Sonia Kempler
Author: Sonia Kempler
Publisher: Makor Jewish Community Library
Place of publication: Caulfield South, VIC.
Year of Publication: 2010.
Location of Book: Lamm Jewish Library, Melbourne Holocaust Museum, Sydney Jewish Museum, State Library of Victoria and other public libraries.
Cities/town/camps: Germany: Leipzig; Belgium: Brussels, Antwerp; France: Malfaite, Toulouse; Australia: Melbourne, Fremantle.
Note: those cities/towns/camps underlined are those which are most central to the narrative.
Genre: Memoir
Key events/experiences: Kristallnacht; German refugee; hidden child.
The Wheels of Memory is the extraordinary story of Sonia Kempler, a German-Jewish child who had to smuggle herself and her little brother, Max, across the border to Belgium, after the terror of Kristallnacht shattered their happy childhood. The children were separated from their family, again and again: surviving the war alone in the French countryside, and later, in hiding in a Catholic convent in Brussels.
Pages 1-17 detail Sonia’s birth in 1929, her family tree and early childhood in Leipzig with pages 18-34 recounting her early school years amid mounting antisemitic measures in Nazi Germany. Pages 35-46 chart the childrens’ terrifying escape to Antwerp and their reunion with their family. Pages 47-73 recount their isolation in the French countryside after the children were separated from their parents following the Nazi invasion of Belgium. Pages 74-94 describe their return to Antwerp, with pages 95-123 recounting Sonia’s time in hiding in a Catholic convent and the end of the war. Pages 124-36 detail her husband Harry’s family tree and Holocaust experiences. Pages 137-52 describe life in post-war Belgium from 1946-48 and Sonia’s marriage to Harry. Pages 153-79 recount their emigration to Australia, and her father’s death enroute. Pages 180-221 describe the family’s travels to Israel, Max’s wedding, and the establishment of the family business and Harry’s tragic death. The last few pages include a family tree and a poem Sonia dedicated to Harry.
Sonia Kempler was born in Leipzig, Germany, in 1929 to Orthodox Jewish parents, Leo Rosemblum and Betty Dziubas. One of four children, Sonia had two older brothers, Heini and Willi, and one younger, Max. When Sonia was eighteen months old, Willi was hit by a drunk driver and killed. In kindergarten, Sonia first experienced antisemitism when she and her classmates were forbidden from entering the Zoo. On 8 November, 1938, during what was to become known as Kristallnacht, violent mobs terrorized Germany’s Jewish population. Whilst terror raged outside the family apartment, nine-year-old Sonia hid under a blanket with the two-year-old Max. The following day, her father left to buy food and was arrested and deported to Buchenwald. Six weeks later, he was released and fled to Antwerp with the teenaged Heini.
Betty then devised a plan for her two remaining children to escape to Antwerp by train. Sonia was placed in sole charge of little Max and had to carry out a carefully rehearsed act of naivety in order to prevent inspectors from checking their (non-existent) passports. It succeeded, and the children met their father in Brussels before leaving for Antwerp where her mother joined them nine months later. On 10 May 1940, the Nazis invaded Belgium. Sonia’s father made plans for the family to escape to England and Sonia and Max were again placed on a train alone, to join the family in La Panne. However, the train carrying the children was rerouted to Lille, France, due to railway damage caused by German bombers. After many days, Sonia and Max, along with dozens of other refugees, arrived in Toulouse. With the assistance of the Red Cross, the children were eventually housed in a barn in a little French hamlet called Malfaite, where they lived alone for eight months, surviving on a meagre weekly allowance and the kindness of strangers. With help from the local villagers and the Red Cross, the children attended school and were eventually reunited with their parents in Antwerp in January 1941. Nine days later, Sonia’s father and older brother were arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Breendonk concentration camp. For several weeks, the now-eleven-year-old Sonia was again forced to take care of herself and Max, as their mother was in hospital after suffering an asthma attack.
Whilst in Antwerp, Sonia met her future husband, Harry, who was the younger brother of Heini’s girlfriend, Dora. Together, Harry and Sonia visited Breendonk weekly to deliver food parcels to her father and brother. In October 1941, the pair were miraculously released from Breendonk, and the family moved to Brussels as their home in Antwerp was confiscated in accordance with antisemitic legislation. Heini and Dora married before escaping to unoccupied France. They ultimately survived the war in Switzerland. In June 1942, as deportations began in earnest, Sonia was placed in hiding in a Catholic convent and Max in a boy’s orphanage whilst their parents hid in Brussels. In September 1944, the Allied forces liberated Brussels and Sonia was collected by her mother. In May 1945, when Sonia was fifteen, the war officially came to an end, and the family was finally reunited. In January 1947, Heini and his wife emigrated to Australia. Sonia and Harry married in 1948 and, when their landing permits arrived, departed for Australia with Sonia's parents and younger brother. Tragically, her father died on enroute. In Melbourne the family established a successful business. Harry died unexpectedly of an aneurysm at 51.
The Wheels of Memory is the story of Sonia Kempler’s experiences as a child survivor. The memoir is a detailed account that chronologically outlines the author’s wartime and post-war memories, only briefly addressing her life in Melbourne. Sonia began writing her story in October 1991, on the day of her granddaughter’s bat mitzvah. As part of the Makor Jewish Community Library’s “Write Your Story” program, Sonia was a participant in Makor’s memoir writing group where she wrote her story over many months under the guidance of Adele Hulse. The chapter entitled “Two Children on a Train” was first published in 2000 in Makor’s second anthology Memory Guide My Hand. In 2010, her completed memoir was published by the Makor Library as part of the “Write Your Story” Collection.