Izydore Mesner and Mila Sandberg Mesner collection

Physical Description: Env. 0.001 metres of textual records. - 8 photographs. - 5 books.

Scope and Content: The documents from 1936-1949, pertain to Isydor (Izu) Mesner's wartime and immediate postwar experiences in Poland, Siberia and France. There are 8 photographs of Izu's family pre-war, includung Izu aged 3 with his parents in 1923, school and Hashomer Hatzair youth group in Poland 1937 or 1938, sis…

Physical Description: Env. 0.001 metres of textual records. - 8 photographs. - 5 books.

Scope and Content: The documents from 1936-1949, pertain to Isydor (Izu) Mesner's wartime and immediate postwar experiences in Poland, Siberia and France. There are 8 photographs of Izu's family pre-war, includung Izu aged 3 with his parents in 1923, school and Hashomer Hatzair youth group in Poland 1937 or 1938, sister Cyla, a post war memorial in Katowice, Poland (colour photograph) and a photo of his wife Mila Sandberg Mesner with the 1980 Nobel-prize winning Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, taken in 1967 at Expo '67. Also 4 books by Mila Sandberg Mesner: in English (Light From The Shadows), English and Ukrainian (By the Ways of My Youth), German (a translation of Light From the Shadows) and Polish (a translation of By the Ways of My Youth.) The addition in 2023 is a colour-illustrated spiral bound privately printed document, 58 pages, titled 'Mila Sandberg-Mesner: Holocaust survivor, author, speaker, humanist - a collection of articles and occasional speeches.' Printed in Montreal in 2023, coordinated by Hania Fedorowicz and also involving Sacha Marie Levay and Krytyna Skolowska.

History / Biographical: Born in 1920 in Przemysl, Poland, near the Russian border, Izydor Mesner left Poland soon after the war started, eventually taking refuge in Russia, where he worked as a kindergarten administrator. After the war he was expelled from Poland and went to Trier, France, where his sister Cyla was married to a government official. He immigrated to Canada after 1949. His wife Mila Sandberg came to Canada after the war and first worked in the textile and asbestus industries before becoming a bookkeeper and later collections manager at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, where she stayed for 35 years, until her retirement. The memoirs she published of her pre-war and wartime experiences have been translated into three languages.

Custodial History: The documents, photographs and books donated in 2019 were given to the Archives by Izydore Mesner.The 2023 addition was brought to the Archives by Reuben Shultz.