Sophie Caplan, b. 1933, Eschweiler, Germany. Immigrated to Australia 1947.

Sophie Caplan painstakingly recovers lost generations. It is a debt she repays for having lived through the times when so many other Jewish children were murdered. As a Holocaust historian and genealogist, she brings forgotten names and places back to life.

l) Sophie Caplan in 1942                  r) Sophie Caplan today

Sophie was born in 1933. When she was six years old, her family fled to Belgium and then to France. As Jewish aliens, they were eventually transported to Agde Camp. Here, close to 8000 people were housed in primitive, unsanitary barracks for 3 months. Sophie and her family were then transferred to Rivesaltes, the largest camp in unoccupied France. In 1942 most of the 20-30 000 inmates of Rivesaltes were deported and killed in Auschwitz.

In August 1942, Sophie hid with her mother during a mass round-up. In September, she was smuggled out by OSE, a French Jewish organisation which aided Jewish children. Hundreds of children from Rivesaltes were rescued - both legally and illegally - and safely resettled by OSE. While in Perpignan, fearing that her mother would be missing her, Sophie breached security and sent her a photo, taken in a city park!

In December 1942, a male courier clandestinely took Sophie and five other girls even further to safety. For over two years, until the end of the war, Sophie stayed in Chateau de Chaumont, an OSE home in an isolated and impoverished rural area. Here, with funding from Mrs de Rothschild, the precocious ten year old received her education, excelling in correspondence lessons.

Today, Sophie Caplan’s research, lectures and oral history projects cover Australian Jewish history, European Jewish history and genealogy, and Holocaust history. The Australian Jewish community has been much enriched by her scholarship.