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Letter
Montreal Holocaust Museum · small copy hosted here (www.cjhn.ca blocks its images elsewhere)
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Letter

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Held by
Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)
Dates
January 02, 1940 (indexed as 1940)
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.
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DocumentImmigrationLetterLetterheadSignatureTypewrittenTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.
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Extent
Letter : Paper : Beige, black ; Ht: 25,2 cm x W: 20,4 cm
Genre / form
textual record
Format
Document
Text in the image
I Philipson,Esq.119 Gastellain Mansions,London.My dears,Yours sincerely,115 Castellain Mansions,2ndJan. '40I have received your letter of the 28th Dec. and I have taken note of the contents.I am very satisfied that you have written to Belgium for the £20 and I hope they will get it - when I receive word that the money has arrived I shall send it to you.Now I am sorry to say I have not got good news for the beginning of the year. I was in the Department of Justice on Saturday and I had a talk with a high official and he told me that my application would not be granted as the Department are very firm in their decision not to let in any people or refugees from Central or East Europe so he told me,unofficially, that it would be better for me not to have any hope of my application being granted. He expressed his regrets and said that even if it were his own brother who was concerned the case would be the same and he would not be able to obtain permission to bring him over here. I am enclosing a copy of my application and I am afraid it is as good as refused but anyway we shall wait for the official notification which I hope we shall receive very soon but it is better for us not to have any hope in the matter.The above is the actual position here and I cannot tell you what to do but I shall be satisfied with whatever you decide on doing in order to get them away from the danger spot. Please let me know as soon as you have any idea of what you are going to do.Read automatically; may contain mistakes.
Language
English
Harvested
2026-10-19T03:21:16Z · source datestamp n/a · andornot

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