Page 78 - Anne Blufarb's Second World War

ISSUE : Issue 72

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1997/6/1

fight with?" The young people they took away to the concentration camps; it's only left the old people, maybe a few children. Who's going to fight? We haven't got ammu? nition, we haven't got much to fight with. You know, when they tell us to fight it wasn't already too many who could fight. It wasn't much to fight with.... (So you weren't with your mother when she died.) No. (You have no idea when she died.) When I left, my mother was alive, my two sisters were alive, and they went into hiding. Because after the war whoever survived and came out from hiding told me that one of my sisters survived. There was a man who told me that--he didn't recog- r Sydney Mitiwork'Limiudr I CUSTOM KITCHENS I WE PAINT & STAIN WALL UNITS COUNTERTOPS CUSTOM WOOD WORK CUSTOM FRAMING FREE ESTIMATES 562-5344 50 BROOKLAND ST. '''ring Jour Ideas to Lif el A Special TIME THAT WAS Visit Highland Village: A Living History Museum Experience the lifestyle of the Highland Scot in Cape Breton • 10 animated building displays in a village setting • Visit our Gift Shop: Large selection of Celtic Music • Consult Highland Roots: Computerized genealogy • 36th Annual Highland Village Day: August 2, 1997 • Eat or stay at the Highland Heights Inn, our hospitality arm. nize my sis? ter; she recognized him; she told him who she was--she was in the presence of a man who didn't look Jewish.... And the ru? mours were that one of my sisters survived and was taken to one of the hospitals. But there was also rumours that my fa? ther sur? vived ! They saw him here and they saw him there. He was dead, that we knew for sure, because we buried him. So all those rumours were only rumours. We wer? en 't sure if it was so or not.... iin' 'ghland Well, like my mother used to say, "We survived. But for how long?" you know. And that fellow who was on TV --"Front Page Challenge"--Gordon Sinclair. He was interviewing some? body and he said exactly what my mother said. The woman said, "Well, thank God I survived." He said to her, "Why are you thanking God--that you survived and the others didn't?" And my mother said the same thing when the action was over. She'd say, "Oh, thank God we survived. God knows for how long." And then she would kind of say, "What am I thank? ing God for? That I am alive and the others got killed?" Anna Zuckerman's route to Cape Breton continued. She spent the last two years of the war worldng in Ger? many, disguised as a Ultrainian. After the war, married to Richie Biufarb, she came to Halifax. With the help of the Canadian Jewish Congress, they lived a while in Montreal, and then went to Port-aux Basques, where her husband started a business. Peddling between Newfoundland and Cape Breton, Richie often stopped at the Coffee Pot Restaurant in North Sydney. The owners, the Jabalee family, recommended that he buy the business. And that was the start for the Biufarbs in Cape Breton. Our thanl(s to Anna Blufarb for sharing some of her stories, and to her son Fred for the help that made this article possible. Very recently, Mrs. Blufarb's story has been video? taped by the SHOAH Project, a worldwide search for the stories of Holocaust survivors, funded by Steven Spielberg, the director of the movie Schlndler's List.

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