About me

My body was born in Toronto, my soul in Poland. And although we lived at 112 Robert Street, in Toronto, in Canada, our home was, to all intents and purposes, in Poland. My parents and two older siblings lived in that home, together with my paternal grandparents, neither of whom spoke English. And so, for the first two years of my life, I lived the life of a Polish Jewish child, surrounded and cosseted by adults who had in fact spent most of their lives in Poland, were essentially Polish, not at all Canadian, Jews. No wonder, even as we moved into our own anglophone home, and world,  not far away, that Poland, the Poland of our Diapora, was stapled into my brain, my fears, my libido, my dreams, my sense of humour. And, just as my parents had freely partaken of Polish culture - the best of it the 19th century part of it the romantic part of it, the Sienkiewicz, the Mickiewicz, part of it - so did I. And then, very soon, while the war raged on, far away in fact, but very close in feeling, I taught myself to be a victim, but yet, one who had escaped, and one who carried the guilt of escape with him. Granted, the immediate family of both of my parents escaped the Holocaust. The Zysmans, the venturers, the entrepreneurs, shipped themselves off to the goldene medina – America - and its younger brother Canada, where we ended up when America's welcome mat was pulled by the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act. Mother’s siblings, the dreamers, the socialists, the halutzim, left for Palestine. They brought their parents with them, they became shepherds and farmers. 

What is the connection between me now, almost 80 years on, and Simon the toddler, who was slowly understanding and studying the virus of naziism that had annihilated almost all the rest of his family? I think now I understand,- now as I take up arms against another virus - that this is the link, this is the source of my commitment - the guilt that I have always felt for being a bystander, sheltered from the Holocaust...

And what an honour, in my old age, to resemble Albert so remarkably, to stand next to a picture of him - another one who escaped the virus of Nazism! But what a one! The universal symbol oft truth, logic and science - denied by the Nazis.. Truth, logic and science - now denied again,  in our time by others, In the face of covid-19. I am fighting their denial in this store.

Will this staunch my guilt? No. But if I do it right, and stay the course, I'll help protect not just my community. I'll help protect our entire species. Because the products I offer here in North America, I will go on to offer in many languages, on every continent.

The profit from what you purchase here today will help me on my way; I have a long way to go.

So....show where you stand,

and show who's standing with you!

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my LinkedIn profile:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonzysman

my enterprise world:

wordpress.logipedic.com

my blog on the subject of recycling and scavenging:

http://recoverusa.blogspot.ca/?m=1