Biographies | Robbie Waisman

I. Skarszysko, Poland

After Hitler's rise to power, I remember my parents' discussions. They were frightened and could not believe the situation that was developing around us. After Kristallnacht, German-Jews started coming into Poland. They came to our house to ask my father for advice, to talk things over. They expressed their fears, but my father believed that Germany was the epitome of civilization and was not capable of atrocities.

II. During the Holocaust »

Robbie's Map

I. Skarszysko, Poland

II. During the Holocaust

III. Rediscovering Freedom

IV. Orphanage

V. Finding a Home

VI. Coming to Canada

VII. Becoming Canadian

Kristallnacht
The "Night of Broken Glass" was the Nazi orchestrated attack against German and Austrian Jews on November 9, 1938. Hundreds of synagogues were burned, thousands of Jewish businesses were destroyed and 30,000 Jews were rounded-up and taken to Camps de concentration. The event marked an escalation in the Nazi persecution of Jews.

Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945)
Founder of the German Nazi party and its leader from 1919 until 1945. Hitler became Chancellor of the Third Reich from 1933-45. He outlined his plans for territorial conquest and expressed his hatred for Jews in his autobiography Mein Kampf written in 1923. On January 30, 1942 Hitler set in motion the destruction and murder of six million Jews. He committed suicide in an underground bunker in Berlin on April 30, 1945.