Traveler’s Suitcase
Datec. 1951
Credit LineGift of Mrs. Halina M. Czaikovski Robinson, London, Ontario, 2005
Object number2005.005.001
Label TextHalina Czajkowska-Robinson carried this suitcase when she emigrated to London in 1951. The daughter of a Polish military officer, Czajkowska-Robinson fled to Warsaw in 1940. Arrested during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, she was transported to Auschwitz and then Bergen-Belsen. The war over, she was sent to Sweden and trained as a chemical engineer. Czajkowska-Robinson was among hundreds of thousands of Europeans to enter Canada in the 1950s following the government’s post-war moves to open immigration. Czajkowska-Robinson immigrated to London in 1951. Here, she made a mark on her community. In 1958, Czajkowska-Robinson worked as a lab technician at Western University. She found that the Madagascar periwinkle destroyed white blood cells. This discovery helped save the lives of children suffering from acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
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