Letter

Held by

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

Dates

August 20, 1941 (indexed as 1941)

Level

item

Extent

Letter : Paper : Ink : Beige ; Ht: 26,7 cm x W: 21 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.

Location

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Genre / form

textual record

Format

Document

In the picture

DocumentHandwrittenLetterLetterheadTypewrittenTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.

Text in the image

Mrs.G.Steuer,20thAug.'413408 Nashville Ave.,New Orleans.My dear Goldie,Your fond cousin,3608 Nashville Ave.,I had a few weeks holidays and on my return I found your letter of the 24th July and it gave me great pleasure to receive it and the one enclosed from my wife. I am very lucky lately as I receive several letters from my wife and of course that keeps the morale high!Mr.H.Orbach has received a visa to come to Ireland and I am hoping that if he can come he will bring my family with him so I have something to dream about now.As you could have read in Sophies letter she is trying to send some money to the parents and it is most unfortunate that they did not receive anything from you but I can assure you I am quite satisfied and certain that you did and are doing everything possible for them. We can only hope for the best.I can see from things you were telling me about your husband that you are a proud wife. I wonder if my wife thinks the same way about me. Give him my best regards also to your parents and all the kids. I have a great desire to see you sometimes, maybe it will be possible when the War is over.From here I have nothing much to tell you, business is still going as usual but of course supplies are booming more and more difficult to obtain, however, we still have sufficient to carry on for the next 10 to 12 months. My health is all right also.I wish you all the best of luck.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_90.jpg