Letter from Elie Wiesel regarding John Cardinal O'Connor's memorial reception

This document is an invitation from Monsieur Roger Cukierman, President of the CRIF (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France), to Monsieur and Madame Elie Wiesel. The invitation is for a dinner scheduled for Tuesday, March 4, 2014, at 7:00 PM. Monsieur François Hollande, President of the Republic, is designated as the guest of honor. The event is to take place at Pavillon d'Armenonville, located at Allée de Longchamp, 75116 Paris. The invitation specifies that seating is limited and an RSVP is required upon receipt. Contact information for CRIF, including their address (Espace Rachi, 39 rue Broca, 75005 Paris) and phone number, is provided at the bottom.

Born December 17, 1917 in Warsaw, Poland, Marian Filar was a member of a musical and religious Jewish family who became a child prodigy and a noted concert pianist and teacher. His father was a manufacturer and his grandfather was a rabbi. He studied at the Warsaw and Lemberg conservatories and graduated from Gymnasium in Warsaw. In September, 1939, he fled to Lemberg following the German invasion. After graduation from the Lemberg Conservatory in December, 1941, he rejoined his family in the Warsaw Ghetto. He worked with a labor group taken outside the ghetto to a railroad workplace in Warsaw West. He describes severe beatings by S.S. guards and his rescue by a Polish railway man. He details his solo performance and other symphony concerts in the ghetto by Jewish musicians, often playing music by forbidden composers. He mentions ghetto deportations, 1942-43, when his parents and siblings were taken. In May, 1943, after the ghetto uprising, he was deported to Majdanek. After beatings and near-starvation, he volunteered for a labor camp in Skarzysko-Kamiena, where he received aid from a fellow worker who was Polish. Moved to Buchenwald in August 1944, he was housed in a tent camp with Leon Blum, Deladier and other prominent politicians and clerics. Mr. Filar was moved next, by train, to Schlieben, near Leipzig, to work in a bazooka factory, where a Polish kitchen maid gave him extra food. His piano playing impressed the German civilian camp supervisor who transferred him to an easy job to protect his hands. As the war front moved near, he was sent with other prisoners by train to Bautzen and then on a death march to Nicksdorf (Mikulasovice) in Czechoslovakia. He and two brothers survived and lived in Zeilsheim Displaced Person’s camp in Germany for two and a half years. After liberation, he performed in concerts through Western Europe and toured Israel, playing with the Israeli Philharmonic during the war in 1956. He shares a moving vignette about going to Professor Walter Gieseking’s villa and auditioning to become his student. He studied with him for five years.He emigrated to the USA in 1950, where he played with many American orchestras, headed the piano department at Settlement Music School in Philadelphia, and joined the faculty at Temple University. After retirement, he taught privately and judged international piano competitions.

This document is a program for an "Evening of Remembrance" held for the late Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, on Wednesday, February 26, 2014, at 6:00 PM. The event took place at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue in New York City and was organized by several participating organizations including The Consulate General of Israel in New York and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. The program lists the order of events, including Kaddish, words of tribute from various speakers like Ambassador Ido Aharoni and Malcolm Hoenlein, personal reflections by Professor Elie Wiesel, Gilad Sharon (Ariel Sharon's son), and Ira Rennert, and memorial prayers. The document also includes the full text of the poem "Magash Hakesef - The Silver Platter" by Natan Alterman, the Kaddish, the Prayer for the State of Israel (Avinu Shebashamayim), and Hatikvah (the Israeli national anthem), in both English and Hebrew. A reception sponsored by Ingeborg and Ira Rennert was planned after the service.

A thank-you note from Marion Wiesel, also conveying warm regards from Elie, to Chris. The letter expresses profound gratitude for Chris's "extraordinary kindness" and "guidance" in Washington, D.C. The authors mention that their ability to navigate the "labyrinths of government" and enjoy their travels to and from Israel was greatly enhanced by Chris's help. They apologize for the late acknowledgment due to their extensive travel. They conclude by offering to be of assistance in return and provide two phone numbers for contact.

Sonja Samson was born in Aurich, Germany in 1931, into an assimilated but observant Jewish family. In 1936 she lived with her grandparents in Luxembourg until she joined her parents who had moved to France earlier. She talks about her family history and her childhood, and speculates about her parents’ reasons for staying in France instead of emigrating to the United States. Her father volunteered for the French army but was interned in 1939. Sonja and her parents were in Gurs briefly, then lived in Garlin, a village near Gurs until August 26, 1942 when they were rounded up by French police, sent to Gurs and then transported to Rivesaltes in September, 1942. Her parents were deported and her mother managed to keep Sonja from going on this transport with the help of Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE). She never saw her parents again and still profoundly resents this separation. She briefly describes conditions in the two camps and her life and schooling in the villages of Garlin and Gurs, including pressure on a teacher to rescind an honor Sonja had earned. Sonja stayed in a convent and then an orphanage at Palavas-les-Flots with other Jewish children, under the auspices of the Union Générale des Israélites de France (UGIF) and OSE, then with distant relatives who were in hiding, later in a boarding school in Chambéry, constantly on guard. She mentions a failed attempt to cross the border into Switzerland. Later Sonja worked as a maid at an inn that was a substation of the ArmeéSecréte (the French underground). She invented a new identity for herself as a non-Jewish war orphan, and participated in Catholic rites to avoid discovery. After she earned their trust, Sonja became a messenger. She relates how her presence of mind foiled a plot by the so-called “Butcher of Grenoble” to blow up the Underground headquarters just after liberation in August 1944. Sonja describes post-war life at the Chambéry boarding school, with her cousins, as well as her search for her parents, and was an active member of Hashomer Hatzair in Paris. She describes how she learned what she needed to do to survive, how the loss of her parents affects her to this day, and how her outlook about religion, Jewishness, and Zionism changed as she matured. Sonja went to the United States from Sweden on the Gripsholm as a war-orphan in 1947, instead of making aliyah with her friends. She talks about the difficult adjustment to life in the United States, how she managed to get the higher education she wanted, and post-war trips to Israel in great detail. Interviewee: SAMSON, Sonja Date: June 3, 1985