Sura MAJZNER née PERELMUTTER (1865-1944)

Six final-year students from the micro high school Saint-Quentin, in the Aisne department of France, decided to take part in the “Convoy 77” project and to retrace the life of a woman who was deported on this transport. The students then had the opportunity to present the biography to Alain-Sam Federowski, a member of Saint-Quentin’s Jewish community and former reporter for the French TV channel TF1, during a discussion on “everyday anti-Semitism”.

Sura Zlata, (also known as Sara) Perelmutter was born in Lipno, Poland, on June 17, 1865. Her parents were Tobia Perelmutter and Rifka Scharsbourk.

Sara married Icek Majzner and the couple went on to have three children[1]: Szyja, (also known as Charles), who was born on November 7, 1896 in Lipno, and twin girls, Jochweta and Estera Marjam, who were born on May 15, 1903. Icek and Sura both worked in the restaurant business.

In the 1920s, the three children decided to move to France to start a new life[2]. Did they already have family living there? There is no evidence of that, but either way, they all got married and started their own families there. Jochweta married Moïse Roskolenkier, who was also born in Lipno in 1900, and they had a daughter named Jacqueline. The family lived at 30, rue Rebeval in the 19th district of Paris[3]. Her twin sister, Estera, married Berek Kiwkowicz or Kiwkowiez, born on May 15, 1904 in Wolbrom, Poland. They lived at 6/8, rue de la Corderie, near the Place de la République in the 3rd district of Paris. They were both tailors. They also had a child, but at the time of writing, we have no more information about it[4]. As for Charles, he married Brucha Klimberg in Aubervilliers, in the Seine-Saint-Denis department of France, on January 17, 1927. Brucha was born in Klokoch (Klodzko?), Poland, on November 24, 1896. She was a dressmaker and Charles was a hairdresser “in a salon”. They lived at 1 rue des Sablons (which was renamed rue du Colonel Fabien after the war) in Aubervilliers, a working-class neighborhood in the northern suburbs of Paris. He had already been naturalized as a French citizen when Sara arrived in France.

Some other Perelmut(t)er family from Lipno were also living in France at the start of the Second World War, including a man named Szmul-Majer, who joined the 21st RMVE (Regiment de Marche de Volontaires Etrangers, or March Regiment of Foreign Volunteers).

Sara’s arrival in France

Widowed, isolated, unemployed and with no family left in Lipno, Sara resolved to leave Poland to be with her children in France. Her journey began in Warsaw, Poland, where, according to her declaration, she paid a people smuggler “who she claims not to know”[5] 180 zlotys. She also said she had travelled to Belgium by train, crossed the border illegally, with neither passport nor visa, and arrived in France on April 20, 1938.

Sara moved in with her daughter Jochweta at 30 rue Rebeval in Paris[6]. In the documentation she submitted to rectify her immigration status, it was noted that she did not speak French, but was fluent in Polish, German and Yiddish. She received her residence permit on June 27, 1938[7], after which she applied for a foreigners’ identity card on July, 1938[8]. She was described as 4’9” (1.45 m) tall, with white hair but blond eyebrows. A dark strawberry blond wig was listed as a distinguishing feature. Was she a practicing Jew who wore a wig? Her eyes, according to the staff member who drew up the report, were “light orange-azure yellow”, her nose was straight, her chin receding, and her ears were angular. In the photo, she was wearing glasses.

Sara had moved to France to be with her family, but the German occupation during the Second World War was soon to put a stop to this idea. Her two daughters, her sons-in-law and her granddaughter Jacqueline were all arrested, interned and deported to the death camps.

Moïse (Mojze) Roskolenkier was deported from Pithiviers to Auschwitz on Convoy 4, June 25, 1942. Estera’s husband, Bereck Kiwkowicz, was deported from Beaune-la-Rolande on Convoy 25 on August 28, 1942. Earlier in the war, he had gone to the Seine recruitment office of the French Foreign Legion to volunteer to serve for France. Estera’s twin sister, Jochweta, and her daughter Jacqueline Roskolenkier, born on February 17, 1936 and a French citizen, were deported on the same convoy. They had been arrested during the Vel d’hiv (Velodrome d’hiver, or winter cycling track) roundup. Jacqueline’s name is listed on a memorial in Paris dedicated to all the children who were rounded up over those few days in 1942.

It appears to be around that time that Sara, left alone and with no one to protect her, moved in with her daughter, Estera, at 8 rue de la Corderie.

A few months later, Estera too was arrested. Suspected of being involved in the Resistance and a member of the FTP, the Special Brigrage arrested her on March 24, 1943 at her brother’s apartment in Aubervilliers[9]. She was then interned in Drancy and deported on Convoy 57 on July 13, 1943. She was sent to the gas chambers and murdered soon after she arrived in Auschwitz[10].

On July 14, 1944, Sara Majzner was arrested outside her home at 8 rue de la Corderie on the grounds that she was an “Israélite”, or “Jew”[11]. After the war, Mrs. Pouquet, the building’s former concierge and a Mrs. Goldstein testified that Sara was arrested by the French Militia.

Sara was taken to Drancy camp on July 17, 1944 and interned under the number 25,214. Then, on July 31, 79 years of age, she was deported on Convoy No. 77 to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Even if she survived the grueling journey, crammed into a cattle car in the scorching heat for 3 days and 2 nights, with no water, she was murdered by the Nazi regime on August 3, 1944[12]. A file on Sara, compiled after the war, states that she died on August 5; the French authorities set this as the date of death for all Convoy 77 deportees if there was no other record of them having died in the camps or after they returned to France.

Charles was not deported and later undertook the necessary paperwork to have his mother declared dead.

Sara was officially granted the title of “déporté politique” (“political deportee”) on May 12, 1958. This meant that she had been deported for political reasons, solely because she was Jewish. Previously, this had been referred to as “deporté racial” (“race-related deportee”). As proof of this her, her son was sent a blue card in her name.

Notes & references

[1] File on Sarah Majzner Pererlmutter, death certificate (2004), French Ministry of Defense Historical Service in Caen, ref. 21 P 511 450.

[2] Identification sheet, Sara Majzner Perelmutter, dated August 1938, Moscow collection, French National archives, ref.19940469/160, dossier 13302, year 1939.

[3] Analysis of two deportee databases: the Shoah Memorial database and the Klarsfeld Foundation database.

[4] This information is available on the Maitron website: https://maitron.fr/kiwkowiez-estera/: Estera Kiwkowiecz was the daughter of Icek and Sura Perelmuter, and was married with one child.

[5] Identification sheet, Sara Majzner Perelmutter, dated August 1938, Moscow collection, French National archives, ref: 199400462 – 47 – 4563.

[6] Ibidem

[7] Ibidem

[8] Application for an identity card (July 7, 1938), French Ministry of the Interior, identity card office no. 6. French National archives.

[9]Biography of Estera Kiwkowicz https://maitron.fr/kiwkowiez-estera/

[10] Ibidem

[11] File on Sarah Majzner Pererlmutter, Request for deportee status (1957), French Ministry of Defense Historical Service in Caen.

[12] Ibidem, the file lists the date as August 5, 1944.