The inspiring life of the late Chava Rosenfarb (Honorary Degree '06) is featured in a radio documentary program on CBC Radio One this week.
The Late Show is an unconventional take on the art of the obituary, a moving, sometimes humorous, and always compelling national radio documentary series that explores the extraordinary life stories of deceivingly ordinary Canadians. Hosted by Gordon Pinsent, the show runs every Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m., and is rebroadcast Friday mornings at 9:30 a.m. The Rosenfarb documentary originally aired Tuesday, July 12 and will rebroadcast Friday, July 15. You can access the program online by clicking here.
A survivor of the Lodz ghetto, of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen, Rosenfarb transmuted her experiences into fiction, specifically into her major novel, The Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto. Her novels, Bociany, and, Of Lodz and Love, are also available in English, as is a collection of short stories called, Survivors.
She was the recipient of numerous literary awards, including Israel's Manger Prize and an honorary degree from the University of Lethbridge
Born in Lodz, Poland in 1923 she married Henry Morgentaler in 1949, shortly before their arrival in Canada. They divorced in 1975. Her second husband was Bono Wiener of Melbourne, Australia. She passed away Jan. 30, 2011 at the age of 88.
Rosenfarb received an Honorary Degree from the U of L in 2006, delivering one of the institution's most memorable convocation addresses. An excerpt follows.
"My university was the Second World War. My classroom was the Lodz Ghetto, my teachers were my fellow inmates there – and especially the poets, painters and intellectuals of the doomed writers' community, incarcerated between the barbed wire walls of the ghetto, who accepted me at a very early age as a member. So I am a graduate of the Holocaust, of the death camps of Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. I have matriculated in one of the greatest tragedies known to man. I have a degree from no other university. At least, not until today."
To view the full address, follow this link. To read the full text of her convocation address, follow this link. To read more about Rosenfarb and her amazing life, visit her website by following this link.