Letter
1 image
- Held by
- Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)
- Dates
- May 28, 1942 (indexed as 1942)
- Level
- item
- Scope & content
- One page. 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.
- In the picture
- DocumentHatLetterLetterheadSignatureTypewrittenTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.
- Location
No place found in this description yet.
Where
More details
- Extent
- Letter : Paper : Beige, black ; Ht: 26,8 cm x W: 20,6 cm
- Genre / form
- textual record
- Format
- Document
- Text in the image
- H.L.Arnet,Esq.,Wohlen,Argovie,Switzerland.28thMay'42My dear Mr.Arnet,Yours sincerely,It was a great pleasure to me to receive your letter of the 23rd April and it made me very happy to hear the news you gave me about my family telling me they were in good health. Enclosed you will find a letter for my wife and will you please forward it to her.Of course, nothing much can be said in letters but as I told you previously we are working here, so far, with full pressure and our position concerning stock is quite satisfactory. I have taken your advice and I am turning the bales of the hoods in stock and one of these days I will go and have a look over all the stuff. At any rate the place we have the stock in is dry and I have put moth balls in the bales.Your offer in straw fantasy is very kind but we gave up making straw completely even for trimmings as it was not a success. We have found some other type of trimmings which are much cheaper and they do just as well. The trade in general is very satisfied with our products and I personally believe we are making very nice hats.I am actually more in Dublin than in Galway for as you know I have to deal with the customers also, so next time you are writing will you please address the letter to our Dublin office, 24 Suffolk St.I have noted with pleasure that your first trip after this terrible war will be to see me and I need not tell you how much I would like to see you over here as the responsibility I have to bear is a bit heavy.I hope that you and Herlie are both in good health and I wish you all the best.Senator McEllin, Mr.Witztum, Mr.McDermott, Miss Schwenk, Mr. Zeiler and Mr.Libin and the others were all very glad to receive the regards from you which they heartily reciprocate.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_118.jpg