Home

Chava Rosenfarb was one of the most important Yiddish novelists and writers of the second half of the twentieth century. Her primary subject was the Holocaust; she was a survivor of the Lodz ghetto, Auschwitz, and Bergen Belsen.
 
She was born in Lodz, Poland in 1923. When she was a child, her father encouraged her to write about her experiences and to think about being a writer. In 1939, when she was 16, the Nazis invaded Poland – and her life was changed forever.
 
She and her family were incarcerated, along with the rest of the Jewish population of Lodz in the Lodz ghetto. In the ghetto she wrote poems during those days of constant terror. She wrote about  the ongoing struggle to endure—writings she lost and later recreated from memory.
 
In 1944 when the Lodz ghetto was liquidated, Chava and her family were transported to Auschwitz and later to Bergen Belsen, before being liberated by British forces in 1945. After spending several years homeless and stateless in Europe, she came to Canada in 1950 and settled in Montreal.

That Bubble of Being DVD

World premier announcement @ League for Yiddish, Inc.

Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays

TheTree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto. Book III: The Cattlecars Are Waiting 1942-1944

Novel. In English. Trans. the author in collaboration with Goldie Morgentaler. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.

Of Lodz and Love

Novel. In English. Trans. the author. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2000.  
  This novel won for the author the John Glassco Prize...

The Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto. Book I: On the Brink if the Precipice, 1939.

Novel. In English. Trans. the author in collaboration with Goldie Morgentaler. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.

Dos lid fun dem yidishn kelner Abram [The Song of the Jewish Waiter Abram]

 Poetry. London: Moshe Oved, 1948.

Di balade fun nekhtikn vald [The Ballad of Yesterday's Forest]

 Poetry.
London: Moishe Oved, 1947. This was republished a year later as Di balade fun nekhtiken vald un andere lider [The Ballad of...

Exile at Last: Selected Poems

Exile at Last: Selected Poems. Trans. the author. Edited by Goldie Morgentaler. Toronto: Guernica Editions, 2013.

Der foigl fun geto [The Bird of the Ghetto]

Play. In Yiddish. Originally published by H. Morgentaler, 1958. Staged in Hebrew translation by Habimah, the Israeli National Theatre. Tel Aviv,...

Survivors: Seven Short Stories

Short Stories. Trans. Goldie Morgentaler. Toronto: Cormorant Books, 2004.
   Winner of the 2006 Fenia and...

Bociany

Novel. In English. Trans. the author. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2000. 
  This novel won for the author the John Glassco Prize...

Aroys fun gan-eydn [Out of Paradise]

 Poetry. Tel-Aviv: Peretz farlag, 1965.

The Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto. Book II: From the Depths I Call You 1940-1942

Novel. In English. Trans. the author in collaboration with Goldie Morgentaler. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2005.