EDITA GROSMAN

GROSMAN, EDITA (nee FRIEDMAN) Passed away on July 31, 2020, in Toronto, Canada. The 96-year-old Holocaust survivor was born in Humenne, Slovakia, on July 11, 1924. She was 17 when she and her sister, Lea, were taken with 999 other girls to Auschwitz, on March 25, 1942. Despite contracting TB, Edita survived almost three years in Auschwitz. Her sister did not. After the Holocaust, Edita returned to high school; she went on to receive an advanced science degree at Charles University in Prague. In 1949, she married author and screenwriter Ladislav Grosman, who won the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 1966 for "The Shop on Main Street." Two years later, when the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, the family escaped to Israel. As a vivacious 92-year-old, Edita attended the 75th Anniversary of the first transport ceremonies in Poprad, Slovakia, where she was the guest of honor. She often spoke publically about her experience and was the key source for a documentary film currently in production, and the book 999-The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz, published this year in 18 languages. Her message for the world was: "War serves no one." Edita is survived by her son, jazz musician George Grosman, granddaugthers Naomi Lea Grosman and Hannah Liba Murray, and great-grandchildren Elias Andrason and Atlas Murray. May her memory be a blessing to us all.