Her parents survived the Holocaust. Family heirlooms help Judith Weisz Woodsworth connect past and present
Possessions is an original essay by Judith Weisz Woodsworth
Possessions is an original essay by Judith Weisz Woodsworth. It is part of Healing, a special series of new, original writing featuring work by the English-language winners of the 2022 Governor General's Literary Awards, presented in partnership with the Canada Council for the Arts. Read more works from Healing here.
In my hand, I hold a tattered black-and-white photo of Zsuszi and Zoli, my mom and dad, taken in 1946 as they were leaving Hungary for Paris. They are shabbily dressed, but they are young and in love. They look happy, hopeful about their prospects.
The Second World War had just ended. They had survived its atrocities, but just barely. When my father returned to his hometown of Vásárosnamény in 1945, he found nothing and no one to keep him there. He'd lost his parents and three younger brothers and his other siblings were dispersed. He set off for the big city, where he sold odds and ends out of a suitcase. Razor blades, combs, pens. Whatever he could lay his hands on and then resell.
In my hand, I hold a tattered black-and-white photo of Zsuszi and Zoli, my mom and dad, taken in 1946 as they were leaving Hungary for Paris.- Judith Weisz Woodsworth
My mother had come home emaciated after imprisonment in three concentration camps. Her father had perished in a labour camp and she was helping her mother at the family's used furniture stall in the Budapest central market. She was trying to get in touch with an uncle, who had fled to Buenos Aires in the 1930s after working as a performer in a Berlin cabaret. Someone told her about Zoli, who was adept at contacting distant relatives.
And so they met in the hurly burly of the market. They talked about sending mail and then about getting out of Hungary, where they felt uneasy and unsure about whom they could trust. They made plans to go to Paris and, from there, one of the faraway places — Argentina, Palestine or Canada — that were said to be welcoming immigrants.
By the time they left Paris for Canada three years later, I was part of the family. They didn't have much else. My mother packed a dunyha, a duvet she had brought from Hungary. They shipped a stately black baby carriage, which features in snapshots of mom, dad and baby Judith posing in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral. Zsuzsi carried with her a large bottle of Chanel No. 5 perfume, to be divided among the female relatives she expected to meet. I can remember that bottle sitting on her dresser for years when I was a child. It was long since empty, but if you unscrewed the cap, you still got a whiff of the exotic fragrance it once contained.
There were also a few pieces of antique jewellery. In 1944, the Jews living in the Budapest ghetto were about to be deported. My mother was nineteen. She went down into the basement, counted nineteen stones from the staircase, and dug a hole in which she stashed the jewellery. After the war, she retrieved it.
We sailed for Canada on one of the last voyages of the once elegant Aquitania, landing at Halifax's Pier 21. The train ride to Winnipeg was long, unexpectedly and excruciatingly long, across 3,700 kilometres of lakes and forests, with few settlements to break up the expanse of wilderness, and very little food to tide us over.
Our arrival as refugees from the unspeakable events in Europe, penniless but for some remaining jewels and perfume, was bewildering to relatives who greeted us at the Winnipeg train station. We were caught between past sorrows and the aching realization that we would never be fully accepted as greeners, or newcomers. Healing was slow, but we were not alone.
We were caught between past sorrows and the aching realization that we would never be fully accepted as greeners, or newcomers.- Judith Weisz Woodsworth
It wasn't until the 1990s that testimonials of Holocaust survivors were compiled systematically and on a large scale. I should have asked more questions, but I didn't. I regret that now. I got fragments, bits and pieces, never the whole story, complicated by the fact that my parents had decided to speak to me and my sister in English, which was not even their second language, but more like their fourth or fifth.
Among my treasured possessions are some shoeboxes of photographs, assorted documents like our landing cards stamped "Halifax," and train tickets from there to Winnipeg. And a gold bracelet I wear on special occasions. Keepsakes of little monetary value, they are the glue that cements the memories together, reminding me of the piercingly painful times my parents endured, interspersed nonetheless with the joys and satisfaction of making a new life in a new land.
The inspiration
Judith Weisz Woodsworth: "This is a personal memoir, briefly tracing the history of my family from the time my father and mother met after the Second World War to their eventual journey from Hungary to Paris, and then to Winnipeg with baby Judith. Recovering from their wartime ordeals was not easy and healing remained incomplete. As a child of survivors, I inherited some of the trauma and experienced healing of a different kind.
"My translation of Pierre Anctil's masterful History of the Jews in Quebec was motivated not only by my fascination with the author's passion for Jewish history, culture and languages, but also by the subject matter. The book resonated with me as an immigrant: translating it, and conveying its content across linguistic borders, was a gratifying and cathartic experience."
About Judith Weisz Woodsworth
Judith Weisz Woodsworth is a Canadian translator and recently retired professor at Concordia University. She has published widely on the history and theory of translation and has translated novels by Quebec authors Pierre Nepveu and Abla Farhoud. History of the Jews in Quebec by Pierre Anctil, translated by Judith Weisz Woodsworth won the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for French to English translation.
About the series Healing
CBC Books asked the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award winners to contribute an original piece of writing on the theme of healing. Possessions was Judith Weisz Woodsworth's contribution to the series.
- Na-naan-dah-wih-i-way by Eli Baxter
- When Big Healing Comes in Small Ways by Dorothy Dittrich
- This Story is Against Resilience, Supports Screaming As Needed by Jen Ferguson
- Lilly in the Wintertime by Sheila Heti
- Some Notes on the Requirement of Hope by Naseem Hrab
- The Invisible Cage by Nahid Kazemi
- Circumference by Annick MacAskill
