Losing the Dead

A biography of Hena and Aron Borenstejn, written by their daughter (née Elizabeta) following her trip to Poland in 1997. Her maternal grandparents, Sara and David Lipszyc, lived near Warsaw, with their children Adolf (Adek, b. 1911) and Hena (b. 1915). The family lived together until Hena's husband Aron was taken for forced labor in 1940. Hena and her son Staszek (Stanley, b. 1939) lived as Aryans with Adek, who managed to spirit his parents out of the ghetto to Adamów. Following David Lipszyc's death from typhus while in hiding, Sara joined the others. In 1941 Aron escaped from the Warsaw ghetto and joined the family as well. In 1944, Aron was arrested by the Germans but was freed and settled in Łódź until 1945, when he was arrested by the Russians. He was imprisoned in Radom until 1946, when he was reunited with his family. Following Lisa's birth in 1946 they emigrated to Paris, and then to Montreal in 1951. Lisa also describes antisemitism in Quebec after the war.