Kestenberg Archive

MZ was born in 1943 in Kulob, Tajikistan as the son of deported Jews. His mother was Polish and his father Latvian. In Poland, his mother's family was established in the garment-textile industry and his father's family worked as a small retailer of shoes. MZ received a Jewish education, but not religious. After the war, the family was repatriated from the Soviet Union to Poland. From there they went to a DP camp in Germany for almost two years. As a child MZ was aware that he had survived the war. He was aware that there were people trying to kill him. He knew that they were doing it because he was a Jew. As a little child, he contracted malaria, tuberculosis and a hernia. They arrived in Canada directly from the DP camp in a converted troop ship that docked in Halifax. When he came to Montreal he was 5 years old. They lived in a room of an aunt's apartment for one and a half years. She had also inherited a small manufacturing factory. Later, they moved to an apartment of their own. His father worked in a garment factory and his mother as a waitress. MZ was conscious of his poverty, compared to other Jewish children. He was conscious of being different and more mature than the other children. He was an outsider who did not participate in social activities. His parents were also isolated, cautious, anxious and not involved in the community. In spite of his parent's poverty, he and his siblings were sent to a private school and university. He says that it was a Jewish immigrant syndrome; education was everything for the parents. He says also this is very common among Holocaust survivors. ; He understood that he and his siblings were the vehicle for realizing their parent's expectations, hopes and anxieties. He thinks that his parents will never recover from their Holocaust experiences. Recently his mother began to volunteer at a hospital and his father is taking night classes at the university. He says that although he found his place in the world, he keeps being an outsider: He lives in a gentile society, he is a single, and is not interested in having a family. He works in City TV, where he produced several multicultural programs. He thinks he is being discriminated against in corporate life because of his personality. When he was an teenager he decided to be independent and not be inhibited by his parent' grief.