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Holocaust Survivor Reunited with Baby He Saved during WW2

(BBC News) A new documentary, "Cheating Hitler," tells the story of three Canadian Holocaust survivors - Maxwell Smart, Rose Lipsyzc, and Helen Yermus - who were children during the war. The Germans occupied Smart's part of Poland in 1941 when he was 11 and his father was killed within three months. In 1943, he, along with his mother and sister, were being loaded onto trucks when his mother urged him to flee. He never saw them again. At age 13, he was living alone in the woods, hiding from groups of Ukrainians and Nazis searching for Jews. After months alone, he came across another boy hiding in the woods - Janek Arenbrg - and they became companions in survival. One day, the two children heard gunshots. They discovered the bodies of seven Jews, then spotted something moving on the other side of a nearby river. They crossed the freezing water to find another body - a woman. But in her arms was a living, breathing baby girl. They brought the child back to their shelter and in the woods found a Jewish woman who recognized the baby as her niece and took her into her care. In 1944, Smart connected with some Soviet soldiers. In 1948 he came to Canada through the War Orphans Project of the Canadian Jewish Congress. He settled in Montreal and became an artist. Smart is one of just 100 Jews that survived from his home town, Buczacz, from a previous Jewish population of 8,000. In his later years he began to speak and write about his wartime experience. The makers of the documentary did not know if they would find out what happened to the baby. With the documentary crew he traveled to Israel, where researcher Natasza Niedzielska documented the girl's fate. Her name is Tova Barkai. She survived the war and, now elderly, lives in Haifa, where she and Smart were reunited.
2019-11-22 00:00:00
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