'Greener' and 'Gayler': relations between Holocaust survivors and Canadian Jews

With Holocaust survivors' arrival in Canada, and integration, connections to their European past became hazier. Two aspects set them apart: (a) suffering; (b) upbringing in interwar Europe. Collective memory emerged marked, for Canadian Jews, by an historical amnesia about the Jewish tragedy. For the majority, the only response was silence. While economic integration was achievable, social acceptance was less forthcoming. It was only in the 1960s that the erosion of Holocaust memory began, "refugees" came to be called survivors, and the legacy of the Holocaust entered the consciousness of the Canadian Jewish community.