About/Contact

As of today, we are offline and working on related projects until the end of May. We will check our e-mail daily and look forward to your comments. Please note, our new additions to Pinterest – April 28, 2012

HaitiHolocaust@aol.com
OR  for the HAITI NOW section: HaitiNow1@gmail.com.

Tel: (650) 322-7103
Fx: (650) 322-7146

Click to see Worldwide Readership of Blog 

Welcome to the  HAITI JEWISH REFUGEE LEGACY PROJECT. We are Harriet and Bill Mohr, a San Francisco Bay Area-based married couple embarking on a journey to discover more about the Haiti Jewish refugee experience, via connecting with people, who fled Europe and found safe haven in Haiti, and/or their descendants.

Bill is a retired Hewlett-Packard manager who spent ten months in Haiti when he was four years old, prior to immigrating to the United States. He visited Germany twice, once in 1960 and again in 1999 with his daughter Tara. His interest in his family history was sparked when he joined Frank Harris’ Fürth-Nuremberg reunion planning committee. Further peaking of his desire to reconnect with his past occurred after the Haiti earthquake, especially when viewing TV images of Israelis, in Haiti, setting up make-shift hospitals to aid the injured. What struck him was how 70 years earlier, Haitians had opened the door to between 100 and 300 European Jews fleeing the Holocaust, thus was born a new sense of historical attachment to Haiti. A circle of giving and giving back was being completed. Wanting to do something to raise awareness of Haiti’s life-saving activity during World War II, he began to explore ways to personally give back to Haiti at her time of dire need.

Harriet is a writer with a degree in psychology and the author of a spiritual trilogy. She and Bill co-authored a college sociology text and business book, Quality Circles: Changing Images of People at Work (Addison-Wesley). She cares deeply about the tragedy of what happened to the Jewish people during World War II, particularly the psychological and emotional impact. She feels passionately committed to doing something for the common good of Haiti at this critical time.

The Mohrs lived in Israel from 1970 to 1971.

For more biographical information on the Mohrs and reviews of their college sociology text/business book, CLICK  HERE

For Biographical Sketches of Haiti Child Survivors CLICK HERE

For Harriet’s Biographical Information and reviews of her books CLICK HERE

We have several purposes: the first is to build a community of people interested in sharing their experiences as temporary residents of Haiti at this important time in Jewish history. Our second purpose is to collect personal stories and memorabilia for a proposal to the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City for an exhibit on the Jews of Haiti. The museum recently completed a similar show on the Jews of the Dominican Republic. Third, is to publish personal reflections as well as scholarly research papers on this relatively unknown piece of the Jewish past. We hope to connect with scholars and researchers on this subject. Fourth purpose is to give Haiti and its people, one giant Thank You, because, Haiti, we owe you. In this context, in our small way, we want to generate as much attention as possible to what Haiti did during the Shoah. We think one of the best ways to do this, is to collect stories of those who were there as well as their descendents.

We invite any and all interested people who have a curiosity about the relationship of European Jews to Haiti in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. We hope to engage in a lively conversation in many areas: psychological, sociological, historical, cultural and spiritual.

Things are developing very rapidly. There is a tremendous amount of excitement and interest regarding the discovery of Jews in Haiti during the Shoah. For the most part, the public does not know about the subject.

Central to the meaning and goals of the HAITI JEWISH REFUGEE LEGACY PROJECT is survivors and supporters are giving wholeheartedly back to Haiti, visibly and audibly to the widest audience possible.

We welcome you to THE HAITI JEWISH REFUGEE LEGACY PROJECT. We invite our readers to share their perspectives, reflections, recollections and quotes, as well as those of well-known people. We hope you will share your thoughts and feelings as we seek to increase the depth and breadth of issues covered in this blog. We want to include information not only specific to the Haiti experience, but that touches upon Jewish life during the Shoah, as well as other periods. We look forward to receiving your comments and thank you for helping us broaden the spectrum.

Bill’s Family’s Road Map to Escape Anti-Semitism and Hitler’s Grip

(Click on image for a larger and sharper picture)

A REMEMBRANCE  from Bill:

The woman in my early life, who inspired and shaped my thinking most, was my mother’s mother, Sofie Midas. See her picture, taken in 1955, as her three daughters surround her. The picture was taken at my grandfather Lothar’s 80th birthday party, celebrated in Kew Gardens, N.Y.

On the left in the back row is Sofie’s youngest daughter, Elsbeth, who spent the war in Auschwitz. In the middle is my mother, Auguste (Gusty), her eldest daughter who lived in Haiti for 10 months during the Shoah. On the right is her middle daughter Hilde, who she and my grandfather lived with in Portugal after fleeing Germany. My grandfather, Lothar Midas, and his brother owned a large glass factory in Fürth, Germany, which they were forced to turn over to the Nazis. My grandmother’s remarkable strength and optimism served to support my grandfather during this terrible time when he lost everything. Despite all the hardships, my grandmother never wavered in her strength and ability to hold our family together in the most extraordinary ways.