Local News
Leo Lowy’s story of survival centrepiece of annual remembrance program
By MYRON LOVE
Since the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) in 2005 designated January 27 – the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – as the date for the annual commemoration of the Holocaust, communities around the world have been planning events on or around that date to continue to raise awareness of the greatest evil of the 20th century and remember the victims.
The centerpiece of this year’s commemoration – in Winnipeg – of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – was the story of Holocaust survivor Leo Lowy. Roughly 500 people gathered at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights on the afternoon of Sunday, January 26, to hear his story.
As with many, if not most, Holocaust survivors, Lowy’s story – as related by his son, Richard, in Leo’s own words (he passed away in Vancouver in 2002) and a documentary – “Leo’s Journey” – begins with a happy childhood surrounded by a large extended Jewish family and friends – in his case in the town of Berehova, which was then located in Carpathia and is now part of Ukraine – an idyll that was shattered by the arrival of the Nazis (although in Hungary, which captured Berehova at the beginning of the war, the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross would be almost as brutal).
Lowy and his sister, Miriam, were saved from the ovens – the fate of the rest of their family – at Auschwitz in the summer of 1944 for the reason that they were twins – a particular interest of Dr. Josef Mengele – AKA “The Angel of Death” – who determined which of the Jews and others coming out of the boxcars would live and which would be sent right to the gas chambers.
In introducing his father’s story, Richard Lowy noted that, as with many Holocaust survivors, Leo was reluctant to talk about his experiences as a subject of the notorious Mengele. It was only in the late 1990s that Leo began talking about what happened to him and his sister.
In 2000, the Vancouver businessman was persuaded by his three sons, Richard and older brothers Gary and Stephen, to return to Europe and revisit Auschwitz, as well as his hometown. Richard Lowy’s documentary, “Leo’s Journey”, intersperses scenes from the family’s travels with interviews with two other Holocaust survivors – each of whom had a twin sister – and archival historical footage. The documentary was narrated by the distinguished Canadian actor Christopher Plummer.
I was somewhat surprised to learn from the documentary that the Germans actually had a trial run in performing medical experiments on unwilling living people. Pre World War I, Germany had colonies in Africa where thousands of Africans were rounded up, interned in concentration camps and subjected to medical experiments at the behest of German pharmaceutical companies. After the first World War, the German colonies in Africa came under British rule.
Also of note in the documentary was the role that eugenics played in Nazi thinking and the Final Solution. Eugenics was a popular scientific theory which called for forced sterilization of so-called weaker individuals – those with mental or physical handicaps, addictions or criteria based on race – in order to “improve the quality of the human species”.
Prior to the showing of the documentary, Lowy narrated his father’s story based on an interview that Leo gave to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington in 1985. In his father’s words, Richard Lowy described Leo’s early life in Berehova in a family of six children (he was the only boy). When the Hungarian cames in 1939, Leo had recalled, they were mainly interested in robbing the Jews.
He described how, in 1944, the Nazis shut up all the Jews in town in a brick factory for almost ten days, than loaded them into boxcars for the journey to Auschwitz. The then 15-year-old Lowy remembered the chaos and hollering when they arrived at Auschwitz, the presence of Mengele on the platform directing people to the left or right –to the gas chambers and death or to life, miserable as it may have been – and his and Miriam’s being separated from the rest of the family, put into a van with several other sets of Jewish twins, and driven to a hospital barracks.
“I was getting injections all over my body,” he recalled.
Some twins were operated on and, he recalls, one young male was castrated.
One time, he was taken into a room, put on a table and had his blood drained to transfuse a German soldier on the next table. “I was so weak after that I had to practically crawl back to the barracks.”
Lowy recalled teams of doctors, daily blood tests, being examined every day and being injected with various fluids. “It wasn’t painful, but it was scary,” he noted. “I had never even seen a doctor before.”
He recounted one time when he and his sister were personally examined by Mengele. “He was soft-spoken and trying to be pleasant, but I was so scared that I was shaking.”
Every morning, Lowy remembered, he would wake up in his barracks to find several others in the barracks had died overnight. ‘We would have to assemble for roll calls every morning with the corpses.”
On January 17, 1945, Lowy and all the rest of the surviving inmates of Auschwitz were assembled to be sent on a death march in the cold and the snow. “I knew I wouldn’t survive it,” he said.
He managed to hide in a basement with a few others for three days until liberated by the Americans.
He and Miriam came to Canada in 1948 as war orphans.
“My dad had been involved in Holocaust education in his later years,” noted Richard Lowy. “After he passed away, I felt that I had to continue his legacy of Holocaust education.”
