Edith Gelbard was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1932.

She lived with her parents, sister, and grandmother. After the Germans annexed Austria in 1938, her family fled to Belgium and then to France. In 1942, her father was murdered in Auschwitz. Edith and her brother were hidden in an orphanage. She was liberated in 1945 and reunited with the rest of her family. After the war, she lived in Paris and immigrated to Canada in 1958.

When we met, she told me she was still mad at G-d, but maybe G-d wanted her to stay alive so she could sign this Torah.

With tears in her eyes, after we scribed a letter in the Torah, she told me “I feel my heart and home is blessed, we are old and are going somewhere, probably soon, this brings us faith and hope in these final years.”