Marta Rose Eliasberg & Stefan Martin Heyman Legacy Fund
Marta Rose Eliasberg (1909-1998) and Stefan Martin Heyman (1908-1974) were Polish Jews who were born and grew up in Warsaw. Marta’s father was a doctor and both he and her mother were colleagues of Dr. Janusz Korczak and very active volunteer supporters of his orphanage, Dom Sierot. Stefan’s parents owned a bicycle store. They were also philanthropists and supporters of the Dom Sierot.
After graduating from university, Marta worked as an executive secretary and Stefan became a mechanical engineer. When the Nazis began their occupation of Poland in 1939 the lives of Jews were increasingly and obviously threatened. Stefan left for Lithuania believing he was joining a resistance (though this turned out to be a ruse to lure young Jewish men away from Poland). He communicated in coded letters to Marta who traveled to meet him despite intense questioning from Soviet military while enroute. With the assistance of the Japanese Consul Chiune Sugihara, and in defiance of his own government’s orders, they and thousands of other Jewish refugees received transit “visas for life” that allowed them to escape the Holocaust through Japan.
The fate of Stefan’s parents was never known for sure, but they can be assumed to have perished in the Warsaw Ghetto as victims of the Holocaust. Marta’s mother was smuggled from the Warsaw ghetto and survived to join and live with the family in Vancouver after the war. In Canada, Marta studied to be a social worker and Stefan became a volunteer trainer with the Canadian army and a factory machinist until his engineering credentials were recognized.
They brought their love of music, art and theatre with them and instilled this love in their children, Jane and George, as they regularly attended the Vancouver Symphony as season supporters and took their kids to live theatre. They lost no time becoming active in the Polish-Jewish refugee community and the community of their new home through charitable support and active participation in parent-teacher (now PAC) committees.
Marta and Stefan encouraged Jane and George to work hard, to learn and make their own decisions, to be politically engaged, to volunteer and give generously to others, and to acknowledge and resist prejudice and discrimination in all manifestations. In her later years, Marta was able to watch with love as her granddaughter Jessie grew and developed with these same values.
Marta and Stefan deeply appreciated the opportunities they received in Canada as Holocaust refugees, starting over with very little in a strange and new home. It is for all these reasons that this Legacy Fund is dedicated to supporting refugee settlement; efforts to alleviate poverty, housing and food insecurity; environmental and climate solutions; and the arts.