Letters From Europe: 1937 - 1944
Among the effects left to me by mother Ruth Holländer, by my father Sigmund Fischler and my uncle by marriage Freddy Furcht were a series of letters and postcards sent by people in Germany, Poland and France shortly before and during WWII. The only survivor among the letter writers was Sale Fischleiber, my father's brother, who spent the war in France.
The Letters of Else Sommer
Else Sommer
was a cousin of my mother Ruth Holländer. Starting from just before my mother
left Germany for New York on November 1, 1937 and continuing until June of 1939 she wrote at least
eight letters. A
summary of the letters in PDF format.
Else Sommer perished in the Sobibór concentration camp in 1942 [Hecker, p. 431].
was a brother of Sarah Katzenstein, my mother's maternal grandmother; see the chapters,
"Common Ancestors" and "The Heinebach Group". We have one letter and one postcard that he wrote to my
mother in 1937 and 1938.
an aunt and several people
who could not be identified. The first two are from before the expulsion of the Polish Jews from Leipzig starting
on October 28, 1938. Following these we learn about the conditions of the expulsion, the attempts to
normalize their life in Poland, requests for visas and packages etc. A letter, apparently returned, from my father
to his sister in Palestine discusses attempts to have a visa that had been granted to their father actually
reach the latter.
was the mother of Freddy Furcht, the husband of my aunt Selma Holländer. His
mother had been able to free him from a concentration camp and provide a passage to Shanghai, where he remained
until mid-1947. He left one letter and one postcard two postcards and two letters from his mother.