{"id":49154,"date":"2018-06-13T14:50:52","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T18:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=49154"},"modified":"2025-09-30T11:31:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T15:31:18","slug":"jeanne-beker-holocaust-survivors-daughter","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/jeanne-beker-holocaust-survivors-daughter\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeanne Beker: Holocaust Survivors\u2019 Daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Jeanne Beker: Holocaust Survivors\u2019 Daughter\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Jeanne Beker is many things \u2014 Canadian media personality, successful fashion entrepreneur, a member of the Order of Canada \u2014 but the title she wears proudest is daughter of Holocaust survivors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs I got older, I realized I had a great responsibility,\u201d Beker told an audience at Carleton University on June 11. \u201cIt was up to me to live not just a good life or a great life. I had to live a fantabulous<\/em> life, so my parents would live vicariously through me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 200 people turned out to hear the fashion maven discuss the legacies of her parents, Bronia and Joseph Beker, with the Azrieli Foundation<\/a>\u2019s Jody Spiegel. The event was hosted by the foundation in co-operation with the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship<\/a> (CHES) under Carleton\u2019s Max and Tessie Zelikovitz Centre for Jewish Studies.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beker read from her parents\u2019 survivor memoir Joy Runs Deeper<\/em>, a poignant portrait of courage in the face of devastating adversity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese stories have an important role to play in education about tolerance and diversity, and each story is unique and special and must be shared,\u201d said Spiegel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Azrieli Foundation aims to improve the lives of present and future generations through education, research, health-care research and the arts in Canada and Israel. It preserves and shares memoirs written by Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Canada after the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The late David J. Azrieli, a Canadian-Israeli real estate mogul and philanthropist, experienced relief while writing a memoir of surviving World War II. He committed to offer others the same catharsis and, since its inception, the Azrieli Series of Holocaust Survivor Memoirs has published more than 80 first-person accounts in French and English, with more than 100 to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Azrieli Foundation has been kind of a godsend to me and my family,\u201d said Beker. \u201cThis was such a dream, for my mom especially, to one day have a book published.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Joy Runs Deeper<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Joy Runs Deeper<\/em> came out months before her mother passed away in 2014, one of the Polish-born Bronia\u2019s proudest moments. Beker read excerpts describing her mother\u2019s idyllic hometown nestled among Poland\u2019s fields of corn and wheat, its colourful cast of neighbours and family members, and the darkness that swept over it when Nazis soldiers invaded in 1941.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn July 21, a beautiful sunny day in 1944, I found myself sitting in the ruins of our house, crying bitterly,\u201d begins the book. \u201cThe little town of Kozowa, where I was born on December 9, 1920, had been destroyed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That bitterness, said Beker, did not persist, thanks in large part to her father Joseph\u2019s lifelong motto: Don\u2019t be afraid and never give up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy dad was incredibly tenacious,\u201d said Beker. \u201cHis motto is what got them through the war.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joseph saved Bronia and himself from the Nazi genocide, kept them safe as they made their way to displaced persons camps in Austria, and finally immigrated them to Canada in 1948. Joseph died in 1988 but first drafted a memoir of the war by hand in Yiddish, to which Bronia added her experiences in English on a typewriter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUltimately, both my parents taught us the meaning of courage and dignity and the necessity of forging ahead no matter what,\u201d said Beker, also crediting her parents\u2019 work ethic and talents for her own successes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy dad started this little slipper factory . . .  and he worked \u2014 I kid you not \u2014 seven days a week, 12 hours a day,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Resiliency and an Instinct for Survival<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Growing up under the shadow of the Holocaust was often challenging for the young Jeanne but, as she wrote in her introduction to her parents\u2019 book, she came to realize the stories of horror and pain instilled in her a resiliency and an instinct for survival. These kinds of stories needed to persist for the future generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChildren of Holocaust survivors share many experiences regardless of where they were growing up,\u201d said CHES Director Mina Cohn, also a descendant of survivors. She said Beker\u2019s words transported her back to her own childhood in Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we were young, it was too difficult for us to hear our parents\u2019 stories,\u201d Cohn said in introductory remarks. \u201cToday, we\u2019re looking for a way to share these stories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reality, said Cohn, is that the children and the grandchildren of survivors are stepping up, eager to tell their parents\u2019 and grandparents\u2019 stories in new, artistic and inspiring ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMs. Beker embodies this new reality.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeanne Beker is many things \u2014 Canadian media personality, successful fashion entrepreneur, a member of the Order of Canada \u2014 but the title she wears proudest is daughter of Holocaust survivors. \u201cAs I got older, I realized I had a great responsibility,\u201d Beker told an audience at Carleton University on June 11. \u201cIt was up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":49161,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[28],"cu_story_tag":[],"class_list":["post-49154","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-community-partnerships"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/49154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/49154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98119,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/49154\/revisions\/98119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=49154"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=49154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}