, my parents and my aunts to life, they were among us. So I really appreciate those years. It actually made a life for me [after my husband died]. And thank you, Michelle, you were a great help all through the years. And all the volunteers that used to help us, thank you very much.
Now more than ever it seems we need some wisdom from our survivors who have faced genocide and have overcome such tragedy. Usually I would phrase this final question as what is your message to future generations, but in this current climate I want to ask what is your message to this generation.
Paula: Tolerate everybody. Love people for who they are. Every person born on this earth has a right to live in peace and happiness. Be tolerant.
Rose: She took all my words away. That’s what I always thought. Because you might be surprised by how much you can learn from other people if you give them a chance. Open up your mind and your heart and you will be surprised.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.