By Sylvia Greenspoon
In Memory of my mother: Emilia (Mildred) Greenspoon, nee Felberbaum
1922-2007, and my father: Murray Greenspoon, 1918 -2021
My mother was born in Lwow, Poland (today’s Lviv, Ukraine). She was 18 years old in 1940, and planning to study Veterinary Medicine when the Nazis occupied the city. Using false papers, she fled to Krakow where she was caught by the Gestapo and imprisoned. Her assumed name was Krysia.
Krysia was sent to the Plaszow concentration camp – the camp portrayed in the movie, Schindler’s List – and then to Auschwitz. Miraculously, she survived and was liberated in 1945. She spent the next two years in a Displaced Persons (DP) camp in Germany.
She arrived in Canada under the auspices of the Jewish Joint Commission in 1948. She met my father in Toronto and they were married in 1952.
My father was born in King City, Ontario. His parents ran a Kosher summer resort in Bolton, Ontario. With his father and brothers, my father started a fur business which supported our family. He had a kind and generous heart.
Together, my parents raised three children. I am blessed to have had them as my parents. I feel grateful for their hard work, their love for family and community, and their perseverance in overcoming many obstacles in life.
Their values have inspired me to honour them with a donation to CHES.