AzrieliFoundation

Since 2005 the not-for-profit Azrieli Foundation has been collecting and publishing the written first-person memoirs of Holocaust survivors who made their way to Canada. With a focus on education about tolerance and diversity, the program distributes print editions of the memoirs free of charge to libraries, schools and Holocaust-education programs across Canada. These personal stories bring history to life — they put a face on what was lost and allow readers to grasp the enormity of what happened — one story at a time. They offer us a way to teach and study history that complements text books by allowing us to identify with the authors — not only with their inspiring accounts of survival but also with their experience of being immigrants in a new country. The 20 memoirs in English and 15 in French in the Azrieli Series have undergone extensive fact checking with regard to historical accuracy. In addition to original maps, photographs, a glossary and an index, each book includes an introduction that gives broader historical context to the author's Holocaust experience. The Azrieli Series of Short Films are intimate personal profiles of our authors. In these films the authors reflect on their histories from childhood through to their experiences during the war to their present lives in Canada. A portion of each film includes the author reading from their published memoir, combined with animation, to bring the account to life. This multimedia approach to our memoirs through film captures our living authors for posterity, and enables us to reach more people for generations to come. Because we realize that it is not always possible to bring a survivor out to meet and speak to all the schools across Canada, we have turned to social media to expand our reach. We would be happy to arrange a Skype session to personally introduce your students to one of our authors.