Simon Markel

Chana and Feiwel Markel run a kosher household with their four children, Wolfgang (Willy), Simon, David and Richard. Together they are planning to emigrate to America and have the necessary visas. But at the end of October 1938, all stateless Jews who had immigrated from Poland are deported from Germany – including the Markel family, who move to Krakow. From there, Chana Markel tries to organise her children’s escape.

In February 1939, Simon and his brother David were due to flee to England with the help of the Polish Jewish Refugee Fund (PJRF), one of the many organisations seeking to rescue Jewish children from Germany and Europe. However, David had to withdraw from the plan before departure due to a lack of space. Simon Markel therefore travelled to England alone. On 14 February, he was registered in London and sent on to Leeds.

Upon arriving in Leeds, he tried to help his brothers escape as well. He writes numerous letters to the Polish Jewish Refugee Fund, particularly to its treasurer, the lawyer Elsley Zeitlyn (1877–1959). His mother, Chana, also tried from Krakow to arrange for her three sons to be sent to England as well. However, the organisation could no longer accommodate the children and her efforts were in vain. Simon Markel’s parents and his three brothers were murdered in the Shoah.

On his arrival in Leeds, Markel was mistakenly registered as a German citizen. Although he tried to have this corrected, he was interned as an ‘enemy alien’ in May 1940 and later transferred to the Fort Lennox internment camp on Île-aux-Noix, near Quebec, Canada. In 1941, his status was changed, but Markel decided to remain in Canada.

After his release, he worked as an engineer and lived in Montreal. He died in 2008 and was buried at the Baron De Hirsch Cemetery in Montreal.

In 2011, his wife Miriam donated the tefillin (prayer straps) that Chana Markel had given her son before they fled to the Montreal Holocaust Museum.