United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Otto Papernik, born in Vienna in 1907, was a cabinet maker by profession, and following the annexation of Austria by Germany, he planned to emigrate, and left for Luxembourg in the summer of 1938. After settling there, he sought to bring his family, but only his brother and mother managed to arrive after his brother's release from Buchenwald in early 1939. Following the invasion of Luxembourg in May 1940, Papernik escaped on a convoy headed to southern France and then Spain, but once inside Spain, it was turned back to France, and the passengers were interned in Bayonne. During this period, a group of Americans visited the camp, on behalf of the organization seeking to bring Jewish refugees to the Dominican Republic. Papernik was selected for this group, as was a woman he had met on the convoy, who by then had become his fiancee, Irene Koppel. The two travelled together to Marseille, and eventually onward to Spain, Portugal, and the United States, arriving in the Dominican Republic in May 1941, where they were married in August 1941, and settled in Sosua. Otto's brother, Julius, who had migrated to Belgium in 1940, was captured by the Germans and interned in Gurs, in France, as was his mother, Karoline Papernik, who subsequently died at Gurs in August 1940. When Julius was released, he eventually made his way to Sosua as well, rejoining his brother, and the two worked together in carpentry and cabinet making in the settlement. In 1951, Otto and Irene Papernik and their family immigrated to the United States, settling in New York.
Copyright Holder: Peter Papernik
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The collection is divided into two series: Writings and Documents. Writings contains a photocopy of the typescript memoir of Otto Papernik, which is undated, but approximately from the 1970s or later. The documents are arranged by individual, and then by type of document, the latter listed in alphabetic order.
Papers of Otto and Irene Papernik, including birth certificates, travel documents, immigration forms, and an unpublished memoir of Otto Papernik, describing his experiences after the annexation of Austria by Germany, his escape to Luxembourg, and after 1940, to southern France, and eventually the Dominican Republic. Collection also contains documents related to Papernik's mother, Karoline, including travel documents and her death certificate, showing that she died at Gurs in 1940.
Otto Papernik family papers