Nora Katz Simon (1903-1996), a German-born Jewish woman, immigrated from the German Reich to the United States in the late 1930s. While living in New York City, she met Solomon Simon (1901-1988), a fellow German-born Jew, who had recently fled the German Reich as well. After moving from New York City to Cleveland, Ohio, they married in 1940. From the United States they sent financial support to Nora's family, especially her uncle, Leopold Katz, who was able to flee Nazi Germany and escape to the Netherlands in 1938, from where he eventually made his way to Palestine. In Palestine, Leopold witnessed the founding of the state of Israel, where he remained together with Nora's father and their families. Both of them kept in close contact with Nora and Solomon, documented by the correspondence present in this collection. Nora survived her husband, who died in 1988, by nine years.
The Nora and Solomon Simon Papers, 1915-1993 and undated, consist of certificates, correspondence, an obituary, and a will.
This collection is of value to researchers studying the migration history of Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1930s. The collection demonstrates the ties of the Cleveland, Ohio, Jewish immigrant community to the state of Israel. The collection can be used to reconstruct how Jews fled Nazi Germany and living conditions for immigrants in Palestine, and later Israel. Of special interest is the correspondence between Johanna Meyer and Nora Simon, detailing the reunion in correspondence of two prewar friends. Also of interest are the documents from the Red Cross, identifying the location of family members in the Netherlands in 1943 and 1944. They illustrate the efforts of refugees to contact relatives abroad and highlight the plight of those displaced and imprisoned by the Nazis during the war.
The collection is arranged alphabetically by document type and then chronologically.
All photographs have been removed to the WRHS Photograph and Print Collection.
Processed by Sebastian Wuepper in 2012.
None.
[Container ___, Folder ___ ] MS 5150 Nora and Solomon Simon Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio
Gift of Anne McMasters in 2007.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.