name:"Cohen, Matla" found 1 record - The Canadian Jewish Heritage Network

Notes: Matla Cohen was born November 15th, 1934 in Mezrich, Poland. She comes from a family of six that include two sisters and one twin brother. The pre-war period is somewhat unfamiliar to her due to her very young age, but her first real awareness of the war was when she and her family had to hide out in the garden after areas around her home were bombarded. In 1939-40, she and her family had been relocated to Vitebsk, Belarus. Her parents worked in a factory and she was in a nursery with her brother. Once more, they were forcefully relocated to a labour camp in Siberia. Her parents worked early and returned at night, while Matla was placed in a barrack and became caretaker of her siblings. She recalls her time there as being: “very difficult”. Ultimately, her family escaped the barrack as her father bribed a commandant with the prospect of a tailored suit. They finally got to an area in the Caucasus Mountains where they lived until the war ended. After the war, they returned back to Poland. They lived there for a month where the Madrichim approached their parents in hopes of sending Anne to Israel. She was separated from her family and sent to a DP camp in Berlin, awaiting the transport to Israel. In the end, that never took place as she jumped from camp to camp until a French Canadian woman in one of them suggested that she move to Montreal; a suggestion she followed in 1948. In Canada, she was adopted by a local family in Ste. Agathe and lived there until she attended college at the age of 18 in Montreal. She would visit her family in Ste. Agathe most weekends, and that is where she met her first husband; a marriage which lasted ten years. A few years later she met her second husband, Benjamin, to whom she is still married. She has five children.

Accession No.: WTH-448

Name Access: Cohen, Matla

Places: Mezrich, Poland, Europe

Archival / Genealogical: Archival Descriptions

Repository: Montreal Holocaust Museum

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Cohen, Matla - Oral History of a Holocaust Survivor

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