Cultural Program: ‘I Am Still There’: The Holocaust in the Fiction and Memoirs of Chava Rosenfarb

Chava Rosenfarb was one of the great chroniclers of the Holocaust in Poland, who is little known outside Yiddish-language circles because she wrote primarily in Yiddish. While some of her novels and stories have been translated into English, such as the epic three-volume The Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto, not all of her works have been translated. This presentation by her daughter and translator offers an overview of Rosenfarb’s life and work by way of introducing this important Jewish writer to an audience that may be unfamiliar with her work. The talk will provides an overview of the novelist’s life and her experiences during the Holocaust before discussing her fiction, including the trilogy, The Tree of Life, and her recently published book of essays, Confessions of a Yiddish Writer.

Goldie Morgentaler is Professor of English at the University of Lethbridge. She is the translator from Yiddish to English of much of Chava Rosenfarb’s work including Rosenfarb’s seminal Holocaust novel, The Tree of Life: A Trilogy of Life in the Lodz Ghetto. Her translation of Rosenfarb’s book of short stories, Survivors: Seven Short Stories won a Canadian Jewish Book Award as well as the Modern Language Association’s Memorial Prize in Yiddish Studies. She is also the editor and translator of Rosenfarb's book of essays called Confessions of a Yiddish Writer and Other Essays, published by McGill-Queens University Press in 2019. This collection won a 2019 Canadian Jewish Literary Award and a 2020 Segal Award for Translation.