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Henry Rosenbaum
- Accession Number
- 2017-2-13
- Source
- Archival Accessions
- Accession Number
- 2017-2-13
- Material Format
- graphic material
- textual record
- Physical Description
- ca. 150 photographs : b&w and col ; 21 x 27 cm or smaller
- 1 photograph : negative print on transparency
- 1 scrapbook
- 1 folder of textual records
- Date
- 1925-1996
- Scope and Content
- Accession consists of photographs documenting the family life of Henry and Bella Rosenbaum. Included are photos from Poland, Italy, Israel, and Canada. In addition, there is a scrapbook of photos prepared by their daughter Brenda on Henry and Bella's thirtieth wedding anniversary in 1976. In addition, there is a more comprehensive biography written by Henry and Bella's son-in-law Eric Bornstein.
- Administrative History
- Henry "Hanoch" Rosenbaum (1925-2015) was born in Radom, Poland. He was the seventh of eight children born to Rachel Rosenbaum (née Katz) and Moshe Rosenbaum. Henry learned the fate of his parents, two siblings and their families, after the war. All were innocent victims murdered during the Holocaust. Most of Radom's Jews were murdered in Treblinka following the August 1942 liquidation of its ghettos.
- Henry Rosenbaum met his Bella Rotbard (1925-2012) in Italy in the aftermath of the Second World War. Although Bella was also from Radom, she did not know the Rosenbaum family. Bella's parents, her sixteen-year-old sister and four-year-old brother along with most of her parents' extended families were murdered in the Holocaust.
- While in Italy, the Joint Distribution Committee funded 'mock' kibbutzim, preparing Holocaust survivors for immigration to Palestine and kibbutz life. Bella, a one-time member of the secular Jewish youth movement Hashomer Hatzair in Poland, believed that she was destined to be a kibbutznik. Henry would follow.
- Bella and Henry were part of the illegal immigration to Palestine in 1946 and spent their first few days in Atlit, a British Mandate detainee camp. Soon Bella settled on a kibbutz but soon after married Henry. In 1946, Bella and Henry married in their apartment in Ramat Gan. At the time, Henry was serving in the IDF’s motor pool. Finding the weather exasperating her migraine symptoms, Bella, Henry, and their toddler daughter Brenda (b. 1949) immigrated to Toronto in 1952.
- With the assistance of a relative, Henry gained employment in a print shop sweeping floors. Shortly thereafter, he advanced to machine operator and, in 1961, he opened his own print shop. Bella found employment in the garment industry sewing collars onto shirts and earning her wages by piece work. Bella stopped working when their son Murray (b. 1961) was born. Henry served as editor for the quarterly Yiddish and English journal the Voice of Radom and was an active life-long member of the Radom Society.
- Use Conditions
- Copyright is held by the Ontario Jewish Archives. Please contact the Archives to obtain permission prior to use.
- Subjects
- Families
- Name Access
- Expo 67 (Montréal, Québec)
- Rosenbaum, Henry, 1925-2015
- Places
- Canada
- Israel
- Italy
- Poland
- Source
- Archival Accessions