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

1 image

Held by
Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)
Dates
1943-1944 (indexed as 1943–1944)
Level
item
Scope & content
Single-sided letter on ruled paper, creased down center. Fourth illegal letter sent from the Bund Coordinating Committee in Warsaw to Charles Kotkowsky in forced labour camp of Piotrkow. The delivery of this letter was difficult. The courier Ala Margules was arrested with the money, after this letter was delivered to Renia Zaks. Ultimately Ala Margules was saved from the Germans by bribing a Volksdeutsche Kommandant with 10.000 Zlotys from the 50.000 Zlotys that Vladka Meed had brought previously. The signature, Henryk Wiktorksy, was a pseudonym used by the donor's teacher, Ignac Samsonowicz. It was created using the names the two pre-war leaders of the Bund labor organization of Poland, Henryk Erlich and Wiktor Alter. Narrative: Charles Kotkowsky was born in Piotrkow, Poland, in 1920. He was the son of a butcher, and had three siblings. He tried to immigrate to the USA as the Nazi persecution of Jews began, but he was unable to get the necessary documents in time. Meanwhile, he worked as a tailor in Lodz. The Germans entered Lodz on 1939/9/5 and had set up a ghetto by October. Charles worked in a glass factory, but eventually enlisted to avoid being used for forced labour. The Germans began rounding up Jews around Jewish holidays for labour or small transports for Auschwitz and Treblinka. At this time, he began receiving packages of letters and money from Ignac Samsonowicz, his old Yiddish teacher. The glass factory became a labour camp where Charles and his brother worked until they were sent to Czestochowa labour camp in November 1944. They made bullets in the factory there. The women in the glass factory were sent to Ravensbrück. Later Charles was sent to Buchenwald, where he and his friends were assigned easy jobs because their supervisor was a resistance sympathizer. Charles met Leon Blum before he was moved to Flossenburg. On their last transport train Charles and his brother jumped from the train along with many other Jews (some of which were shot in the attempt) and were sheltered in a Czechoslovakian town until the American army arrived. He moved to Italy where he worked as a translator, mostly in doctor's offices. He moved to Canada in 1951.He married Sally Blum, and they had two children, Pearl Levine and Rickie Cohen. Charles died from cancer on 2003/2/8 in Toronto, Canada.
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DeliveryDocumentEnvelopeHandwrittenJewish CommunityLetterMilitaryMoneySignatureWarTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.
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Extent
Letter : Paper : Handwritten : Ink : Beige, brown, black ; Ht: 12 cm x W: 18 cm
Genre / form
textual record
Format
Document
Text in the image
Rena, proszę oddaj ten list orazpieniądze, 75 tysięcy złotych, do brata Kotłowskiego, albo Mani Blumsztajn,Dziękuję bardzo,Henryk WiktorskiRenia, proszę załatwić ten list oraz pieniądze, 75 tysięcy złotych, u brata Kotkowskiego, albo Mani Blumsztajn, u R. Węglorzerskiego.Henryk WistowskiRead automatically; may contain mistakes.
Language
Polish
Harvested
2026-10-19T03:21:16Z · source datestamp n/a · andornot

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