Our Team

The In Search of Better Days virtual exhibit and teacher resources were developed for the Toronto Holocaust Museum by Sarah Cavaliere, Paige Mawson, Jessica Parsons, and Noam Roz. The project was created as a collaboration between the University of Toronto’s Master of Museum Studies program and the Toronto Holocaust Museum under the supervision of Professor Cara Krmpotich, Michelle Fishman, and Dr. Carson Phillips.

 

Special Thanks

The student team would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the teachers who provided feedback during our community consultation process. The student team appreciates the support and guidance of our academic supervisors, Dr. Cara Krmpotich and Dr. Irina Mihalache, as well as our institutional supervisors, Michelle Fishman and Dr. Carson Phillips.  We’d also like to thank the archivists at the Ontario Jewish Archives and the Canadian Jewish Archives for their support. Most importantly, we would like to thank the survivors and their families featured in the exhibit, whose stories inspired the creation of this project.

 

Content Partners

We would like to thank the following institutions and archives for their support in this project and for allowing us to use their content.

• Where indicated, interview clips and photos of Max Eisen, Miriam Frankel, Olga Mittelman, Erwin Schild, Norma Dimitry, and Leon Glatter are from the archive of the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education. For more information: http://sfi.usc.edu/

• The Toronto Holocaust Museum (Toronto, ON)

• The Ontario Jewish Archives (Toronto, ON)

• Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives (Montreal, QC)

• The United States Holocaust Memorial Musuem (Washington, USA)

• The City of Toronto Archives (Toronto, ON)

• Simon Fraser University Archives (Burnaby, BC)

• The Bader Family Fonds at Queens University Archives (Kingston, ON)

• Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (Vancouver, BC)

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Sources

If you’d like to learn more, take a look at the following sources that we used to build the program:

• Abella, Irving M., and Harold Martin Troper. None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012.

• Chanco, Christopher. “Refugees, Humanitarian Internationalism, and the Jewish Labour Committee of Canada 1945–1952” Canadian Jewish Studies 30 (Winter 2020): 12-40. DOI: 10.25071/1916-0925.40182. 

• Dirks, Gerald E. “Immigration Policy in Canada.” The Canadian Encyclopedia. Published February 7, 2006. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/immigration-policy.

• Draper, Paula J. “’Refugee!’ The Adjustment of Jewish Refugees from Nazism to Canadian Life.” Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 5, no. 2 (1985): 15–20. https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.21487. 

• Goldberg, Adara. Holocaust Survivors in Canada: Exclusion, Inclusion, Transformation, 1947-1955. Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press, 2015.

• Ross, Lamberton. “The Canadian Jewish Congress and the Human Rights Community” In Repression and Resistance: Canadian human rights activists, 1930-1960. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. 

• Troper, Harold. “Canada's Immigration Policy Since 1945,” International Journal 48, no. 2 (Spring 1993): 255-281.

• Van Dyk, Lindsay. “Canadian Immigration Acts and Legislation.” Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. pier21.ca/research/immigration-history/canadian-immigration-acts-and-legislation.

 

Background Image Credits by Page

Homepage

• Child survivors of Auschwitz, wearing adult-size prisoner jackets, stand behind a barbed wire fence. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Belarusian State Archive of Documentary Film and Photography.

• Survivors in Allach, a sub-camp of Dachau, greet arriving U.S. troops. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park.

• Survivors in a barracks in the Ampfing concentration camp. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park.

• Prisoners shipped eastward by train from Bergen-Belsen concentration camp freed by members of the 743rd Tank Battalion near Farsleben, Germany, 13 April 1945. After action report 743rd Tank Battalion, US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS.

• Photograph of the "Welcome Home To Canada" sign at Pier 21, October 1950, Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21; DI2013.839.32.

• Emaciated woman looks out of her bed through a window [translated]. Nationaal Archief of the Netherlands.

• Eastern European immigrants arrive, [194-]. Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre, fonds 9, series 12, file 3.

• Exterior view of Holy Blossom Temple, Bathurst St., Toronto, [ca. 1956]. Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre, item 932.

• Miram Frankel at liberation. Toronto Holocaust Museum.

• Max Eisen at liberation. Toronto Holocaust Museum.

What Now

• Mauthausen survivors cheer the soldiers of the Eleventh Armored Division of the U.S. Third Army one day after their actual liberation. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration, College Park.

How Do We Get There?

• Jewish immigrants on board the General Sturgis (Halifax, NS), 6 Feb. 1948. Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre, item 628.

How Do You Build A New Life In Canada?

• Shedlover Shul collection. Ontario Jewish Archives, Blankenstein Family Heritage Centre, accession 2010-6-3. 

General Background

• Passport photos edited and changed from original file: Passport stamps from the US, UK, France and Belgium. Jon Evans.