The afternoon program also included: two selections from Zane Zalis’s oratorio, “I Believe”, sung by the Winnipeg Youth Chorus; remarks by Clint Curle, senior adviser to the president for stakeholder relations at the museum; and Belle Jarniewski, the executive director of the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada (which partnered with the CMHR). Financial support was also provided by the Azrieli Foundation.
Jarniewski, who is the child of Holocaust survivors, spoke of the “shocking reoccurence of antisemitic hate and violence” in the last few years – especially in western countries which Jews looked to after the war as safe havens.
On the positive side, more than 50 world leaders came to Auschwitz to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation and, a few days earlier, a group of Jewish and Muslim leaders, led by Muslim World League Secretary-General Mohammed bin Abdulkarim al-Issa, also paid a visit to Auschwitz.
“With the passage of time,” Jarniewski observed, “survivor memoirs and testimony will play an increasingly central role in the safeguarding of the historical record. It is our duty to ensure that their words are implemented into education on the Holocaust, human rights, and genocide awareness. “
As to the Angel of Death himself, Jarniewski noted that regrettably, he was never brought to justice. As with many other Nazis, he escaped to South America where he died in a drowning accident in Paraguay in 1979.
Local News
Newly announced Vivian Silver Centre for Shared Society to further former Winnipegger’s lifelong efforts to foster Jewish-Arab co-operation in Israel
By MYRON LOVE Vivian Silver (oleh Hashalom) devoted her life to working toward dialogue and collaboration between Arabs and Jews in Israel. The culmination of her efforts was the Arab-Jewish Center for Empowerment, Equality, and Cooperation – Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Economic Development (AJEEC-NISPED), which she co-founded 25 year ago with her sister peace activist, Dr. Amal Elsana Ahl’jooj.
Tragically, Vivian was of the 1,200 Israeli Jews, Bedouin and foreign farm workers who were slaughtered during the Hamas-led pogrom of October 7, 2023.
Last month, AJEEC-NISPED announced plans to create the Vivian Silver Center for Shared Society in her memory – a new national hub for Jewish-Israeli Arab collaboration and social innovation in Be’er Sheva – backed by an initial $1 million donation from UJA-Federation of New York, along with support from the Meyerhoff Foundation, the Gilbert Foundation, and other philanthropic partners committed to strengthening shared society in Israel.
“It’s a great honor and a beautiful gesture,” comments Vivian’s son, Yonatan Zeigen, “and I hope it will be a central building for civil society, both in the physical sense, that it will become a substantial home for the organization and for other initiatives that will use the spaced and also symbolically, as a beacon for this kind of work in the specific location in the Negev.”
As this writer noted n an article earlier this year in relation to the announcement of the launch of the Vivian Silver Impact Award by the New Israel Fund (NIF) – of which she was a long time board member, and which was developed in conjunction with her sons, Yonatan and Chen), Vivian made aliyah in 1974. She first went to Israel in 1968 – to spend her second year at university abroad at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, studying psychology and English literature.
In an article she wrote in 2018 in a publication called ”Women Wage Peace,” she related that during her final year at the University of Manitoba, she was among the founders of the Student Zionist Alliance on campus and was invited to its national conference in Montreal. There she met activists in the Habonim youth movement who planned on making aliyah and re-establishing Kibbutz Gezer. The day she wrote her last university exam, she boarded a flight to New York to join the group.
She spent three years in New York, where she became involved in Jewish and Zionist causes, including the launch of the Jewish feminist movement in America.
“It was a life-changing period,” she recalled. “I came to understood that in addition to being a kibbutz member, I was destined to be a social change and peace activist.”
Vivian and her group made aliyah in 1974 and settled on Kibbutz Gezer. In 1981, she established the Department Promoting Gender Equality in the Kibbutz Movement. She moved to Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border in 1990, along with her late husband, Lewis, and their two sons
In 1998, Vivian became the executive director of the Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Development in Beer Sheva, an NGO promoting human sustainable development, shared society between Jews and Arabs, and peace in the Middle East. Soon after, she was joined by Amal Elsana Alh’jooj as co-directors of AJEEC-NISPED, winning the 2011 Victor J. Goldberg Peace Prize of the Institute for International Education.
In the article she wrote for “Women Waging Peace,” she noted that “while we later focused on empowerment projects in the Bedouin community in the Negev, initially we worked with Palestinian organizations on joint people-to-people projects. I spent much time in Gaza until the outbreak of the second intifada. We continued working with organizations in the West Bank. I personally know so many Palestinians who yearn for peace no less than we do.”
According to a report in the Israeli newspaper Arutz Sheva, in the November 24th edition, the Vivian Silver Centre – which is expected to open in the spring – will be located within AJEEC-NISPED’s soon-to-open AJEEC House, and will provide a permanent home for programs that promote equality, leadership, and cooperation among Israel’s diverse communities.
