Letter

Held by

Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)

Dates

June 25, 1941 (indexed as 1941)

Level

item

Extent

Letter : Paper : Ink : Beige ; Ht: 26,7 cm x W: 20,9 cm

Scope & content

1 page, single sided with the date in the upper right corner, and an address in the upper left corner. Narrative: In the 1920’s Serge and Sophie Philipson (nee Orbach) left Berlin for Paris due to rising antisemitism. On July 15, 1930 their daughter Rachel was born. Serge, Sophie and Rachel were Polish citizen, they never got either the German or the French citizenship. In Paris, Serge worked for Les Modes Modernes, the hat factory of his brother-in-law, Henri. When an opportunity to expand the business in Ireland arose, Serge moved to Galway. The new factory opened in July 1938. In August 1939, Sophie, Rachel, and 4 other family members (Rachel’s cousin Stéphane, his maternal grandmother Néné, Serge’s sister Esther and Serge’s sister-in-law Choura) left for Cabourg, in Normandy. After the winter 1939-1940 it became difficult to communicate with Ireland but Rachel and Sophie could still send and receive letter from Serge. At the end of winter 1940, the group moved to Néris and in July 1940, after the occupation of France by Germany, they settled in the zone libre in the village of Cauterets, on the border with Spain. They were reunited with Robert, Serge’s brother. In August 1942, 4 family members (Sophie’s sister Ella and her husband Ernest, their daughter Ruth, Serge’s siblings Robert and Esther) were arrested by local police and deported. They were not seen again. At the beginning of 1943, Sophie, her mother Augusta and Rachel moved to Maubourguet. In April 1943, they moved to Cannes in Hotel Victoria with Henri, Stéphane and Néné. Henri, Sophie and Augusta went into hiding together while cousins Stéphane and Rachel were taken care of by Néné and returned to Maubourguet. In January 1944, Henri, Sophie and Augusta were denounced and arrested. They were transferred to Marseille before being sent by train to Drancy transit camp from where they were deported. It is believed they were killed in a Polish killing centre. In 1944, Rachel moved from one place to another – under a non-Jewish identity - and continued to correspond with her father. In June 1945, she reunited with her father Ireland. They had not seen each other for 6 years. In 1951, Rachel got married. In 1954, she immigrated to Montreal.

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Genre / form

textual record

Format

Document

In the picture

DocumentHandwrittenLetterLetterheadSignatureTypewrittenTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.

Text in the image

25th June '41Mrs.G.Stomer,3408 Nashville Ave.,New Orleans La U.S.A.My dear Goldie,YoursMrs. G. Steiner,I received your letter of the 5th June and I was very glad to hear that you and your people are all well.You will be glad to hear that since I wrote you last I have had about five letters from Sophie and Rachel and considering the times,they contained very good news, they are in good health and so far they have everything they need.I was delighted to hear that your Dad is in New York and that he will send some chocolate to Rachel. I know she will love to get them as she told me in one of her last letters how delighted she was when chocolate arrived which someone had sent her as she likes it very much.I would be very glad if you would continue to write to Sophie and tell her that I am quite well and that you receive letters very often from me,also that everything here is all right and not to worry. She told me in one of her last letters dated the 13th May that she had received a letter from me which I wrote on the 16th April so this gives me courage to write again.Like you I am hoping that the war will soon be over so that we will be in a position to do something for our parents. I am very worried to know how they are as the war is again spreading near to them, however, we can only wait and hope for the best.I shall be very glad to get more letters from you and will you please tell me more about yourself, what are you doing? also your husband and all the others.I send you my best love also your dear family and please do write soon again.Read automatically; may contain mistakes.

Language

English

Harvested

2026-10-19T03:21:16Z · source datestamp n/a · andornot

Digital objects at the source

• imageOpen original at source ↗2002_08_80.jpg