Letter
1 image
- Held by
- Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)
- Dates
- July 29, 1941 (indexed as 1941)
- Level
- item
- Scope & content
- 1 page, single sided with the date in the upper right 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.
- In the picture
- DocumentFamilyHandwrittenJewish CommunityLetterMedicineMilitarySignatureTypewrittenWarTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.
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More details
- Extent
- Letter : Paper : Ink : Beige ; Ht: 27 cm x W: 21,2 cm
- Genre / form
- textual record
- Format
- Document
- Text in the image
- 29thJuly'41My dear fellows,I have received your last letter of the 14th July and I am very glad to hear that you are all well. Also I am very satisfied to know that Isaacs is making a bit of money. I have not had news from Joe for a long time, how is he doing?How I want to tell you about another matter. I had a letter from Robert in which he told me he had received a letter from Sala in which she told him tha our Mother is very ill, she has rheumatism and needs sunshine and apart from this they have no money, in other words they are in a very bad situation. From here I cannot do a thing, I wonder if you could find some Society or Red Cross or anybody who could do something for them, I am prepared to meet the expenses whatever they might be. I wrote to-day to Eddie and told her that our parents have not received anything from them so far and asking her to do all in her power to help.Everything is all right here.I hope to hear soon from you about the above as to whether or not it is possible for you to do anything, in the meantime I wish you all the best and remain,YoursRead 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_87.jpg