15th September 2024 – Col de la Cerise
I am at le Col de Cerise with the group coming from Saint Martin Vésubie and those coming from Borgo San Dalmazzo, Italy. We are singing O Bela Ciao. It is midday, 15 September 2024. This is my first time in Saint Martin. But… Why am I here? Why now?
2022 – In search of the Past
In 2022 my father passed away, and I realized that I would never again be able to ask him questions about his life or thoughts. A few weeks later, my sister, Aída, sent me a copy of my mother’s birth certificate, which was needed for the paperwork following my father’s death. It contained the names of my mother, of course, but also of her parents and grandparents. For the first time I realized how little I – and my mother and sister – knew about her family. My great-grandparents, who had never been part of my life, now became real, and I felt the need to search for them.
I will focus here on my grandmother’s family, which is the one related to Saint Martin. When I started my search, all I knew about was that from 1928 until 1933 my grandmother had lived in Barcelona with her father, Enrique (Henri, Herscek, Henryk, Herschel, Heinrich) Cukier, his second wife, Rosa, and their children. He was a tailor and apparently the whole family had moved to Brazil in 1936. I knew nothing about my great-grandmother, Frajda.
After several weeks of researching on the internet, I wasn’t able to find any trace of my great-grandfather, Enrique Cukier. There was only one Enrique Cucker, who had settled in Brazil in 1956, but I dismissed this information several times, as the surname and dates didn’t match. But one day I decided to click on the link, and what I discovered was the immigration card of a Polish tailor, along with the photograph of a man who almost certainly had to be my great-grandfather. He bore a striking resemblance to my grandmother, though she was much better looking!
This finding became my starting point. Gradually, I uncovered a wealth of information—documents, testimonies… Enrique and his family had not moved to Brazil in 1936, but to Uruguay in 1948. So, what happened in the meantime?
1887 – 1924: Zwolen – Warsaw – Katowice – Paris – Madrid
My grandmother, Fanny (Fajga-Ruchla), was the daughter of Enrique’s first marriage. She was born in Warsaw in 1913, where Enrique and Frajda, his first wife, lived, and where Enrique worked as a tailor. Enrique and Frajda had been born in Zwolen, Poland, in 1891 and 1887 respectively. They also had a son. The marriage did not go well, and they divorced.
From 1914 Enrique served with the Russian/Soviet Armies during WWI and ended in the German POW camp for Russian and Romanian soldiers in Katowice. He could come and go, having to stay the night in the camp. In one of the outings around 1919, Enrique met Rosa, who was born in Czestochowa in 1901. Their first child, Federico, was born in Katowice in 1920.
In 1920 Katowice was part of Germany, but in 1922, after the Upper Silesian plebiscite, it became part of Poland. Life in Katowice – as in many other places – became very difficult for the Jews, and Enrique and Rose decided to leave and go to Paris, hoping for a better future for their family. But Enrique soon realized that it was quite complicated for a Polish tailor to work legally in Paris, so in 1923/24 they moved to Madrid, where Rosa’s brother Julio (Yehuda) was living. In Madrid their second child, Tula, was born.
1924 – 1934: Madrid – Barcelona – Canary Islands/Tangiers
A year later they moved again—this time to Barcelona. The city offered much better opportunities at that time for Enrique, with a thriving clothing industry and a significant Jewish presence in that sector. In Barcelona the third child, Regina, was born in 1927, and the fourth, Fernando in 1929. While living in Barcelona, Enrique sent for my grandmother, who was in Warsaw, and she arrived in 1928 at the age of 15. This decision undoubtedly saved her life. Her mother, Frajda, perished in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941 and her brother, a partisan, was shot by the Germans.
Around 1931 my grandmother met my grandfather, Salomon, from Sokal, in Barcelona, and in September 1933 my mother, Aída, was born. They decided to emigrate to Argentina, and as a first step, they moved to Gran Canaria in 1934. At the same time, Enrique and Rosa decided to move to Tangiers, likely due to Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and the political instability in Spain.
In 1935 Salomon, who had already been in Argentina from 1926 until 1930 went there again to arrange the visas for Fanny and Aída. But the Civil War broke out and the Canary Islands became quite isolated from the rest of the world until the end of World War II in 1945. During that time Fanny lost contact with Salomon and with Enrique and she would never get in touch with them again. Fanny and Aída stayed in the Canary Islands, in Tenerife, where my sister and I were born.
1934 – March 1943: Tangiers – Barcelona – Chestojowa – Merano – Nice
As I mentioned earlier, Enrique and his family moved to Tangiers in 1934. But in 1936, with the civil war raging in Spain, they decided to go back to Barcelona, probably to obtain papers that would allow them to go to South America, where they would be safe. Barcelona was on the Republican side and, although it might not have been the best place at that time due to the war, Enrique was aware of the fact that most European countries would not allow the legal entrance of Jews with Polish passports.
In February 1937 Franco’s Nationalist forces started bombing Barcelona and some time later the Cuckers decided to cross the Pyrenees. As they had valid Polish passports, the French told them they could not stay there. So, by spring 1937 they were again in Poland, in Rosa’s birthplace, Chestojowa. But by the 17th of June what is known as the third Chestojowa pogrom erupted, and it was clear to them that they had to flee to a safer country.
