On Remembrance Day, we honour the memories of those who faced unimaginable horrors during the Holocaust and celebrate the resilience of survivors who carried the weight of those memories into the present. Among these survivors is Aileen Frydrych, who endured the devastation of World War II as a young Jewish girl in Poland, and later Belarus. Her story is a testament to the strength of the human spirit in the face of relentless persecution.

The beginning
Born Chaya Rabinowich, Aileen’s early life was disrupted by the outbreak of World War II. She grew up in Krivich, a small town that was part of Poland before the war and later became Belarus. “I started in a Polish school,” Aileen remembered, “but in 1939, the war broke out, and the Russians took over where we lived.”

The Nazis invade
The German invasion in 1941 changed everything. The Nazis seized control of the region, and life for Jewish people became a constant struggle for survival. Aileen was only 11. “Being Jewish, I couldn’t go to school. Life was difficult. We had a lot of problems,” she explained. The situation rapidly deteriorated as the Nazis began targeting Jewish communities with brutal efficiency.

In small towns like Krivich, mass killings were common. “When the killing started, we were in a small town. My story is not like the ones in concentration camps, but we had to hide. They would come into town and gather up the Jews,” she said. Aileen’s family narrowly escaped the first wave of violence by hiding in a secret place her parents had prepared in their home. “They didn’t find us, so my whole family survived the first killing.”

Life in the ghetto and losing her sister
However, survival was fleeting. The remaining Jewish residents were soon forced into ghettos, cramped areas where disease and hunger were rampant. Aileen’s family was no exception. “We had to leave our home and move into one street, into the homes there. My father decided to go and look for someone who might hide us.”

While her father sought refuge, Aileen’s sister was tragically killed while working on a farm. “When they came to town to do the first killing, they killed about four girls, and my sister was one of them.” The loss of her sister was a devastating blow, but Aileen and her mother continued to fight for survival.

Escaping to the forest
With her father missing and her sister gone, Aileen and her mother were left to fend for themselves in the ghetto. The ghetto, however, was just a temporary reprieve; the threat of death loomed ever closer. “We knew it was just a matter of time before they came to finish the ghetto,” Aileen recalled. As the Nazis intensified their efforts to annihilate the remaining Jewish population, Aileen and her mother fled into the nearby forests.

“We tried to escape to a different forest, walking during the nights and hiding during the days,” Aileen recounted. But even in the forest, there was no safety. “One night, there were shots, and we had to run back. I was young, the trees looked like they were hitting the sky. We laid on the ground, trying to stay hidden.”

Gritty survival and the turning of the tide
For two years, Aileen and her mother lived in the forest, surviving on whatever they could scavenge or beg from sympathetic farmers. “One of the farmers helped us in the forest to make, you know, it was like a cave under a tree using branches to keep it up, and my mother and I lived there for two years,” Aileen said. At night we went out to beg for a piece of bread, but it was never enough. “We used to go out at night and beg for food. Mostly, they would give us a piece of bread, but it was dangerous for them to help us.”

In 1944, the tide of war began to turn as the Russian forces reclaimed the region. Aileen and her mother were liberated, but the scars of their ordeal remained. “We went back to our town, but our house was gone,” she said. With nothing left, they moved into a house with a few other surviving families. The liberation brought little relief; the family was sick, and there was hardly any medical help available. “There was one doctor in town, and all he had was some green stuff that he called medicine,” Aileen recalled.

Post-war challenges and reuniting with her father
The war finally ended in 1945, but the challenges were far from over. Aileen’s family, like many others, found themselves in a land that was no longer their own. “There was a rule that said any Polish citizen could move to Poland, but this was now Russian-occupied Belarus. It was very difficult to move or even visit Poland,” she explained.

Aileen’s father, who had survived separately from his family, eventually reunited with them. “A couple of months after the war, my father came to see who survived. He thought maybe my sister had survived because she was living on the farm,” Aileen said. The reunion was bittersweet, as the family had endured so much loss and suffering.

Move to Canada
In 1947, Aileen and her parents immigrated to Canada, where she began a new chapter of her life. “I was 16 years old when I came to Canada. My aunt, my mother’s sister, was here, and she said to me, ‘Chaya Rabinowich, you have to change your first name for an English name.’ That’s how I became Aileen,” she explained. The name change was a small concession in exchange for the safety and opportunities that Canada offered.

 Marriage, family, and starting a business
Aileen met her husband Henry in 1950 and together they began a new life in Toronto. The couple faced many challenges, saving every penny and working tirelessly to build a life together. Aileen worked in a dress shop, while Henry - another Holocaust survivor and the last remaining living member of his family - found work in a garment factory.  Despite the hardships, they managed to buy a house, which they rented out to cover the mortgage. Aileen and Henry eventually bought a small store, working day and night to keep it running, and it provided them with stability. Their hard work paid off as they raised two sons, one of whom became a doctor, and they eventually had seven grandchildren who are all professionals and she has seven great-grandchildren with one on the way.

Her husband’s passing and life in retirement living
After Henry's death in 2008, Aileen lived alone in their home, maintaining her independence until a fall led her to retirement living in 2023. Despite her injury, Aileen enjoys her life in Aspira Kensington Place and continues to be resilient, reflecting on her life with pride and the deep satisfaction of knowing she survived unimaginable horrors to build a lasting legacy.