feature story
Philadelphia Family Connects
with Long-Lost Cousins
Who Survived the Holocaust
JARRAD SAFFREN | STAFF WRITER
A s a kid growing up in Philadelphia, Rick DeSouza
had more than 25 fi rst cousins. So naturally, he
always wondered why he never met any of his
mother Ida’s cousins.

When DeSouza asked her, she told him they had
“perished at the hands of the Nazis during World
War II,” he recalled. Ida died in 2005 believing this
to her grave.

Yet it turned out she was wrong.

In February of 2021, Paula Diamond, the widow of
Ida’s brother, Harry Diamond, received a letter from
a Frenchman named Jacques Wawer. He said he was
trying to fi nd his “long-lost Diamond cousins from
Philadelphia.” Wawer, his brother Louis and his sister Helene
were Ida and Harry’s fi rst cousins — the children of a
brother of Ida and Harry’s mother Bertha Diamond,
he explained. Th ey had survived the Holocaust.

Aft er their father, Abraham Wawer, was taken to
Auschwitz, the siblings pretended to be Christian
and hid out in the home of a Christian family
near Paris.

Upon receiving Jacques Wawer’s letter, Paula
Diamond spread the word to her extended family
members and started a correspondence. Th en, one
winter aft ernoon in 2021, Rick, Paula and several
extended family members got on a Zoom call with
Jacques, Louis and Helene, and they listened to
their story of survival. On July 21, the French cous-
ins will arrive in the Philadelphia suburbs to meet
their “long-lost Diamond cousins” in person for the
fi rst time.

DeSouza, a Jewish Realtor who lives in a 55 and
over community in Warwick, wrote about the saga in
his community’s monthly newsletter.

“When we all got together one late aft ernoon last
winter, it was quite a moment,” he wrote.

“We learned that their dad was caught in the
roundup in Paris and sent to Auschwitz, never to be
seen again,” he continued.

18 JULY 21, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
“Needless to say, all of the cousins on this side of
the pond, are counting the days until they arrive,”
he concluded.

DeSouza, his aunt Paula Diamond and his cousins
Debbie Wogalter, Lisa Kirkpatrick, Nancy Wagner
and Lisa Watkins were all on the Zoom call. Th ey
had never known that these cousins existed before
that 2021 letter. Yet they all felt like they needed to
be there.

“I just think that it’s so important for us to connect
to these cousins we never knew about, and to hear
their story,” DeSouza said. “I think it’s my obligation,
for my parents.”
DeSouza’s mother Ida grew up in an Orthodox home,
then raised her children “basically Conservative,” as
the son described it. But she always instilled in them
an understanding of the past and an appreciation for
their relative safety in the United States.

Ida’s motto, which she repeated to her son over and
over, was, “Never, ever forget.” Today, the son doesn’t.

Th e 69-year-old does not attend synagogue, but he
does light Shabbat candles every Friday night.

Wogalter, the daughter of Henry Diamond, who
is a sibling of Ida and Harry and a son of Bertha’s,
also grew up in a household that moved away from
Orthodox Judaism. But she did attend six years of
The Diamond siblings led a happy life in the United States.

Courtesy of Rick DeSouza