For Remembrance Day, we honour the resilience and courage of Holocaust survivors, whose stories remind us of the depths of human cruelty and the strength of the human spirit. Paula Goldhar’s story is a powerful example of surviving against overwhelming odds, a narrative that speaks not only of loss but of enduring hope.

Growing up in Poland
Paula was just 14 years old when the war began, living in Lodz, Poland, the second-largest city in the eastern European country. The youngest of eight children, Paula had a life full of promise ahead of her. She recalled, "I grew up in a home with adults, and I learned a lot. When I was 14, I knew a lot about politics." But in 1939, her world turned upside down overnight. The war brought an abrupt end to her childhood dreams of spending summers with friends and enjoying the simple pleasures of teenage life.

 Nazi invasion
When the Germans marched into Lodz, the initial wave of soldiers seemed almost friendly, waving to the onlookers. But this façade of civility quickly crumbled when the SS arrived. "After the soldiers, about two, three days later, the SS came, and they started to terrorize us," Paula (the smallest child pictured above with her siblings) recounted. The terror was immediate and brutal, especially for Jewish boys, easily identifiable by their clothing. Paula’s brothers were kept indoors to avoid the beatings and harassment that had become all too common. "It was just terrible. We were afraid to go out on the streets," she remembered.

The loss of a brother
By January 1940, Lodz was sealed off, transformed into a ghetto, and incorporated into the Third Reich. Paula’s father, realizing the danger, decided to move the family to a small town near Kraków, where they had relatives. The move was gradual, with Paula and her younger brother sent first. Tragically, her brother, curious about the world beyond the ghetto, ventured too far one day and never returned. "He was the first casualty of my family," Paula said, the pain of his loss still evident in her voice.

Survival in the ghetto
Life in the ghetto - in the town of Stopnica, near Krakow - was a constant struggle for survival. Food was scarce, and the winters were brutal, with no central heating in the primitive wooden houses. Paula’s mother did what she could, grinding wheat to make bread and challah, but the situation grew more desperate with each passing day. "It was winter, and there was no central heating. They were very primitive houses, wooden houses. We were always cold. We were always freezing," Paula recalled.

A heartbreaking decision
As the war dragged on, the situation in the ghettos worsened. By 1942, the Nazis had begun systematically deporting people from the ghettos to concentration camps. Paula and her siblings faced an impossible decision: stay with their parents who were both in their 60s, or take the chance to survive by joining the work lines. "My father was practically pushing us out the door. He said, ‘Go, go. You are young. You have a chance to survive,’" Paula said. It was a heartbreaking choice, but Paula and her brothers and sisters did as their father asked and went.

Enduring a forced labour camp
Paula was transported to Skarżysko-Kamienna, a city in southern Poland, where she was placed in a forced labour camp and put to work in munitions factories. The conditions were horrific. The barracks were overcrowded, with four-storey bunks and no blankets or mattresses. The workers slept on bare boards, using their knapsacks as pillows. "At 7 o’clock in the morning, there was a whistle, and we lined up to go to work. So we worked 12 hours a day," Paula said of the gruelling routine. One week she would do 12-hour shifts during the day, the next week it would be 12-hour shifts during the night.

Finding light in the darkness
Despite the unimaginable conditions, Paula found strength in the bonds she formed with her sister and her brother working at the camp. "I believe that’s the way I survived," she says. "She (her sister) looked after me, and I looked after her." These relationships provided a glimmer of hope in a world that had otherwise gone dark.

Free at last
In January 1945, the camp was liberated, but not before a final ordeal. The prisoners were locked in a warehouse filled with ammunition, fearing they would be blown up by the bombs that were falling all around the warehouse. But then, something extraordinary happened. The German guards fled, leaving the prisoners to fend for themselves. "Some guys, they said, ‘We’re going to open that door.’ They opened the door, and they went out to see what’s happening at the guardhouse. They came back in and said. ‘We are free. We are free,’" Paula recalled, her voice filled with emotion.

The post-freedom journey
For Paula (pictured right with family in Canada) and the others who survived, freedom was a surreal and overwhelming experience. They had endured so much, seen so much death and suffering, that the concept of freedom felt almost impossible. "We walked and walked. We didn’t know where we were. We didn’t know where to go," Paula said. The group wandered, unsure of what to do next, until they decided to return to the barracks to look for food and for the shelter it provided.

Soon after Paula and her sister ventured into a nearby city in Poland, following directions to a former school-turned-hospital. "We found beds with pillows and blankets," Paula recalled. Desperate for food, they discovered a cauldron of soup in the hospital's kitchen. “We ate it, but it was lukewarm, sour... it made us sick," she said, reflecting on how hunger clouded their judgement. Despite the illness, they found temporary relief in food and shelter provided by Russian soldiers, even working in a field hospital peeling potatoes in exchange for meals. Paula and her sister eventually found an abandoned apartment to live in with other girls. “We had a key, we locked the door, and for the first time, we felt some sense of control over our lives.”

Post war dangers, fleeing Poland into Germany
Still, Paula's experience of the post-war world was fraught with danger. In 1946, they fled Poland to a city called Kielce after a pogrom in which 46 Jewish survivors were killed. "We pretended we had toothaches, covered our faces to hide that we were Jewish, and snuck onto trains to escape. Those who were caught on the train were killed, they lined them up right there and killed them." Paula and her siblings were led to safety by a group from Israel, known as the Bricha, who helped smuggle survivors out of Poland. “We walked through the forest all night. When daylight came, we saw a farmer who gave us water. That was the first time we felt free, ironically, in Germany.”

Emigrating to Canada
Paula and her siblings were eventually placed in Displaced Persons (DP) camps in Germany. "The DP camps were nice," she said. “They were made for human beings.” With the help of two aunts in Toronto, Paula emigrated to Canada, arriving in 1949. Her brother joined them soon after. Adjusting to Canadian life wasn’t easy, but Paula (pictured above with her husband Yitzchak) worked hard to learn English and build a new life. "We didn’t mix much with Canadians — they were all about hockey," she said with a smile. But she persevered, eventually marrying her husband Yitzchak and happily settling into her new home.

Today Paula is enjoying her life at Aspira Kensington Place in Toronto. Her story is a powerful reminder of the horrors of the Holocaust and the resilience of those who survived. She lost both of her parents along with three brothers and two sisters during the Holocaust. On Remembrance Day, we honour her and all the survivors who endured unimaginable suffering and loss. Their stories are a testament to the strength of the human spirit, a reminder that even in the darkest of times, hope can survive. As we remember, we also commit to ensuring that such atrocities never happen again.