About
the Author
ALICE Switocz Goldbloom
Alice is the daughter of Polish refugees — a resistance fighter and a forced labourer — who came to Canada from the displaced persons’ camps in Germany after the Second World War. She fulfilled their dream of securing for their children all the opportunities that were taken away from them.
She has a Master’s degree and a three-decade writing career that spans government and corporate communications. Her position straddling two communities — the Polish one she was raised in and the Jewish family she married into—provides her with the sensitivity and insight necessary to navigate the complex and sometimes contentious historical narratives surrounding Nazi-occupied Poland.
One of Alice’s stories was longlisted for the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize. Family Secrets is the second prize winner of the 2025 Potterfield Creative Nonfiction Prize.
Alice serves on the board of the Quebec Writers’ Federation and lives in Montreal with her husband, Jonathan Goldbloom, where they raised two children, adopted from Poland. Her passions include the Stratford Festival, which she has attended for forty years, travelling with her husband, spending time with her children, enjoying the communal rose garden outside her kitchen window, and above all, listening to people’s stories.
Family Secrets is her first book.
Photo by Anna C. Arrobas