Haim Leiser Salomon

Haim Chaim Leiser SALOMON: b. 18 May 1906, Vonihove - d. 1982, ?

Information courtesy of various sources, including the following:

The experiences of the two friends Ignacy HONIG & Chaim SALOMON.

Ignacy Honig

Details of this incredible story to be found in only a few sources, all of them in French such as:

resistance-dans-les-alpes-maritimes pdf.

"Deux évadés d'un camp-satellite d'Auschwitz arrivent à Nice et témoignent à l'été 1943"

page 25, author Philippe Boukara

Plus -

La fuite en Suisse: Les Juifs à la frontière franco-suisse durant les années ... - Ruth Fivaz-Silbermann - Google Books

https://books.google.de/books?id=bmkCEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT136&lpg=PT136&dq...

The main points here in English:

Ignacy HONIG and Haim SALOMON had both moved to Anvers where they were living and working as jewellers until just before the start of World War 2. Ignacy had left his home town of Lwow in 1928 and had married in 1935. One source says that he joined a section of the Polish army in France in 1940 but returned to Antwerp and he and his wife had a son born there in 1942. Other sources say that both Ignacy and Haim fled Belgium in 1940 to go to the "unoccupied" south of France and they each took up residence in Monte-Carlo. In the August 1942 round-ups Ignacy HONIG and his friend Haim SALOMON were arrested and interned in the Caserne Auvare in Nice. Ignacy's wife and two children managed to hide - it is not specified where and how.
The two men were deported first to Drancy and from there, on 7 Sept 1942, Convoi #29, to Kosel, 80 kilometres away from Auschwitz. At this train station stop several hundred men (individuals?) - between the ages of 15 -50 - were selected for labour and Ignacy and Haim were initially sent to Laurahütte, where they spent five months in excruciating conditions suffering lack of food and brutal treatment. They were subsequently moved to a prison in Sosnowiec (Sosnowicz) for two months and after that were transferred to Schöppenitz. This strictly run labour camp was located close to Katowice (Kattowitz), not far off from Auschwitz. In his later testimony Honig recounts that every day the internees were subjected to physical abuse and many died there either as a result of this or from the otherwise dire situation.

On 22 April 1943, after 8 months of detention in this camp, HONIG and SALOMON manage to escape. Various sources emphasise how this was with the help of a local "Polish engineer"* Accounts vary but include details such as that this kind person provided them with wire-cutters to make a hole in the perimeter fencing and barbed wire. The pair had apparently managed, with the support of some of their fellow-prisoners, to set aside a store of food and a little money. They were wearing clothing all in white except for their prisoner identification numbers marked on them but they smeared these over with dirt and mud. It was at night that they crept out of the camp and went to hide in a nearby wood. As dawn broke the two men went to the home of this "Polish engineer"* - a father of a family with feelings of compassion towards them - who had given them his address and promised them further aid. He even gave them two completely fresh outfits to wear. And then the pair made their way to Sosnowiec (Sosnowicz) where a Jewish man who had somehow avoided arrest so far was sure to give them support.

From there the two friends travelled to Belgium by taking various trains used by workers on temporary leave. These were rarely checked by officials and if someone did come through the carriages Ignacy and Haim pretended to be asleep. Between trains they slept in field or in the woods and occasionally got something to eat in working men's canteens. With enormous luck, they reached Namur on 2 May, where they were taken into charge by covert Resistance cells. Already there, though, no one could believe their tales ...

HONIG and SALOMON were smuggled separately off to Nice where Ignacy rejoined his wife and child. Together they wrote up a witness account which was published on 1 August 1943 in "Notre Voix" ("Our Voice" - a newsletter for the Jewish section of the French Communist Party). They both revealed the horrific details of their different places of imprisonment. For example, they clearly stated that at Kosel only those individuals who seemed capable for hard labour were chosen to be set aside, while all the other deportees - children, old people, fragile and sick women - were sent on to what the two friends called "Oshevitz". It was common knowledge that this place was a death camp and it was even understood that those going there would be killed immediately on arrival in the most ghastly manner - though exact information on how was not specified.

