Born May 15, 1913   |   Khashchevatoye (near Odessa), Russian Empire (now Ukraine)

Died February 22, 2004   |   Calgary, Canada

Manya told her many friends that Canada was the best country in the world and that living in Calgary was the happiest time of her life.

Manya’s parents ran a tiny store in Khashchevatoye. During the famine of 1932–1933, her father died and her mother took the children to Stalino (now Donetsk) where she hoped to find work. There, Manya met and married Michael Luker. Their firstborn son, Leonid, was born in 1937. In 1941, fear grew in the small Jewish community as the German army drew nearer and word of Nazi atrocities spread. Manya was nine months pregnant when she escaped on a train bound for Kazakhstan together with her mother, Michael’s parents and four-and-a-half-year-old Leonid. Red Army soldiers had previously boarded the train, dragging Michael—then recovering from previous injuries—back into military duty; he was later killed near Moscow. While still on the train, Manya gave birth to her second son, Yefim. In the village of Shemonaikha, Kazakhstan, the family endured hardship, living in a shack with a mud floor and no water or electricity. 

After Stalino was liberated, Manya’s family returned, but it took years for them to reclaim their home. Intelligent and hard-working, Manya supported and took care of her aging mother while rearing her sons to adulthood. As conditions worsened for Jews in Ukraine, the family took steps to immigrate to Canada and settle in Calgary, where Manya’s brother Isaac and his family had preceded them. After waiting two years for exit visas and another six months in Italy for immigration papers, Manya and her family arrived in Calgary in 1980. Thanks to Canada’s Family Reunification Program, they were joined a decade later by Manya’s granddaughter, her husband and their two children. Manya loved cooking, baking, camping and vacations in Radium, BC. Most of all, she cherished time spent with her grandchildren, whom she adored.