Chava Rosenfarb

Chava Rosenfarb
Cover of exile at last (2013) by Chava Rosenfarb
Born	(1923-02-09)February 9, 1923 Łódź, Poland
Died	January 30, 2011(2011-01-30) (aged 87) Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation	Author, poet
Spouse(s)	Henry Morgentaler (m. 1945–75)

Chava Rosenfarb (9 February 1923 – 30 January 2011) (Polish: Chawa Rosenfarb, Yiddish: חוה ראָזענפֿאַרב ‎); was a Holocaust survivor and Jewish-Canadian author of Yiddish poetry and novels, a major contributor to post-World War II Yiddish Literature. Rosenfarb began writing poetry at the age of eight.

After surviving the Łódź Ghetto during the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany, Rosenfarb was deported to Auschwitz, and then sent with other women to a work camp at Sasel (subcamp of Neuengamme concentration camp), where she built houses for the bombed out Germans of Hamburg. Towards the end of war she was sent to Bergen-Belsen, where she fell ill with nearly-fatal typhus fever in April 1945. After the end of the war, while still in Europe, Rosenfarb married the future nationally-famous Canadian abortion activist Dr. Henry Morgentaler (the two divorced in 1975). In 1950, she and Morgentaler emigrated to Canada. Morgentaler and Rosenfarb, pregnant with Goldie, their daughter, emigrated from Europe to Canada, landing in Montréal in the winter of 1950, to a reception of Yiddish writers at Windsor Station.

Rosenfarb continued to write in Yiddish. She published three volumes of poetry between 1947 and 1965. In 1972, she published what is considered to be her masterpiece, Der boim fun lebn (דער בוים פֿון לעבן), a three-volume novel detailing her experiences in the Łódź Ghetto, which appeared in English translation as The Tree of Life. Her other novels are Botshani (באָטשאַני), a prequel to The Tree of Life, which was issued in English as two volumes, Bociany (meaning Storks in the Polish language) and Of Lodz and Love; and Briv tsu Abrashen (בריוו צו אבראשען), or Letters to Abrasha (not yet translated).