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home / 世界杯决赛2022

holocaust survivor reminds us of the will to live, the need to celebrate

thadeusz (ted) brandt, 102, was able to witness his grandson’s wedding in montreal last weekend. his will to survive made the day possible.

by the montreal gazette

aug 14 2020
read time 3 minute read
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holocaust survivor reminds us of the will to live, the need to celebrate
thadeusz (ted) brandt was well protected at his grandson’s wedding. his story offers an extraordinary example of resilience and hope in turbulent times. courtesy of jack jedwab
at 102 years of age, thadeusz (ted) brandt was wheeled down the aisle at the marriage of his grandson brian and tamara on sunday. the state of ted’s health is such that he isn’t fully aware of the presence of the coronavirus. he has spent the last two years in a montreal senior care facility, where thankfully there were almost no cases of covid-19.
ted is a survivor of the majdanek, auschwitz and buchenwald concentration camps; the unimaginable ordeals he overcame offer all of us an extraordinary example of resilience and hope. he is a true source of inspiration in these challenging days.
a polish jew, ted was randomly arrested in 1943 in warsaw and shipped to majdanek. most of the prisoners there were very weak or ill from enduring routine violence and starvation. it is estimated that 60,000 jews died at the camp.
many of the inmates at majdanek were forcibly marched in the snow to railway stations and then transported without food, water or shelter to other camps. ted was among those who survived a perilous journey, and he ended up in the auschwitz death camp in 1944. toward the end of the year, with the russian army approaching the camp, some of the healthier prisoners were shipped to the buchenwald camp, with ted ultimately among them. it was there that he was finally liberated in 1945.
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after escaping death, ted began the postwar challenge of reconstructing his life. he returned to warsaw and, with the help of that city’s jewish community and of family members in north america, he envisioned a move to canada. despite canada’s very unfortunate rejection of wartime jewish refugees, the situation changed and in 1947 the government gave permission for 1,000 jewish war orphans to come to the country. the following year, ted made the journey to his new home in montreal. it was here he started a family with his wife, anne (price) brandt, welcoming his two daughters, elaine and cindy, and eventually grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
brian and tamara dreamed of having a big wedding, with many family members and friends. they dreamed of having zaida (grandpa) ted in attendance. they got the latter wish. the coronavirus made a big wedding very unlikely. they already postponed a wedding date in early july, in the hope that the pandemic might not still be upon us by the fall and a large gathering might again become possible. but as this became increasingly uncertain, brian and tamara decided to go for a smaller outdoor gathering with social distancing, masks for all the guests and an abundance of hand sanitizer. they well understood that it was critical to put everyone’s safety first. the vast majority of participants in montreal and elsewhere ended up watching the proceedings on zoom.
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brian and tamara’s outdoor ceremony was spectacular. zaida ted proudly observed his grandson’s wedding, and in doing so paid tribute to the family that cares so dearly about him. it was a great personal triumph for zaida ted, 75 years after he was liberated from the death camps in europe. his will to survive made the day possible. his presence at the wedding served as a reminder to us all of the importance of the celebration of life in these turbulent times.
perhaps it wasn’t the dream wedding they envisioned pre-covid, but as they danced together under the stars, it was very clear that brian hofman got the woman of his dreams and my beautiful daughter tamara jedwab got the man of hers. i couldn’t be more proud of them.

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