Tola and Avrum Feigenbaum at the Mount Royal Belvedere

This photograph of Tola and Avrum Feigenbaum was taken at the Mount Royal Belvedere shortly after the couple settled in Montreal. Both Holocaust survivors, they married in 1946 in Lodz, Poland. With the help of the Jewish Labour Committee, Tola and Avrum were recognized as political refugees, allowing them to immigrate to Canada in 1950.

A New Life Begins in Montreal

1

Tola et Avrum Feigenbaum at the Mount Royal Belvedere, Montreal, 1951

2

Wedding certificate of Avrum and Tola Feigenbaum, who were married in Lodz in 1946.

3

Photograph taken in Montreal in 1952 at the Zukunft Orchestra’s first anniversary. Avrum is standing at the podium.

Life in the Lodz Ghetto

Avrum lived in Lodz when the city’s ghetto was established in 1940. In his recollections Avrum described how cultural life flourished in the ghetto, even though so many people, including his father, died of hunger. There were Hebrew bookshops, political associations, and an orchestra. When the ghetto was liquidated in 1944, Avrum and his brothers were deported to the Birkenau concentration camp. They were forced on a death march in 1945, and only Avrum and one of his brothers survived.

A New Life in Montreal

In Montreal, Avrum joined various cultural and political organisations. He led the Jewish Socialist Youth Organisation’s Zukunft orchestra, which played songs often heard in the ghetto. Avrum Feigenbaum was also a volunteer at the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre and a member of the Board.

Avrum Feigenbaum donated this photograph to the Montreal Holocaust Museum in 2002.

This project is part of the implementation of the Plan culturel numérique du Québec