Sonjia Fortouni Calamaro

Sonjia Fourtuni Calamaro was born in Berlin on 30 November 1922. She was 11 years old when her family left Germany after the Nazis came to power. With the 1st decree on the law against overcrowding in German schools and universities of 25 April 1933, the daily exclusion of Jewish children from regular schooling began. School routes and schools became places of fear where they were subjected to harassment and reprisals. Immediately after the Reichspogromnacht, Jews were banned from attending German schools on 15 November 1938. The corresponding circular stated that "no German teacher ... can be expected to give lessons to Jewish schoolchildren. It also goes without saying that it is intolerable for German pupils to sit in a classroom with Jews ...". In her application for compensation, Sonjia stated that she had only been able to attend the school for a few years.
 

In 1941, at the age of 19, she lost her mother and fled with her brother and her uncle Isidor via Crete to Egypt, and later, when the Germans advanced as far as Egypt, on to Palestine. We do not know what it might have meant for her and her brother that her father did not join the flight. However, it can be assumed that they experienced this as a further loss and feared for him. Sonjia emigrated to Canada after the war. She died there on 24 May 2005.