by Jaerin Kim  

All too frequently, the current Holocaust scholarship tends to focus on the horrific experiences of the victims that they went through during the war. Needless to say, this scholarly focus is an entirely valid choice, as the brutality of the Holocaust and the breath of inhumane crimes that Nazi Germany undertook at the time could never be understated. That being said, rendering Holocaust victims into mere sufferers who lacked the agency to sustain their lives must be avoided, as it would ultimately result in the erasure of the remarkable resilience that they demonstrated. Amidst the unspeakable tragedies and manslaughters, the victims of the Holocaust were able to stand in solidarity with one another and form a strong community, which American sociologist Arthur B. Shostak refers to as “acts of stealth altruism” (Shostak 297). Among the countless stories of Holocaust survivors that recount the importance of solidarity in their survival, the life story of Robbie Waisman could be considered as one of the most extraordinary tales that demonstrate how solidarity could have a lasting impact on a person’s life throughout the years. A Holocaust survivor originally from Poland who made a life in Vancouver after the war, Waisman was not only able to survive the Holocaust by standing in solidarity with others but also dedicated his entire life to building solidarity with survivors of similar experiences to heal as a community. This extraordinary story of Waisman hence brings a scholarly need to examine his life and legacy through the lens of solidarity, which is precisely what this contribution will aim to achieve. By examining his testimonies, memoir, and other relevant sources, this article will discuss the importance of solidarity that resonates throughout Robbie Waisman’s entire life from the Holocaust, liberation, and his move to Canada. Waisman’s remarkable life story reveals the human capacity for solidarity building to us, as it serves as a living example of what the human race was capable of achieving when faced with unspeakable tragedies.

Childhood and the Ghetto 

Robert “Robbie” Waisman was born Romek Wajsman on February 2nd, 1931, in Skarżysko-Kamienna, Poland. As the youngest of six children, Waisman was born into a family where he “felt as secure and completely protected as a child could feel” (Hemmendinger and Krell 52). The overwhelming love that he received throughout his childhood came not only from his family but also from the Jewish community that he was surrounded by. Waisman’s family would welcome Shabbat on Friday evenings, where his father would read stories of Yiddish author Sholem Aleichemto neighbors who came (Waisman, Interview by Fran Starr). To this day, Waisman recalls his childhood with a fond memory, as he “gets a warm feeling, a glow, when [he] thinks of the type of life that existed in those days” (Waisman, Interview by Fran Starr). In this way, one could argue that Waisman’s dedication to solidarity had already begun during his childhood. By being born into a tight-knit community full of love, Waisman learned the importance of community and solidarity by heart. 

However, this is not to say that the young Waisman was not impacted by the ongoing influences of antisemitism. Waisman recalls how he was badly beaten by non-Jewish schoolmates whom he was good friends with, on the ground that he “killed Jesus Christ.” While his brothers protected Waisman by shadowing him on his way to and from school, this incident shocked Waisman as it taught him the existence of antisemitism for the very first time (Waisman, Interview by Fran Starr). The impacts of antisemitism on his childhood only worsened with Germany’s invasion of Skarżysko in 1939. As the ghetto was built in the city, Waisman’s entire family was forced to work at the munitions factory. Before the liquidation of the ghettos in 1942, Waisman was separated from his mother and worked in a paint shop of a work camp along with his father and brothers. As the war progressed, the whole world that sustained Waisman’s entire life completely crumbled, as he witnessed the murder of his brother Abram, who was loaded into the truck and went into the woods, followed by machine gunfire (Waisman, Interview by Fran Starr). The loss of a family member, who was everything that young Waisman had in his childhood, left a permanent scar that could not ever be healed. Right after witnessing the murder of Abram, Waisman contracted typhoid fever, which he “didn’t even care at the time (…) because I knew that I probably wouldn’t make it” (Waisman, Interview by Fran Starr). Left alone without the people who were his entire world, young Waisman could not find a reason to live.

