Fotografía de autor
2 Obras 25 Miembros 1 Reseña

Obras de Maxwell Smart

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Fecha de nacimiento
1930
Género
male
Nacionalidad
Poland (birth)
Canada
Lugar de nacimiento
Prague, Czechoslovakia
Lugares de residencia
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Buczacz, Poland
Ocupaciones
painter
art gallery owner
memoirist
Holocaust survivor
Biografía breve
Maxwell Smart was born Oziac Fromm to a Jewish family in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He grew up in Buczacz, Poland (present-day Ukraine), with his parents and younger sister, Zonia. His parents, both from large families, had dozens of extended familu members living nearby. In 1939, the town was occupied first by the Soviets and then by the Nazis at the start of World War II. The Jews of Buczacz were confined to a ghetto.
The Nazis and their collaborators began to commit atrocities against the Jews of the town. One day, Maxwell's father and approximately 350 other Jewish men were rounded up for what they believed to be forced labor, but instead they were murdered at a mass grave. Maxwell displayed his entrepreneurial spirit by devising new ways to obtain extra food and favors.

One day, Maxwell and his family were caught during a roundup and taken to detention. The next day, the Jews in jail were brought to trucks waiting to transport them to an unknown destination. Maxwell’s mother, determined to ensure that Maxwell survived, told him to run away. This was the last time he would ever see his mother and sister.

Maxwell's aunt arranged for him to hide with a Christian family in the countryside. Maxwell lived with Jasko Rudnickis, his wife Kasja, and their two children.
When Ukrainian police in the area suspected that Jasko was hiding Jews in his home, they conducted a search, while Maxwell, jn his role as a Polish boy, hidden in plain sight. Jasko realized how close they had come to discovey, and told Maxwell he must find somewhere else to stay.
Maxwell lived in the forest, sleeping in crude bunkers cut into the earth, eating mushrooms off old trees where he could find them and grass when he could not, and hiding from the gangs patrolling the woods on behalf of the Nazis.

His friends in the forest gradually disappeared, presumably caught by collaborators, leaving Maxwell all alone.
One day, Maxwell met a young boy named Janek, whose family has been captured. He and Maxwell became companions, reducing the loneliness of both.
Janek died of disease or exposure shortly before the end of the war. Fifteen-year-old Maxwell stayed in the Bindermichl displaced persons camp in Austria for two years. His dream was to go to Canada. At first he was refused an entry visa, but the Canadian Jewish Congress later arranged for his visa as a part of the War Orphans Project, and he finally arrived in 1948. He settled in Montreal, where he became a successful painter, opening his own art gallery in 2006. He married Helen. and they had two children. After Helen died in 1984, Maxwell remarried to Tina and welcomed her son Anthony into his family. His memoir, originally entitled Chaos to Canvas (2018), was published in a new edition as The Boy in the Woods: A True Story of Survival in the Second World War in 2022 by the Azrieli Foundation's Holocaust Survivor Memories Program.

Miembros

Reseñas

Maxwell Smart tenía solo once años cuando toda su familia fue asesinada. Pudo haber muerto también, pero su madre le ordenó salvares. Huyó al bosque, cavó un hoyo para refugiarse y buscó comida en las granjas cercanas. Con la ropa hecha harapos y al borde de la inanición, escapó repetidamente de la muerte a manos de los nazis. Después de meses en soledad, Maxwell se encontró con otro niño que deambulaba por el bosque en busca de comida. Janek, al igual que Maxwell, era huérfano y los dos se hicieron amigos. Juntos, excavaron un refugio en el suelo para sobrevivir al invierno. Un día, después de que ocurrera una masacre en las cercanías, los niños descubrieron a una bebé, aún viva, en los brazos de su madre muerta. Maxwell y Janek la rescataron, pero el costo de hacerlo fue muy grande.… (más)
 
Denunciada
Natt90 | Dec 19, 2023 |

Listas

Estadísticas

Obras
2
Miembros
25
Popularidad
#508,561
Valoración
4.1
Reseñas
1
ISBNs
5