Letter

Held by

Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)

Dates

June 29, 1943 (indexed as 1943)

Level

item

Extent

Letter : Paper : Beige ; Ht: 13,2 cm x W: 10,8 cm

Scope & content

Printed form, filled with machine typed message. Address of the addressee is handwritten in a rectangular frame on top centre. Letter sent from Golda Thaler to Serge Philipson in Dublin. 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.

Location

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Genre / form

textual record

Format

Document

In the picture

DocumentHandwrittenLetterPostage StampPrintedStampTypewrittenWarTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.

Text in the image

Write address in large BLOCK letters wholly within this panel.THE ADDRESS MUST NOT BE TYPEWRITTEN.S. PHILIPSONLES MODES MODERNESDublinPALESTINE POSTAGE PAID AEROGRAM SERVICEWrite the message very plainly below this line.Sender's Name and AddressDateTHIS SPACE SHOULD NOT BE USED.PALESTINE POSTAGE PAID AIRGRAPH SERVICEWrite address in large BLACK letters within this panelGALWAY29.6.43.Golda Thaler, 9, Zamenhof St., Tel-Aviv, Palestine.My dear Scholom,I received the following card from Julius Suessmann who has become prisoner of war in Germany:Dear Miss Thaler: I hope you to be healthy and I can tell the same thing from us. Specially your brother Rubin is in good condition and sends you his best regards and wishes. We should like to hear from you, you find my address on the other page. Yours sincerely, Julius Suessmann.I suppose you too want to write to Julius S., he is sure to be glad to hear from you.How are you and what is the news? Have you in the meantime got our letter in reply to your cable? Please do write soon and fully. We are more or less all right.Tons of love,YoursThe Address of J.S. is: Gefangennummer 6668, Lager-Bezeichnung M. Stammlager VIII B, Deutschland (Allemagne).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_373.jpg