Born February 10, 1925   |   Krakow, Poland  

Died November 1, 2013   |   Calgary, Canada

Many, many years before the happiness movement arose, Norman told his children that all he wanted for their lives was that they should be happy.

Norman was the youngest of four children born to Lola and Josef Cuckierman, the religiously observant owners of a successful clothing factory that made uniforms for the Polish army in addition to other goods. When the Nazis occupied Poland, Norman bravely escaped into the countryside. Eventually apprehended, he spent the remainder of the war in concentration camps, including Auschwitz. Norman’s mother, father and sister Esther were among those confined to the Krakow Ghetto. His parents and brother Izrael were subsequently murdered. Esther, one of 1,100 Jews on Schindler’s List, is believed to have hidden a diamond in a loaf of bread and daringly smuggled it into Auschwitz in the hope of saving Norman.  

After the war, Norman had the opportunity to board a truck of would-be immigrants to Palestine (now Israel). He opted instead to continue searching for surviving family across all four zones of occupied Europe. Norman lived in Antwerp, Belgium before immigrating to Canada in 1950, joining maternal relatives that had previously settled in Vancouver. His sister and brother-in-law soon followed, and the siblings remained close. Norman met the love of his life, Calgarian Edith Hashman, when she visited Vancouver on business. They married, opened Ornell’s—a women’s clothing shop—and had two children, Ralph and Shelley. Their grandson Joseph was named in memory of Norman’s murdered father. Norman rarely spoke of his Holocaust experiences. Nechemiah, as Edith called him, loved reading the news, watching wildlife documentaries and playing cards, particularly his decades-long Sunday night poker game with other Jewish immigrant men. He was a generous, modest man with a good sense of humour.