Nonetheless, despite all these odds, it should be mentioned that Waisman’s luck with the people that surrounded him continued, as the people that he met during this period both literally and figuratively saved his life. While Waisman was severely ill with typhoid and left with no family members, someone took care of him by covering him up with straws and giving him water (Waisman, Interview by Fran Starr). It was also after Waisman lost his brothers and father that he befriended Abram “Abi” Czapnick, a fellow Jewish boy who became his rock throughout the war. As both Waisman and Czapnick were left alone without their family, the two boys quickly became close and stuck together (Waisman, Interview by Kit Krieger). Waisman recounts how his survival would not have been possible without Czapnick: “We were inseparable. Without his friendship I would have lost my bearings and perished” (Hemmendinger and Krell 54). This idea of relying upon a family member or a friend for survival throughout the Holocaust is a reoccurring theme in many survivor testimonies, as American sociologist and Holocaust survivor Nechama Tec notes how “practically all prisoner accounts mention clusters of friends who made life more bearable” (Shostak 299). For example, Ruth Klüger, a survivor from Austria who was imprisoned in Auschwitz and Christianstadt concentration camp, recounts how her mother and adopted sister Susi enabled each other’s survival in the camps as she writes that “all three of us can claim a share in having saved each other” (Klüger 128). The stories of Waisman and Klüger collectively suggest that surviving the Holocaust would not have been possible without a strong sense of solidarity among the victims who became one another’s reason to go on. 

Buchenwald and the OSE Orphanage

In 1944, Waisman and Czapnick were transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp, when the Russians were advancing on the Eastern front. Waisman remembers being packed into cattle cars en route to Germany and arriving in Buchenwald for the first time. There, he saw what would potentially become his fate: malnourished inmates in striped uniforms devoid of will to live. Waisman recalls thinking very clearly that “this is the end… if this is what they do to these people we won’t make it” (Waisman, Interview by Kit Krieger).

Nonetheless, despite his ominous presumption, it was again the people that surrounded Waisman who kept his life intact. First and foremost, he was with Czapnick. Together, the two were placed in Block 8, where the rest of the inmates were political prisoners hailing from France, Germany, and Poland. Waisman and Czapnick believed they were the only children in Buchenwald until liberation (Hemmendinger and Krell 54). As a result, it was only natural that their bond grew stronger every day. Furthermore, the political prisoners who were incarcerated in the same block as Waisman played an instrumental role in saving his life. Waisman recounts how the prisoners of Block 8 were marched out and the SS ordered all Jews to step out. When the frightened Waisman and Czapnick were about to step out, Wilhelm “Willy” Hammann (Johnson), the head of Block 8, declared that he didn’t have any Jews in his block and saved their lives (Waisman, Interview by Kit Krieger). As a matter of fact, Waisman and Czapnick were not the only child prisoners whose survival was greatly indebted to the adult prisoners who risked their lives, as similar stories are repeatedly told in other survivor testimonies as well. Anton “Bubili” Fojn, an Austrian Romani survivor who was incarcerated at the Gusen concentration camp, recalls how he saved sixteen Jewish children’s lives by switching their numbers with the weak prisoners who were not likely to survive, otherwise known as the muselmann (Friedman 23). While undertaking this risk meant that Fojn could potentially be killed when caught, he could not resist the chance as the children reminded him of his siblings, nieces, and nephews (Friedman 22). The story of Hammann and Fojn demonstrates the solidarity among adult and child prisoners was present and active within the camps despite the looming risk of death. In many cases adult prisoners felt an utmost responsibility to protect the children from death, even though their lives could be placed in danger. 

On April 4, 1945, the looming dangers of death that plagued Waisman for years finally ended, as Buchenwald was officially liberated by American soldiers. By the time of liberation, more than 900 children were found to be alive in Buchenwald; among them, 426 child survivors were sent to French orphanages that were run by Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), including the one in Écouis, where Waisman and Czapnick were sent (Hemmendinger and Krell 8). However, Waisman came to realize that the end of the war did not mean the end of struggles, as the transition to an orphanage was more than shocking. Waisman recalls how he immediately threw up and passed out as soon as he stepped out of the train in Écouis. He could not process why the French were welcoming them with flowers and candies when he was treated so inhumanly for years (Waisman and McClelland 31). To make matters worse, the relevant authorities of the orphanage did not provide the child survivors with adequate care to process their trauma, as they simply told them to forget the past and look to a future (Waisman and McClelland 52). In the absence of proper care, it was only natural for the boys of Buchenwald to experience outbursts as they could not control their anger. Referred to as les enfants terribles, the boys were pronounced “beyond redemption” and “psychopaths” (Hemmendinger and Krell 55) by experts.

Amongst this utmost chaos, the only source of comfort that Waisman and the other boys could find was each other, as only themselves could understand what they were going through. When one of the boys heard back from the orphanage about the death of a family member, they cried, moaned, and comforted each other (Waisman and McClelland 146). This was also the case for Waisman, as his friends brought him food and accompanied him to the bathroom when he was coping with the news that he would not have a home in Poland to go back to (Waisman and McClelland 71). As Hemmendinger and Krell rightfully put it, “The need for companionship amongst the children is a poignant contradiction to those who have written that survival was gained at the expense of others. Rather, survival depended on relationships with others” (Hemmendinger and Krell 41). Faced with an insurmountable amount of pain and grief, the boys of Buchenwald had no choice but to lean on each other’s shoulders for comfort and understanding; it was only in each other’s presence that the process of healing was made possible. 

