Max Smart

Prepared by the Witnesses of War team

Maxwell “Max” Smart was born Oziac Fromm on 1 June 1930 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He grew up in Buczacz, Poland, now Buchach, Ukraine, where his father, Lieb, owned a clothing shop. Max enjoyed a comfortable childhood with his mother, Faige, and younger sister, Zonia. German occupation in 1941 destroyed that life. His father was murdered in a mass shooting, while the remaining family faced persecution, hunger and confinement in the town’s Jewish quarter.

During a deportation in November 1942, Max’s mother stopped him from boarding a truck and urged him to escape. Removing his identifying armband, he walked away across a bridge. He never saw his mother or sister again; both were murdered in the Holocaust. A Polish farmer, Jasko Rudnicki, and his wife, Kasia, initially sheltered him. When keeping him in their home became too dangerous, Max hid in the nearby forest, surviving in makeshift underground shelters with the farmer’s continued help.

In the woods, Max endured bitter cold, hunger and the constant threat of discovery. He eventually met another Jewish boy, Janek, whose companionship broke his isolation. After hearing gunfire nearby, the boys discovered a baby girl beside her murdered mother and rescued her. Janek subsequently died from exposure following the rescue—a loss Max carried throughout his life. Decades later, Max was reunited with the surviving girl, Tova, during the making of the documentary Cheating Hitler: Surviving the Holocaust.

After liberation, Max spent several years moving through Europe before arriving in Canada in 1948 through the War Orphans Project. He settled in Montreal, built a family and business career, and became an abstract painter. His wartime experiences found expression in his artwork and later in his memoir Chaos to Canvas, followed by The Boy in the Woods. Through his writing and testimony, he has preserved the memory of his family, his friend Janek and the people who helped him survive.