Henry Sontag

Curated by The Journey Through The Holocaust Team

Austrian-Hungarian Empire

Henry Sontag was born in March 1914 in Lemberg, part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire, to his parents Maurycy and Yetty. Henry’s parents had five children including himself. The family had to move to Vienna during World War I because of the fighting…

First Marriage

Once they were in Belgium, Henry worked odd jobs for grocers and anything else that was available to him. In 1939, Henry married his wife, Dora and became the father of her small son, Henri. At the beginning of 1940, Henry wanted to get his parents…

Prison Camp

The two were then transferred to a prison camp located in the south of France called St. Cypien. While at the camp there were several fights between the prisoners over a loaf of bread. Henry did suffer from Typhoid while he was at the prison camp.…

Detention Camp

When Henri reached his wife back in Belgium, they had a discussion that it might be in their best interests to move. The decision was made to travel to Switzerland and the family used an underground system to travel through Europe to their new…

Hope for a Green Card

After the war, Henry reunited with his family and they decided to move back to Belgium. There Henry found work as a manufacturer of leather goods, especially women’s handbags. With the fear that the USSR might try and take over Europe, Henry applied…

Wait for America

While in the Dominican Republic, Henry’s son went to school to study medicine and eventually received an internship in Chicago. Henry and Dora worked different jobs around the country before Henry decided to try again to apply for the right to…

Arrival to America

They decided first to travel the country to see where they would set up their home, and ended up settling in Los Angeles. Henry worked as an inventory clerk until his wife Dora passed away in 1963 from illness. Henry remarried the following year to…