At that time South America was not an option due to immigration restrictions. As the children spoke Italian, since they had attended the Italian Lyceum in Tangiers, Enrique and Federico went to the Italian consulate in Warsaw and succeeded in getting visas to enter the country. Italy was at that time a better place than others for a Jewish family to be, in spite of having Mussolini in power. They settled in Merano, in South Tyrol, which had the advantage for Rosa and Enrique that German was spoken. But on the 9th of March 1939 they were forced to leave Merano, since Mussolini’s race laws of October 1938 had established that date as the deadline for Jews who had arrived in Italy after 1919 to leave the country. They entered France illegally crossing the mountains and settled in Nice until March 1943.
March 1943 – September 1943: Saint Martin Vésubie – San Giacomo – Entracque – Valdieri – Cuneo – Rome
In March 1943 Enrique’s family was among those Jewish families living in the Italian occupied zone who the Italians decided to settle in towns in the Alpes Maritimes. The Italians avoided delivering those families to the Germans in the French occupied zone, arguing that they were already interned in those towns.
In Saint Martin the siblings, from 13-year-old Fernando to 22-year-old Federico, had a wonderful spring and summer, in spite of the excruciating circumstances. They repaired a swimming pool, went to the river, to the mountains, and probably organized some dancing parties, with or without Italian approval. They lived in a stunning environment. Max, Tula’s boyfriend and future husband, was also there with his parents. For Enrique and Rosa, it must have been a time of uncertainty and anguish.
On September 9th, after the Italian armistice, as the Germans occupied the area, they fled back to Italy through le Col de Fenestre. They were a group of eleven people (Enrique and Rosa, the children, Max`s family and another couple) … and a dog. They crossed the pass wearing regular clothes and shoes, carrying backpacks sewn by Enrique. They arrived from the col at San Giacomo, and from there they walked towards Entracque, where they found food cans left behind by the Carabinieri, and finally to Valdieri where they were aided by the mayor and the priest.
Realizing that the Germans had also invaded Italy, they decided that it was too dangerous to stay in the area (sadly a correct assessment). They slept one night in Borgo but left before the Germans opened the internment camp there. (Later the Germans urged in leaflets posted all over the region for the Jews from Saint Martin Vésubie to give themselves up–the ones that ended up in Borgo were deported to Auschwitz, as well as the ones that remained in Saint Martin). So, they walked towards Cuneo. They had the advantage of speaking Italian, which might help them to pass as peasants in case of an encounter with German SS, avoiding being recognized as refugees from Saint Martin. In Cuneo, they bought train tickets to Rome, via Genoa, Florence and Pisa. They stayed in Rome until 1948, in hiding until 4 June 1944, when Rome was liberated.
1943 – 1948 – Rome – Urugay, Brazil and the world!
From Rome they moved to Uruguay and later to Brazil. Today, we, their descendants, are spread all over the world: Miami, Los Angeles, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, Panama, São Paulo, Montevideo, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Switzerland, London, Madrid and Tenerife.
2023 – Today: Making contact again
On August 4, 2023, ninety years after my grandmother lost contact with her family, I sent an email to Felipe, the eldest son of Federico and Enrique’s eldest grandson, introducing myself. He answered me, and to my surprise he said that they knew of our existence, and had been searching for us, without success. A few days later, I had a video call with Marcos, Fernando’s eldest son, and some days later a Zoom meeting with my mother, my sister, and all of Enrique and Rosa’s grandchildren. It was deeply moving.
In December 2023 I met Felipe in Barcelona, where we visited the places where Enrique and Rosa, the children and my grandmother, Fanny, had lived, the schools,…
In April 2024 my sister, my wife Myriam, and I travelled to São Paulo to meet part of the family during the Bar Mitzvah of one of Enrique’s great-grandchildren, Marcos’s son. It was an incredible experience—and I even had my own Bar Mitzvah! (Though at 63, I might be a little past childhood…).
15 September 2024 – Col de la Cerise… and more
During my research I also came across the Marche de la Mémoire and decided to join in 2024. It was an unforgettable experience—arriving on Friday for a Stolpersteine ceremony and the Shabat dinner, participating in various events, and making the ascent (and descent) to Col de la Cerise, one of the routes taken by Jewish families fleeing from Saint Martin Vésubie into Italy. At the Col, there were people of all ages: adults, children and a brave 80-year-old man with his grandson! It was a deeply moving experience, a chance to share thoughts and stories with other descendants of survivors, and even an opportunity to pick up some books about the 1943 events at the local bookstore. I wish to thank David and the rest of the team for their kindness and their great organization before and during the weekend.
On Monday, 16 September, I crossed into Italy (by car this time), stopping at San Giacomo—the first place my family arrived—then at Entracque, where they had rested in the town square, afterwards at Valdieri (where I had a great lunch), and, finally, I stopped at Borgo San Dalmazzo, where I spent some time at the memorial, honoring the persecuted Saint Martin Vésubie Jews. From there I travelled to Cuneo, where I visited the train station and beautiful city center.
From Cuneo I continued to Nice, where my dear friend Bernard—whom I had met in Saint Martin—and his wonderful wife welcomed me. Together we visited the synagogue and walked through the streets in the city center and in Cimiez that surely Enrique and his family had frequented. We also met with Mr. Jean-Louis Panicacci at the Musée de la Résistance Azuréenne, of which he is the president. I also took the time to visit Sospel, where Enrique and Rosa’s oldest son had been briefly interned in the Caserne in 1941.
All in all, it was an incredible journey—one I hope to repeat this year. And this time, if everything goes according to schedule, we will be more than 15 descendants from our family from all around the world!
Alvaro Diaz
