Letter
1 image
- Held by
- Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)
- Dates
- August 20, 1940 (indexed as 1940)
- Level
- item
- Scope & content
- One page. Typewritten in black ink. Personal letter from Serge Philipson to Marcel (?). 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
- DocumentLetterTypewrittenTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.
- Location
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Where
More details
- Extent
- Letter : Paper : Beige ; Ht: 26,7 cm x W: 20,5 cm
- Genre / form
- textual record
- Format
- Document
- Text in the image
- 20thAug. '40M al des Lojes,M.Goldberg,Esq.,19th Train, 3 cie,Nerac, France.My dear Marcel,I have received your letter of the 7th July and I am glad to hear thatFrom time to time I receive news from my people and I think and hope that they are all in good health. If you have occasion to see my wife and Rachel give them my best regards and kisses and tell them that for the time being it is practically impossible to get permission for them to come over here, furthermore, I do not really see anyway for them to come but I hope this will be easier in a few months time.About your London office, I have left it as it was as I think it is quite all right.Regarding the Factory here I can only tell you that business is not too bad - we are doing our utmost to keep it running and we are succeeding very well. Of course it is difficult to see into the future but we have done very well in the last half year and we hope to do well the next six months also, of course our big problem is always variety.Wishing you and your parents and all friends all the best,Yours sincerely,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_42.jpg