“The Vivian Silver Center for Shared Society, within AJEEC’s headquarters, “the Arutz Sheva report noted, “will serve as a regional platform for dozens of Israeli Arab and Jewish social organizations. Through AJEEC’s educational, vocational, and leadership programs, the center will support thousands of young adults each year – offering mentorship, professional training, and opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration.
“These programs,” the report continued, “already reach more than 15,000 participants nationwide, helping young people integrate into higher education and meaningful employment while narrowing social and economic gaps.”
AJEEC House is located in Be’er Sheva’s Science Park, near Ben-Gurion University. The three-storey AJEEC House has been designed to foster cooperation and dialogue. It will host community partnerships, provide shared workspaces for social entrepreneurs, and serve as a hub for initiatives addressing social and economic development across the Negev and beyond.
Readers who may be interested considering a donation can dial into NISPED’s website – – for further information.
Local News
Stanley Schwartz- it’s a long way from Waterloo
By GERRY POSNER For Stanley Schwartz, it all began on Waterloo Street. For those who remember the 1950s and 60s – take yourself back to the south end of Winnipeg. Waterloo between Corydon and Fleet had enough Jewish families to form its own High Holiday congregation. That is to say, there were a whole bunch of Jewish families there. Not quite McAdam Avenue in the north end – but close enough. One such family was that of Harold and Faye Schwartz, along with their children: Anita, Ruth, and Stanley.
Stanley graduated from Kelvin High School. In fact, he played football for the Kelvin Clipper. In addition, he was a participant in typical Jewish teen activities at the time, particularly AZA. He had a wide network of friends, some of whom remain vital connections to this day. Remember, in those days, there were no cell phones, no internet, and barely the beginnings of TV. So, as a teenage boy, Stanley spent a lot of time with his buddies.
Stanley went on to the University of Manitoba from where he graduated law in 1967. That was Stanley’s first step into a career that lasted close to 50 years. His second big step was his decision to forgo an offer to become a partner in a well known and established law firm in Winnipeg, and instead, go out on his own in a shared space arrangement. The shared space arrangement lasted several years and, during that time, he also opened up an office in Morris, Manitoba. Morris was once home to several Jewish families, but not when Stanley moved there to live.
Along his way to practicing law, Stanley got married – to the former Shirley Hooper, a woman originally from England who had moved to Vancouver and whom Stanley met by chance in Hawaii. They were blessed with two children and now have five grandkids. But the family did not end up in Winnipeg. In what was a huge life changing decision at that time, Stanley and Shirley boldly packed up their belongings and moved to Vancouver. Now, some of the thinking that entered into this move might well have been Shirley’s lack of fondness for the Manitoba winters (even though she had formed close relationships with many people in Winnipeg at that time – relationships she still maintainsto this day). But Stanley was also open to a fresh start in a new place. That decision, looking back on it now in 2025, was a wise one for both Stanley and Shirley Schwartz. For starters, who knew that Vancouver would explode with an immigrant population and with it, a dramatic increase in the value of property, caused in part by non-residents buying up land and buildings in Vancouver? Aside from that, Stanley had a specialty in his practice of law that was a perfect fit for Vancouver’s growing population- family law.
For the entirety of his legal career, Stanley focused on matrimonial law in every aspect, not the least of which was litigation. As a former lawyer myself, let me say that if there is an area of law filled with tension, aggravation, and sadness, it surely must be the field of marriage, children and custody battles, access, division of assets and all that goes with those issues. You often are not just a lawyer, but also a psychologist, father confessor and a lot more. You really have to be able to be able to watch some of the worst in humanity. And you have to be ready to, as they say, “ go for the jugular.”
You may never have to do it, but you have to be ready. Stanley Schwartz was ( nd remains so this day, in my view) on the face of it, not a likely candidate to be thought of as aggressive.That is because he was then and still is now, a friendly guy who does not seem to be one cut out for courtroom battles. But clearly, he was able to be “ rough and tough” when he had to be. When I asked Stanley what advice he would give to somebody wanting to employ him in a family law situation, he was quite frank. His immediate response to these kinds of clients was: “If you want a war, the winners will be two people -the two lawyers. The losers will be your children ( f there are kids in the picture.”)
Stanley might still have been at it, but he had medical issues relating to his back over a period of many years. He has had three spinal surgeries, and none of them has really worked satisfactorily. Standing for periods of time was hard for Stanley. He says he knew it was time to give up his practice of law when one day in court six or seven years ago, while he was in argument, he leaned against the dais and the judge told him that it was ok for him to sit down and argue. That episode confirmed what he had thought for a while: time to call it a day and a career. So with two metal rods in his back and pain in his legs, Stanley retired.
