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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
August 25, 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.
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DocumentHandwrittenLetterLetterheadSignatureTypewrittenTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.
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Extent
Letter : Paper : Ink : Beige ; Ht: 26,7 cm x W: 21 cm
Genre / form
textual record
Format
Document
Text in the image
28thAug. '41My dear Isaacs,Wishing Siemion, Joe, Paul, Ruth and yourself all the best,I remain,Yours25thAug. '41I have just received your letter of the 19th inst. and I was more than amazed to hear about the things you told me in it. First of all will you let me know if Joe lost the money in his firm, in other words is the firm responsible for the loss or was it his personal business, is he still in the firm or has he left?Further I do not like you to phone me about such things and I would ask you not to sign anything as you will only get into trouble without being able to help it.For several years the strain on my resources has been very heavy, as you know, and I like to distribute things as fairly as possible and not to give all to one and nothing to another. For instance Goldie, in Palestine, needs money badly and of course as I have to help Joe again I shall not be able to send her anything, further I have to think of my family also our parents and Sala, they will all need money when the time comes, however I shall send £100 at the end of the week.I would suggest as you already told me in the letter that Joe look for a decent job as any other decent man would in these hard times, my opinion is that anyone who wishes to work can get a job, he should take Siemion as an example. He will have to forget the old life as everything has changed now and he will have to do his bit like everybody else.This letter is for himself so will you show it to him as I do not know his address.I am very happy to hear that you are getting engaged on the 10th Sept. and I wish you and Ruth lots of luck. Unfortunately I cannot go to England now as it is very difficult to get a visa it takes months and further I am very busy here, however, you will hear more from me.Read automatically; may contain mistakes.
Language
English
Harvested
2026-10-19T03:21:16Z · source datestamp n/a · andornot

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