Bernice Wygodny
Wife, mother, bubie, refugee. Born on Aug. 1, 1922, in Makow Mazowiecki, Poland; died on March 15, 2015, in Toronto, of heart failure, aged 92.
Bryna, Bronia, Bronka, Auntie, Bernice – these were all the names that Bernice was known by over the years to her relatives and friends. Depending on where and when you met her, and who you were to her, one of those names would suit.
Although born into a humble environment in a small Polish town of 7,000 residents, about half of whom were Jews, Bronka Domb was educated in the manner befitting the daughter of a Torah scholar. By the time she was a young teen, the changes sweeping across Europe were swift and treacherous.
Shortly after the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, her parents decided that Bronka and her brother, Yossel, and his wife, Golda, should leave Poland quickly. They headed for the Russian border. Thus began her life on the run.
At a communal bathhouse in Moscow, Bronka was spotted by a handsome young man, Abe Wygodny, who had also fled Poland, leaving his family behind. Abe wanted to meet her and bribed her brother with a pair of pants to get an introduction. Soon after, the two 17-year-olds married.
In 1940-41, Stalin's government moved many of the Polish Jews to the eastern part of the Soviet Union. Abe and Bronka were sent to a refugee settlement in Kazakhstan, where their son Ben was born in 1945 (their first two children died in infancy). During this time, Abe was imprisoned twice in labour camps in Siberia.
In 1945, the couple left Kazakhstan to make their way back to Poland. With no money for train tickets, Abe attached "out of order" signs on the doors of the train washrooms so Bernice and baby Ben could hide within. When they learned that their families had perished in the Holocaust, Bernice and Abe felt they must continue on, to honour their loved ones.
Eventually they wound up in a refugee camp in Germany where their second son, Sam, was born in 1948. Anti-communist sentiment was pervasive at the time, so they were told to destroy papers showing they had lived and married in Russia. They remarried in Germany and then made their way to Israel.
In 1952, the family arrived in Toronto, where Abe found work as a carpenter and their third son, Martin, was born. Later Abe started a home repair service; aided by Bernice's business acumen – and the fact that she spoke six languages – the business grew into a construction company.
Their home was always open to friends and family, including her brother Yossel and his family, whom Bernice and Abe brought to Canada from Israel. Bernice would cook and bake up a storm for every holiday. Her traditional Shabbat meal started with chicken soup and ended with her sponge cake and a cup of tea.
While working closely with Abe, Bernice also focused on raising their three sons, whom she taught to cook, clean and sew. She was also a dedicated volunteer at Baycrest hospital. Later in life, she was devoted to her many grandchildren and a great-grandchild. She would never say no to them; after all, she would say, "What's a Bubie for?" or "It's a Bubie's pleasure."
Bernice was always unassuming and kind. She wore her fur coat only once, after realizing that not all of her friends could afford such a luxury. She wasn't even five feet tall, but her small stature belied her big heart, great strength and determination.
Susan Raymer is Bernice's daughter-in-law.