GIBEROVITCH, Myra : Contributions of Montreal Holocaust Survivor Organizations to Jewish Communal Life

Myra Giberovitch, M.S.W., P.S.W. is an educator, author, professional speaker and mentor. She is an expert on the tools and techniques of strength-based practice as it applies to trauma and recovery. Born in a displaced persons camp in Germany after the war, she is the daughter of Holocaust survivors from the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz who emigrated from Israel to Canada in the early 1950s, settling in Montreal. Over the course of research for her 1988 Social Work M.A. thesis on "The Contribution of Montreal Survivor Organizations to Jewish Communal Life" she interviewed the key participants in Canada's large community of Holocaust survivors. In the 1980s, Giberovitch started the first community-based social service program for Holocaust survivors in Canada and subsequently founded Services for Holocaust Survivors at the Cummings Centre in Montreal. She has worked with Holocaust Survivors as a social worker, therapist, group worker, community organizer, and researcher. Previously, she held lay positions at Canadian Jewish Congress where she chaired the National and Quebec Region Holocaust Remembrance Committees, including the Montreal community's Holocaust Commemoration Service. Myra is affiliated with the McGill University School of Social Work as an adjunct professor, sessional and guest lecturer, external field placement supervisor and field liaison. She is the author of _Recovering from Genocidal Trauma: An Information and Practice Guide for Working with Holocaust Survivors_ (University of Toronto Press, 2014) and has published articles and is an invited speaker at national and international conferences. She also gives presentations and conducts workshops for healthcare professionals, survivor families, laypersons, and students. She has sensitized thousands of people to the needs of survivors and offers practical responses that focus on resilience, challenges of ageing, and vulnerabilities related to traumatic experiences. (Primarily excerpted from http://myragiberovitch.com/biography/) The sound portion of the collection consists of 49 audio tapes, 1987-1990. There are transcripts of many of the interviews. The other textual records consist of background materials for her M.A. thesis, "The Contribution of Montreal Survivor Organizations to Jewish Communal Life" (McGill School of Social Work, 1988), with information on key participants from Canada's large community of Holocaust survivors. The collection includes issues of The Voice of Survivors (magazine), 1963, 1966 and Voice of Radom (magazine), 1980-1987.