In his testimony, Waisman describes an encounter with an expert on adolescents and children who survived the Holocaust. This moment becomes vital on the healing process of the boys as it marked a beginning of the boys’ understanding that they are not alone in their trauma. An expert was brought to Écouis orphanage to talk to the boys of Buchenwald and assess their conditions. When the boys were not paying attention to his lecture, as they usually did with other experts who neglected their trauma sustained from the camps, the expert rolled up his sleeve to reveal his Auschwitz number tattooed on his arm, which was a simple yet powerful gesture showing that he, too, survived the Holocaust and understood what the boys were going through.  After a long silence, all he managed to say was “Meine tyre kindern” (my dear children) and began to cry, which the boys followed (Hemmendinger and Krell 56).   This moment with the expert becomes crucial for the boys, especially given the way they were instructed to forget and not openly discuss their trauma by almost all adults of the orphanage. As the boys were finally faced with an adult and fellow Holocaust survivor who embraced their pain for the very first time, this encounter emphasized the need to support one another and others who have experienced the traumas of the Holocaust. 

Immigration to Canada and His Legacy as a Holocaust Survivor 

In November 1948, after nearly three years in France, Waisman immigrated to Canada as a war orphan refugee at the age of 17. Upon arriving in Canada, he anglicized his name to Robert Waisman from Romek Waisman and was sent to Calgary. In Calgary, Waisman’s luck with meeting the right people at the right time continued as he was placed to live with the Goresht family, who gave him not only food and shelter but also a new family. Waisman recounts how Ida, the daughter of the Goresht family, would introduce him as her brother (Hemmendinger and Krell 58), which demonstrates the strong bond that they shared together. It was also in Calgary that Waisman met the love of his life, Gloria Lyons, in 1958. They got married and started a family in Saskatoon before finally settling in Vancouver in 1977 (Waisman and McClelland 260).

In his testimony, Waisman recounts how he was able to lead a “normal adult life,” as he was able to get married and raise children like anybody else (Hemmendinger and Krell 62). That being said, it goes without saying that the ‘normal’ adult life that he had was not an easy one, as the Canadian society held deeply ingrained biases against the war orphans even after the war ended. As a matter of fact, the Canadian government was very reluctant to accept war orphans, as they were deemed ‘undesirable immigrants’ by  Charlotte Whitton, a child welfare activist and a fervent antisemite who oversaw the Canadian Council on Child Welfare (CCCW) (Martz 41) (later the Canadian Welfare Council and the CANADIAN COUNCIL ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT). This ingrained bias was hence translated into the prejudice that Waisman faced in Canada, as his wife’s family disapproved of his background and looked into his personal history when he was dating her (Hemmendinger and Krell 59). As a result, it is no surprise that Waisman seldom talked about his experiences as a survivor even with his wife and children, for fear that the same biases of antisemitism would affect his family. Waisman recalls how he was panic-stricken when his daughter Arlaina told him that she was going to talk about Jewish holidays in school, as he worried that her Jewish identity would be exposed and badly affect her, just like he was beaten up for being a Jewish boy in Poland (Waisman, Interview by Fran Starr).  

However, as the year 1983 dawned, the incident that would change Waisman’s fate took place. That year, James Keegstra, an Albertan schoolteacher, was convicted of teaching Holocaust denial theory to his students. While reading the news, Waisman felt that he had an obligation to come forward and “speak for those who perished” (Waisman, Interview by Fran Starr); and he indeed came forward. He co-founded the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre (VHEC) with Dr. Robert Krell and served as a President, where he created a safe space for survivors to come forward and cope with their trauma in each other’s presence. As an outreach speaker, he has delivered speeches about his experiences and the tragic consequences of hatred. By telling his stories on behalf of the countless victims of the Holocaust, Waisman has managed to stand in solidarity with those who were by his side in times of trouble and reciprocate the favor; it was now Waisman’s turn to ‘save’ their lives, by ensuring their stories and memory would live on to the next generations. 

