Joe and his family immigrated to the United States in 1948 and later moved to Toronto, Canada, in 1958. In Canada, he completed high school, graduated from the University of Western Ontario, and built a career as a teacher, entrepreneur, and real estate developer.
As an adult, Joe became deeply involved in Holocaust education, remembrance, philanthropy, and Jewish communal life. He has served as vice-chair of the Canadian Society for Yad Vashem and has supported many Jewish and Holocaust education organizations. His Jewish Foundation of Greater Toronto Book of Life statement describes Holocaust education and commemoration as central to his philanthropy and public responsibility.
One of the most meaningful chapters of Joe’s postwar life came during a return to Poland. In 1992, while visiting Mielec, where his parents and grandparents had lived, Joe met people who still remembered his family. Two elderly Polish women living in his maternal grandparents’ former home gave him a pair of sterling silver Shabbat candlesticks that had belonged to his family before the war. They told him they had saved them because they believed that someone would return for them one day.
The candlesticks became a powerful link among Joe’s family, prewar Jewish life in Poland, and the generations that followed. Joe later said that when he sees the light of those candles, he knows there is still goodness, even in the worst of times.
Joe’s story is preserved through the March of the Living Digital Archive Project and the book Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations. MOLDAP’s interactive Witness content links Joe’s photograph to the short film Candles of Kindness, preserving the story of Joe’s return to Poland and the recovery of his family’s candlesticks.
Joe has continued to share his survival story as a way of preserving memory and strengthening Holocaust education. In 2020, he travelled to Poland for commemorations marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where he spoke about the urgent need to teach this history clearly and honestly. For Joe, Holocaust education is not only about remembering the past; it is also a warning that hatred, antisemitism, and genocide can take root again when people forget or fail to understand what happened.
Through his testimony, philanthropy, connection to the March of the Living, involvement with Yad Vashem, and the story of the Zioło family, Joseph Gottdenker’s life preserves both the trauma of a hidden child and the moral courage of rescuers. His story reminds future generations that survival was made possible not only by endurance, but also by the rare and dangerous kindness of people who chose not to be bystanders.
Holocaust Survivor, Hidden Child, Educator, Philanthropist, and Witness to Kindness
Joseph “Joe” Gottdenker was born in Sandomierz, Poland, in the summer of 1942. He was born during the Holocaust, at a time when his mother was already in danger, and his father had been taken to a concentration or forced labour camp. As a Jewish baby in Nazi-occupied Poland, Joe survived because others risked their lives to hide him.
Shortly after his birth, Joe and his mother were sheltered by the Zioło family near Mielec. His mother, fearing recognition and denunciation, eventually left him in the care of Władysław and Petronela Zioło and joined the Polish underground. Joe remained with the Ziołos for more than three years, living under a false Catholic identity and being presented as a relative from out of town.
The danger to the Zioło family was extreme. Hiding a Jewish child in occupied Poland could bring death to the rescuer and their family. Joe later recalled that the Ziołos acted not for money, but out of humanity, and that he considered them his family during the years he spent in their care. In 2010, Yad Vashem recognized Władysław and Petronela Zioło as Righteous Among the Nations.
After liberation, Joe was reunited with his surviving parents in Germany. The reunion was emotionally complicated because, as a very young child, he had known Petronela Zioło as his mother figure. He later reflected that being separated from the woman he believed was his mother, and then being returned to a birth mother he did not remember, left lasting emotional effects.
Featured Videos and Media on MOLDAP
Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations — P. 54: Joe Gottdenker
Witness: Passing the Torch of Holocaust Memory to New Generations — P. 54: Joe Gottdenker
Interactive MOLDAP / Witness content linking Joe’s story to Candles of Kindness.
Holocaust Survivor Recalls His Own Experience on 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz — Global News
A Global News video in which Joseph Gottdenker reflects on being hidden as a Jewish child by a Polish family during the Holocaust
Toronto Holocaust Survivor Has a Warning to the Next Generation: “It Can Happen Again” — Global News
A Global News article and video feature connected to Joe’s 2020 return to Poland for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Joe Gottdenker — Azrieli Foundation Sustaining Memories Profile
An Azrieli Foundation profile with biographical material and family photographs, including wartime and postwar images.
https://memoirs.azrielifoundation.org/exhibits/sustaining-memories/joe-gottdenker
Joseph Gottdenker Oral History — USC Shoah Foundation / USHMM catalogue record
Catalogue record for Joseph Gottdenker’s 1998 audiovisual Holocaust testimony, interview code 42595.
https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/vha42595
Back to Berlin
A documentary connected to the motorcycle journey from Israel to Berlin for the 2015 European Maccabi Games; Joseph Gottdenker appears as himself.