Each year at our annual general meeting, the Vancouver Holocaust Centre Society for Education and Remembrance presents Life Fellow Awards to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to Holocaust education and remembrance.

This year, we’re proud to honour two outstanding recipients: Sidi Schaffer and Keith Morgan. Their work and personal journeys continue to inspire and deepen understanding of Holocaust history in our community and beyond.

Sidi Schaffer

Sidi Schaffer is a Holocaust survivor and talented artist whose life and work are powerful testaments to resilience and remembrance.

Born in northern Romania, Sidi was just a child when she and her family were forced into the Czernowitz ghetto in 1940, and later deported to the Djurin concentration camp in what’s now Ukraine. They endured unimaginable hardship for four years before returning to Romania in 1945. Sidi later moved to Israel, where she earned her degree in art education, and eventually settled in Canada with her husband David and their three sons.

After completing a bachelor of fine arts at the University of Alberta, Sidi continued to use art as a way of processing and sharing her experience. Her piece Earth Don’t Cover Their Blood (featured in the VHEC’s 1998 Gesher Project) remains a moving tribute to those lost—and a powerful educational tool.

Sidi continues to share her story and use her art to bear witness as a long-time member of the VHEC’s Child Survivor Group. We’re proud to recognize her with this Life Fellow Award.

Keith Morgan

Journalist and author Keith Morgan has dedicated his work to preserving Holocaust memory.

Born in Blackpool, England in 1954, Morgan is a best-selling author and award-winning journalist. He moved to Vancouver in 1980 where he became a columnist on cars and motoring for the Province and Sun newspapers.

In 1997 Keith wrote a newspaper feature about Ruth Kron Sigal and her community impact. Moved by Ruth’s family story and motivated by his own limited knowledge of the Holocaust in the Baltics, Keith collaborated with Ruth, the eldest daughter of Meyer and Gita Kron, on her memoir, Ruta’s Closet (Shavl Publishing, 2008), about the murder of 200,000 Lithuanian Jews during the Holocaust and the Kron Sigal family’s survival during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania.

Keith worked on Ruta’s Closet while working as a journalist—researching daily, conducting interviews and using his holidays to travel across Europe, Israel and North America.

Since its publication in 2008, Ruta’s Closet has become a vital educational resource. According to historian Sir Martin Gilbert, it is “…one of the finest Holocaust memoirs.”

The VHEC Board of Directors is honoured to recognize Keith Morgan with this Life Fellow Award.

With Gratitude

To both Sidi and Keith—thank you. Your stories, your work, and your ongoing commitment help ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust are never forgotten.