Chava Kwinta (1930–2016)

Chava Kwinta was born to a Jewish family in Sosnowiec, Poland. She survived the Nazi concentration camps of Wienergraben, Gross-Rosen, and Bergen-Belsen, along with her sister and aunts. After World War II, she moved to Sweden for rehabilitation and then smuggled herself into the British Mandate of Palestine. There she resumed her formal education and trained as a nurse. At age 21, she married Mike Kwinta, with whom she had three daughters. In 1963, they moved to Canada to be closer to family and settled in Toronto. She worked as a registered nurse and also attended night school to become a Jewish history teacher. She was one of the first Holocaust survivors in Canada to tell their story with the publication of her memoir I'm Still Living in 1974. She made guest appearances on television talk shows and spoke about the Holocaust at many schools.