Archief jhse-134 - Abraham Goldberg fonds

Abraham Goldberg was the last of four children born to Hendel (Pytel) and Aharon Goldberg in 1922 in Lodz, Poland. Abraham's grandfather, Abraham Pytel was a successful businessman. Aharon was an ardent Zionist who moved with his family from Poland to Israel in 1925, when Abraham was two years old. Aharon was murdered in 1929 and Abraham's mother Hendel moved back to Lodz with Abraham; a year later his older brother David also returned to Lodz. Abraham's sisters Bella and Yona remained in Israel. The Jews of Lodz were herded into the infamous Lodz ghetto in January 1940. Abraham fled on February 29th, 1940. Hendel perished in the Nazi concentration camp Majdanek in 1942, after ending up in the Warsaw ghetto in 1941. Abraham survived by fleeing into Russia where he was imprisoned by the Soviet government. His brother David spent the war in France. Abraham was eventually released from the gulag and worked in the Soviet Union until the end of the war. Abraham met his wife Hannah (Burstein) while working in Stalinabad. At the end of the war Abraham and Hannah ended up in a displaced persons camp in Germany. They went south to a refugee collection point in Sete, on the Mediterranean coast of France, with their 18 month-old son. On July 9, 1947 the ship "President Warfield" sailed into Sete, flying a Honduran flag. Abraham, Hannah and their son boarded with false Costa Rican passports. The Jewish underground organized the trip, reusing the 2000 passports for the 4, 500 passengers. Shadowed by the H.M.S. Mermaid naval sloop, a British Lancaster bomber overhead, a pair of British minesweepers, the H.M.S. Ajax, three more destroyers, and a frigate, the "Warfield" changed its name to "Exodus 1947." British sailors and marines boarded the ship and captured it after a two-hour battle. The refugees, including Hannah, Abraham and their son Aharon were marched onto a pier at Haifa and then transferred to British prison ships, to be returned to Germany. Abraham and Hanna's second son, Hillel, was born August 29, 1947 on a ship in the Atlantic returning to Hamburg. Abraham and Hanna and their sons made it to Israel as legitimate Jewish refugees on August 14, 1948. In Israel, Abraham worked with the Ford Motor Company, Shell Oil and served as secretary of the then Liberal party's Haifa branch. After 18 years in Israel, they emigrated to Canada in 1966 to help out relatives in Winnipeg. They moved to Edmonton in 1970. Abraham and his partners, the Baums and the Millers acquired the Royal Hotel in Edmonton. Abraham was involved in both the Canadian Zionist Federation and the Canada Israel Committee. He was an ongoing contributor to the Edmonton Journal's "letters to the editor" to set the record straight about Israel and Jewish affairs in the media. Abraham is involved extensively in the Jewish community and the general community. He is a member of the Beth Israel synagogue, served on the board of the Jewish Federation, as well as being a member of the CZF, CIC and a male life associate member of Canadian Hadassah-WIZO. He is an active member of the Holocaust Education Committee, traveling throughout Alberta lecturing and teaching. Abraham was the Honouree of the Negev Dinner in 2000. Abraham and Hannah Goldberg have three sons: Aharon, Ilan and Hillel.