These terrible stories, despite being in signed testimonies, simply weren't believed - no doubt because they were considered so grotesquely unbelievable. In fact, some sources say that when Ignacy and Haim spoke of their experiences, some people laughed in their face. And, it is said, that Haim started worrying that he might be thought of as untrustworthy - even possibly a spy - while Ignacy also realised that it just wasn't worth trying to tell the truth because - as someone later put it - they were "taken for lunatics", so both friends finally decided to shut up.

HONIG and his family were kept in hiding separately for a while in the Nice area before being moved together secretly to Switzerland on 15th March 1944. At this time Guda HONIG was pregnant with the couple's second son so this factor apparently smoothed their admittance into that country.

A source giving further points on SALOMON's situation states that he was delayed in leaving Belgium because he was unfortunately arrested in a hotel and then complicated his release from the police authorities by insisting that he was a Czech citizen. Apparently, after a short stay in Nice, he ended up in hiding in the Grenoble region until the war was over, when he returned to Belgium to resume his life there until "1982". Apart from the additional notes about his wife, Eugenie née STEINBOCK, on the Mémorial de la Shoah website no further mentions are made about her in any other sources seen so far. N.B. really tricky to work out place of birth of Haim Salomon as the - French and/or archaic or erroneous - name given does not correspond with anything known and also because this town changed hands as the territory was at different times Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian etc. There is a Salamon STEINBOCK listed under Antwerp immigration registrations who may well have originated in Vonihove (yet another variant spelling) and could be related to Haim's wife Eugenie.

It appears actually rather sadly ironic that even to this day Ignacy HONIG and Haim SALOMON's story hasn't been shared much more in public.

Through contact with the granddaughter of the kind and noble Polish man who helped the two escape it is to be hoped that even more can be discovered and disseminated on this remarkable and terrible experience ...

Already certain significant facts can be ascertained:

- the "Polish engineer* was an employee of a company hired to undertake repairs of the nearby railroad tracks. Ignacy HONIG was assigned to forced labour on the rails as well and came into contact with this manager of the repairs who was inevitably also in charge of all sorts of tools used for such work. Taking pity on this prisoner the engineer slipped him a pair of wire-cutters and his home address ...

...

...
Basic birth data from Jewish Gen Ukrainian database:

Chaim Leizer 18-MAY-1906
________________________________________M SALAMON Chaim
Vajnag
Vonihove
________________________________________KATZ Berta
Vajnag
Vonihove Vajnag
Vonihove
________________________________________Tecsoi
________________________________________Maramaros
-
- - Tereblya area births 1903-1906; Fund 1606, Opus 11, Delo 375
________________________________________525

...

Presumably this individual - but disparity in DOB - cf. Belguim/Antwerp immigration registration:

Belgien, Einwanderungsindex Polizei Antwerpen, 1840-1930; https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-D55D-9D?cc=1477769&wc=...

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-D55D-9D?i=127&pers...

Chaim Salamon 1916-1930 Antwerpen, Belgium Immigration 1906 Voinag, Tsjechia-Slowakia 202739 004331465 128 7534 7534

N.B. further up listing there's an Emil SALOMON b. 01.03.1904, Vonyhove who could well be related - even a brother? (though the two aren't grouped together).

Details of deportation - but subsequent survival! - courtesy of:

XXX was in the region of Nice, Côte d'Azur, where she was rounded up in the notorious "Rafles d'août" in August 1942. The arrested Jewish citizens were incarcerated in the Caserne Auvare for a while before being put on a goods train, in locked-up wagons, and transferred to Drancy.

cf. Archives Départémentales des Alpes Maritimes:

http://www.basesdocumentaires-cg06.fr/os-html/adam/home.html

SALOMON/SOLOMON Chaim/Haim Leeser(sic): Chambre # 501, Voiture # 17

Also cf. listing thanks to:

http://niceoccupation.free.fr/rafle-daout-1942.html

Details of further deportation and subsequent death courtesy of:

Mémorial de la Shoah

https://ressources.memorialdelashoah.org/notice.php?q=identifiant_origine:(FRMEMSH0408707127928)

Features actual list of deportation (shown here under "Media")

Convoi # 29

Shows photo and gives short account of his story ...