Though no longer involved in the legal world, Stanley has managed, very easily he would add, to settle into his non working life with as much travel as he and Shirley are able to do. That travel includes trips back to Winnipeg, also Winnipeg Beach – where he spent much of his youth. His visits also include time with his sister, Anita Ruth Neville, a name not exactly unknown to Manitobans given her role as the 26th Lieutenant Governor for the Province of Manitoba. And, with one daughter in Toronto, Shirley and Stanley also make regular stops in that city to see his family there.
Not that long ago, Stanley stepped into the world of octogenarians. He is quick to say that getting old is not for sissies, but at the same time, he is one to embrace what each phase of his life has brought.
Local News
Farah Perelmuter – a former Winnipegger in the spotlight
By GERRY POSNER From the north end of Winnipeg, Garden City to be exact, comes yet another Winnipeg woman who has almost singlehandedly built a prosperous business in Toronto – almost out of the blue. And who is this Winnipeg woman? None other than Farah Perelmuter, bornFarah Vinsky, the oldest of Toby and Irv Vinsky’s three daughters.
Farah attended Talmud Torah and Joseph Wolinsky Collegiate, also spent a year at the University of Winnipeg Collegiate. Upon graduation from high school, Farah took a gap year in Toronto working in the modelling industry. During that year, she had a chance to visit Western University in London, Ontario. That visit inspired her to apply there and, after one year at the University of Winnipeg, she was off to Western. Interestingly, not that long ago, Farah served on the Western Alumni Board – a role she filled for six years.
As a teenager in Winnipeg, Farah indicated that she had an entrepreneurial gene, as evidenced by her creating what was a “ self development “ program for teenage girls. When she started that program, Farah was all of 16 and was already working in her spare time in a modelling agency. When she came to Toronto after her graduation from university, she began working at a marketing agency, but the desire to be her own boss was so strong that, in 1995, Farah, along with her husband, Martin Perelmuter, started a business known as “ Speakers Spotlight.”
The business’s purpose was to bring prominent speakers to address audiences at locations all over the world. The couple initiated the business right from the spare bedroom in their apartment – with only one phone and one computer. Worse than that, Farah and her husband had no clients, no experience, no staff and, of course – no money. What they had was a clear vision. That vision was to put the right speaker in front of the right audience and, if they could do that, the impact would be significant and lasting. They also had so little business experience that they tried out different ways of doing things in their business and were not afraid to be innovative. That willingness to create and change likely propelled them speedily into the forefront in their field. As proof of their standing in the industry, Farah and Martin were selected twice as Entrepreneurs of the Year by Ernst and Young.
From that modest beginning emerged what is today called “ Speakers Spotlight,” a business that has grown into one of the world’s largest and indeed most respected speakers’ agencies. Farah and Martin have developed a team of people working for and with them (now up to 35 people, who work both in and out of the office) and, as well, they have created an incredible roster of extraordinary speakers. Their list of speakers includes people with deep experience in their respective fields. That combination of prominent speakers and a loyal, dedicated group of people putting the speakers on to platforms has allowed “Speakers Spotlight” to raise the bar of professional service and integrity within the industry. Would you believe 40,000 speaking engagements over 50 countries are now part of the history of a business that started in Farah’s spare bedroom? Just the list of names who have participated with Speakers Spotlight is staggering. Google Speakers Spotlight and I promise you will be overwhelmed, both by the quantity and quality.
Along the way, the company has received numerous awards and accolades. Most importantly, they have, through the various people that have been involved as speakers, helped to plant the seeds for people in the audience to make changes, alter plans and to inspire them to go forward. Sometimes, it’s as little as hearing the right person tell a story that can affect one person and from there, big things often develop. For Farah, that is what keeps her excited about her business.
In 2017, the couple started another business related to the first one, called “ The Spotlight Agency.” This company connects celebrity talent with opportunities all over the world. The talent comes from every area of life including the fields of entertainment, sports, food, decor and more. What the Spotlight Agency does is to unite these personalities to a brand of partnerships, with digital and creator content,TV, streaming, podcasts and publishing.
Even with the real success of Farah’s business ventures, what pushes her are her two children, Jade and Cole, both now in their 20s, and forging their own trails. As well, Farah appreciates from whence she came and she looks forward to what lies ahead. She treasures her return trips to Winnipeg to see her parents, relatives and indeed, old friends. So much is Farah Perelmuter a true Winnipgger that she still roots for the Winnipeg Jets, especially when they play the Toronto Maple Leafs. So, let the spotlight shine on Farah Vinsky Perelmuter.