The special exhibition eat make share: a taste of immigration ends its run at the Museum in January, before travelling to locations across Canada over the next five years.
A recipe book with a story to tell
One special artifact in the exhibition stands out: A handwritten recipe book compiled by Rebecca Teitelbaum, a Belgian Jewish woman imprisoned in the Ravensbrück concentration camp during the Second World War.
The pages of the book are now yellowed with age and covered with Rebecca’s cursive handwriting. The creation of the book was an act of defiance. She stole the paper, along with a pencil, from the office of the Siemens munitions factory. Adjacent to the camp, the factory operated as a subcamp where she and over 2000 other women from the camp were forced to labour, building equipment for the Luftwaffe (German air force).
Stealing these materials was a huge risk. Her nephew, Alex Buckman, interviewed for a 2017 CBC documentary, says, "If caught with all these stolen goods — no questions asked — they would have hanged her in front of all the prisoners for stealing."
Rebecca traded her own rations for needle and thread and carefully stitched the folded sheets together into a book.
Recipes of hope
The recipes in the book were collected from fellow prisoners. It's hard to say why Rebecca started this project, but in a camp where everyone had been pulled out of their homes and thousands died of starvation, collecting familiar recipes conjured and preserved memories of the past and nourished hope for the future. The recipes are written two to a page and cover 110 pages.
The book also contains Rebecca's own recipe for Orange Cake, which is among the recipes featured on the eat make share page of the Museum's website.
A history that was almost lost
The recipe book was almost lost to history. In April of 1945, as the Allies advanced towards Ravensbrück, Rebecca was part of a group of prisoners evacuated on buses by the Red Cross, destined for Sweden. But during the trip, as they passed through active battlefields, Rebecca's convoy was bombed and she was wounded. She was taken to a Danish hospital. Her bag, containing her correspondence and the recipe book, was left behind. Two years later, it was returned to her by a man who'd found it on the wrecked bus, identified her name on the letters, and tracked her down.
Rebecca moved to Canada in 1951, arriving at Pier 21 and settling in Montreal. She became a Canadian citizen in 1957.
On November 18, 2025, the Museum hosted an in-person event called Recipes of Resistance, with representatives from the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre participating via video link. Guests heard about Rebecca’s life and got to sample Rebecca’s Orange Cake and make an almond shortbread to take and bake. Both recipes are included in the book.
The recipe book, and a replica, open to the page with Rebecca’s Orange Cake recipe, are both on display as part of eat make share. The special items are on loan from the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. Don’t miss this opportunity to take in what eat make share has to offer. The exhibition closes January 18, 2026.
