Titre d'identité et de voyage

Held by

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

Dates

-February 17, 1951 (indexed as 1951)

Level

item

Extent

Identification card : printed, handwritten, stamped : beige, green, red, black, blue ; Ht: 12,5 cm x W: 8,8 cm

Scope & content

Identification and travel card, including 18 pages (without the cover). The left corner on the top and the right corner on the bottom are red. The cover is beige and the pages are in pastel green. The first and second page contain personal information about Sonia Aronowicz (place of birth and domicile and physical appearence). The third page has a picture of her. The card was issued from February the 17, 1950 till February the 16, 1951. It contains an exit permit from France and an entry permit for Canada. Narrative: Sonia Smolnik-Aronowicz-Tencer was born in 1915, in Vilnius, formerly part of Poland. Her family has lived in Vilnius for many generations. She was married to a lawyer named Misha Aronowicz and studied to become an accountant. The city was under the Soviet occupation when the Nazis invaded on June 22, 1941. In September 1941, Sonia and her family were deported to the Vilnius ghetto, created by the Nazis to dehumanize and exploit the Jews. They remained there until 1943, when the men and women were separated. It was the last time she saw her brother, Ariye, and her husband, Misha. In the ghetto of Vilnius, Sonia befriended Miriam and Minya (Miriam's sister-in-law). Together, they made a pact to help each other survive the war. Their friendship and alliance represent a form of resistance against the abuse they suffered in the ghetto and labor camps. The same year, Sonia's parents went into hiding. Sonia and her two friends were then deported to the concentration camps of Riga-Kaiserwald and Riga-Strasdenhof in Latvia where they were used as forced labor. In 1945, they were deported to Bromberg-Ost, a women's annex of the Stutthof concentration camp where they were forced to build German railroads and barracks. The camp was liquidated on January 20, 1945, 300 survivors set off on a death march to Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg. Sonia managed to escape. She spent the next few weeks hiding in abandoned German houses before her liberation by the Soviet Army. On the day of her liberation near Pomerania, a Soviet soldier gave Sonia a necklace as a symbol of hope and comfort. He told her she would be able to wear jewelry again one day. After the war, Sonia reunited with her two friends. Miriam then immigrated to Boston where she became an administrative assistant in the Chemistry Department at Harvard. Minya remained in France, where she married and had two sons. Sonia arrived in Canada aboard the ship Samaria in 1950.

Location

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Genre / form

textual record

In the picture

DocumentHandwrittenIdentity CardStampTypewrittenTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.

Text in the image

FRANCETITRE D'IDENTITÉETDE VOYAGETaxe : 580 francs49 AF 28446TITULAIRE :Nom :ARONOWICZPrénoms :Sonicinée SMO4NIKCe titre d'identité et de voyage comprend18 pages non compris la couvertureRead automatically; may contain mistakes.

Language

French

Harvested

2026-10-17T20:12:41Z · source datestamp n/a · cjhn

Digital objects at the source

• imageOpen original at source ↗2020X_10_09a.jpg
• imageOpen original at source ↗2020X_10_09b.jpg