Folman, Ralph

Ralph Folman was born September 1,1941, in the Warsaw Ghetto, under the name ‘Raphael Folman’.  His family members were active in the Jewish, as well as the Polish Resistance, and therefore could be smuggled out of the Ghetto, where they survived in the Polish (“Aryan”) part of Warsaw on false ID papers. Ralph’s father and uncle were killed fighting the German occupation; Ralph’s father wanted to do more than forge documents, so he took up arms and fought with a partisan group. At the war’s end, Poland was occupied by the Soviet Army, and the Iron Curtain descended on Eastern Europe. Ralph and his mother were smuggled over the mountains and into West Germany, ending up in Munich, where the United Nations Refugee and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA) was located and where many thousands of displaced persons ended up. After about one year in Munich, two Haganah members showed up one night and told Ralph’s mother that they would smuggle them into Palestine . This was 1946-7, and it was because they were part of the Folman family, well-known fighters in the Resistance. Once in Israel, Ralph grew up on two kibbutzim; a few years later – in 1952 – his mother and step-father decided to emigrate to Canada. The young Ralph accompanied them, attending school, including the University of Toronto Medical School, and he married too. In 1970 he and his young wife went to Israel, where he enrolled as a resident in Internal Medicine in one of the hospitals of Greater Tel Aviv. In 1972 he enlisted in the Israeli Army (IDF) as a battalion doctor, and he served for 18 months. In 1973, they returned to Canada, where he enrolled in paediatric residency at the Hospital for Sick Children, graduating in 1977. For the next 45 years Ralph had a practice in Mississauga, Ont., retiring fully at age 75.  Ralph Folman was interviewed by Crestwood students at Baycrest in December 2025.