Sonia Pressman Fuentes

Museum Exhibits and Holdings

• The Red Star Line Museum, which opened in Antwerp, Belgium in September 2013, has six permanent exhibits, one of which is about Sonia. Sonia was the only one of the museum's surviving passengers who attended the opening festivities. There is a page of this website devoted to the Red Star Line Museum and Belgium. You can find it here.
• Press Release of August 2, 2011, of the Jewish Museum of Florida in Miami Beach, FL, which had an exhibit from September 13, 2011, through March 18, 2012, called "Wooden Synagogues of Poland & The Florida Connection." That exhibit included Sonia and her family. The Press Release contains a photo titled, “Dombek Family, Sosnowice, Poland, c.1910.” In the center of the picture is Sonia’s uncle (her mother’s brother) and he is surrounded by his family.
• In the latter part of 2017, the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia created an online exhibit of Jewish Family History called Re:collection. One of the pictures was taken by Sonia's brother, Hermann Pressman, and is of Sonia, her parents, and an unidentified sailor standing on the Red Star Line's S.S. Westernland's II during its stop at Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada en route from Antwerp to NYC on or shortly before April 29, 1934. You can see the photograph here.
• The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., has the diary that Sonia’s brother, Hermann, began keeping in German shorthand in Berlin, Germany, on his 18th birthday, July 21, 1932; continued in Antwerp, Belgium; and concluded in the Bronx on November 29, 1935. It also has the English translation of that diary prepared by Hermann and his granddaughter, Debbie Gold Linick. The Museum also has over 70 pictures (all of which are originals) of Sonia's family, the Pressman family, as well as postcards and other artifacts. Sonia's contact there is Julie Cohen, who is with the Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database.
• The National Museum of Jewish History in Philadelphia, PA, has an exhibit on the feminist movement, which includes a picture of some of NOW’s founders, including Sonia, which Sonia provided to the museum, at the request of the museum’s staff.
• The Museum of Family History website, created and maintained by Steven Lasky, contains textual material about Sonia and her family. To access it: go to the website, type “Sonia Fuentes” in the Search rectangular box on the right-hand side at the top, click “Search” and if the box titled “Site Search” appears, click on that. That website includes the English translation of Hermann's diary, as edited by Steven Lasky. It also contains the following photographs of Sonia’s family in pre-WW II Poland and Germany:
  • http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/pfh.pilica-pressman.htm
  • http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/pfh.pilica-olmer.htm
  • http://www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/pfh.pilica-dombek-im.htm
• The Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America in Cambridge, MA and the American Jewish Archives in Cincinnati, OH have collections of Sonia's papers, photographs, tapes, CDs, and DVDs. The largest collection of Sonia's papers and other material is at the Schlesinger. Sonia’s contact there is Jenny Gotwals, Curator for Gender and Society. The Schlesinger has organized Sonia's collection and created a finding aid for it that is online here.
• The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives (AJA), located on the Cincinnati, OH campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion has a smaller collection of Sonia's material. Sonia's contact there is Dr. Dana Herman, managing editor and academic associate.