Waisman’s legacy in building solidarity with the survivors did not just stop from reaching out to fellow Holocaust survivors, as he has also extensively worked with survivors of other genocides who went through similar experiences as him. In 2008, Waisman was appointed as an Honorary Witness to the First Nation Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in which he traveled across the country for two years to meet with the survivors of the Residential School System (Ghert-Zand). His involvement in fostering dialogues with the Indigenous population greatly contributed to the healing of Residential School Survivors, as many of them “spoke about their own horrors at the schools for the first time” upon his arrival (Sison). Waisman has also served as a life mentor to Éloge C. Butera, a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, as he instilled in Butera the “importance of sharing [Butera’s] story with young people so they understand the true cost of prejudice, discrimination, and hatred”  (Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre). Throughout his work in building solidarity with other survivor communities, Waisman has clung to his deep-rooted conviction; that comparing suffering must be avoided under any circumstances. In the words of Waisman, “We never compare traumas – man’s inhumanity to man is all the same, it’s harmful and it’s hateful and it does no good” (Hennig). Rather than trying to weigh the amount of pain, the survivors must strive to embrace their suffering as a collective and stand in solidarity with one another, as they all went through an insufferable amount of pain alike. By insisting on his belief, Waisman was able to bring survivors of similar experiences together and create a community of healing through the sharing of trauma. 

In conclusion, Robbie Waisman’s remarkable life story reveals what humanity is capable of achieving by standing in solidarity with one another in the face of utmost dehumanization. Born into a community full of love and care, Waisman’s survival and his eventual settlement in Canada were greatly indebted to the people that he encountered along the way as they understood his pain, made his suffering more bearable, and even saved his life. Later in his life, Waisman has managed to turn this overwhelming love and care that he received into an act for the greater good. He contributed immensely to bringing healing to the community of survivors with similar experiences. As such, examining Waisman’s life and legacy invokes the importance of shedding light on the tales of mutual love and care that have been largely overlooked in the contemporary representation of the Holocaust. For memorialization is “a sacred act that elicits a double mandate – to expose the depth of evil and to raise goodness from the dust of amnesia” (Shostak 307), we must strive to repurpose Holocaust memory into a story of human perseverance and resilience for a future that is devoid of the same inhumane atrocities. 

Works Cited

Friedman, Ina R. “Bubili: A Young Gypsy’s Fight for Survival.” The Other Victims: First-Person Stories of Non-Jews Persecuted by the Nazis. Houghton Mifflin Co., 1990, pp. 7 – 24.

Ghert-Zand, Renee. “Holocaust survivor helps Canada’s kidnapped aboriginals heal.” The Times of Israel, 17 December 2015, https://www.timesofisrael.com/holocaust-survivor-helps-canadas-kidnapped-aboriginals-heal/

Hemmendinger, Judith, and Robert Krell. The Children of Buchenwald: Child Survivors of the Holocaust and Their Post-war Lives. Gefen Publishing House, 2000.

Hennig, Clare. “‘I will never forget’: trauma survivors share survival stories.” CBC, 1 September 2018, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/holocaust-residential-school-survivors-overcome-trauma-1.4807131

Jewish Virtual Library. “Block 66 at Buchenwald: The Clandestine Barracks to Save Children.” Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/block-66-at-buchenwald

Johnson, Pat. “Holocaust survivor Robbie Waisman receives Caring Canadian Award.” Jewish Independent, 18 February 2014, https://www.jewishindependent.ca/holocaust-survivor-robbie-waisman-receives-national-honor/

Klüger, Ruth. Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered. Feminist Press, 2001.

Martz, Fraidie. Open Your Hearts: The Story of the Jewish War Orphans in Canada. Vehicule Press, 1996.

Shostak, Arthur B. “Stealth Altruism: Reflections on a Neglected Aspect of the Holocaust.” Remembrance and Solidarity Studies in 20th Century European History, edited by Dan Michman and Matthias Weber, vol. 5, December 2016, European Network Remembrance and Solidarity, pp. 297 – 312.

Sison, Marites N. “Holocaust Survivor Offers Message of Hope.” Anglican Journal, 19 September 2013. https://anglicanjournal.com/holocaust-survivor-offers-message-of-hope/

Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. “On May 9th and 10th the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre Presents the 37th Annual Symposium on the Holocaust.” Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, https://vhec.org/pressrelease.html

Waisman, Robbie, and Susan McClelland. Boy from Buchenwald: The True Story of a Holocaust Survivor. Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2021.

Waisman, Robbie. Interview by Fran Starr. USC Shoah Foundation Institute, 27 November 1996, https://vhaonline.usc.edu/viewingPage?testimonyID=24372&returnIndex=0

Waisman, Robbie. Interview by Kit Krieger. Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, 29 August 2010.