Andrew Tylman was born in November 1933, and he grew up in the town of Sochaczew, Poland. His early life took place in a largely Jewish milieu,and the family was prosperous, vacationing in Glowno and prominent in the community. The onset of the war changed the situation dramatically; as violence in his small town began to escalate, the family decided to seek safety in the larger nearby city of Warsaw. They ended up in the Warsaw Ghetto, where Andrew would spend much of the war, dealing with the deprivations that ghetto life entailed – hunger, disease, overcrowding, and mounting despair. Andrew recalls that conditions deteriorated when the deportations began, and he and family members began to go into hiding, often in very dire circumstances. Andrew’s father made the decision to secret him out of the ghetto at this point, and Andrew was separated from his parents and sent outside the walls while the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began. Both parents took part in that act of resistance, and Andrew’s mother was killed in the sewers. His father managed to escape, and Andrew and he would be reunited afterwards, when they met in the forests alongside the partisans. They spent much of the rest of the war in hiding, shuttling from one location to the next as they stayed outside the Nazis’ grip. When the Soviet army came, they were suddenly liberated and wondering where to go. Andrew’s father made the decision to return to Sochaczew, where they learned the fate of much of their family. They stayed in Poland for a time, but the Kielce Pogrom made Andrew’s father decide to send his son to France, and the family followed after a time, later deciding to emigrate to Canada, when the family settled in Toronto and started over.
Andrew Tylman visited Crestwood in December 2018, when he spoke to Mr. Birrell’s class and Georgia Gardner. We thank the Azrieli Foundation for their help in facilitating this.