Holocaust Survivor Found, but Won't Meet Son Who Searched for Her

[JODO 2]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7051201097.html

Holocaust Survivor Found, but Won't Meet Son Who Searched for Her

By Thomas J. SheeranAssociated Press

Sunday, May 13, 2007; Page A11

BEACHWOOD, Ohio -- Sol Factor's 17-year search for his mother, a Holocaust survivor who disappeared in the aftermath of World War II, came to a blunt and unsatisfying end.

"We regret to inform you that we located the above mentioned person, but she would not like to be contacted by the inquirer," Magen David Adom, the Israeli counterpart of the American Red Cross, wrote in a letter to Factor.

Factor had found clues to his past with the help of the Red Cross and a vast archive of Nazi records. Now he knows only that his mother, 83, is living in Israel.

"Of course I'm disappointed, because one likes searches like this to end with happy reunions," he said in his suburban Cleveland home. "There's a sense of actual relief, too, because now some of the mystery has been solved."

Factor, 60, was born Meier Pollak in Munich in 1946 to Romanian-born Rosa Pollak, also spelled Polak. He has found documents showing that Rosa Pollak and her newborn son were discharged from a maternity hospital on July 9, 1946, and soon after went to a United Nations-sponsored hospital for refugees in the city. Within days they became separated.

Factor was adopted in 1950 by an American couple in Belmont, Mass., and began looking for his biological mother in 1990.

The International Tracing Service archive in Bad Arolsen, Germany, provided a half-dozen documents offering tidbits about Factor and his mother, including a handwritten notation that she might have been headed to Palestine. That reference helped Factor direct his research to Israel and its refugee resettlement records.

The ITS archive, operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, holds an estimated 30 million to 50 million pages of Nazi concentration camp documents. Since 1955, it has handled more than 11 million requests for information, but under the international agreement that governs the collection, it has rarely allowed anyone but Red Cross staff to see the material.

Factor, a retired high school teacher, said he was hoping that his mother might change her mind and agree to meet, or at least exchange notes.

But in early May, the Red Cross office in Cleveland gave him the message from Magen David Adom, which had investigated his inquiry. The letter was relayed through the American Red Cross's Holocaust and War Victims Tracing and Information Center in Baltimore, which has checked on more than 40,000 people missing since the Holocaust and World War II and has found more than 1,200 alive.

Speculating on a reason why his mother didn't want to meet him, Factor said: "Many survivors, they want to put the past behind and not have it brought back to them."

He also wonders whether she was an unwed mother.

"It is very possible that this is a very, shall we say, embarrassing, traumatic chapter in her life," Factor said.

Johanna Gottesfeld, director of the Jerusalem branch of Amcha, a group that assists Holocaust survivors, was not familiar with the Factor case but said the mother's reluctance to speak could be related to trauma she experienced.

Edited May 14, 2007 by JODO

[Kez/JWolf 6]

His birth mother may not have told anyone about the baby she was separated from in 1946.... she may have a whole family who know nothing about the child or the events that led up to his birth....

I feel for both of them...

Kez

[Nanusia & Lukaszek 0]

I think the Israeli authorities are probably holding out more info on his mother, than she herself really is. Traumatic experiences both have encountered, but for the love of God, you are yrs from dieing, and you would want to see your son?

[Mary Lou 682]

Sad that..........

[homesick_american 1]

Dude, that's really harsh.

[Alex+R 0]

I think the Israeli authorities are probably holding out more info on his mother, than she herself really is. Traumatic experiences both have encountered, but for the love of God, you are yrs from dieing, and you would want to see your son?

You think the Israeli government is keeping them apart?

[de_sjiem 0]

Thats awful.. to lose your mother at such a young age, and not be adopted until later is hard enough for someone to deal with (abandonment issues etc), but then to have that same mother reject you once you have finally found her after looking for her for 18 years, and probably wondering for his entire life? Too awful.. I'm sure she has her reasons, but its still sad for him...

[MaydayDas 1]

it is sad that it was not a happy reunion......

[mRx 16]

That sucks