Otto Papernik family papers

Otto Papernik, born in Vienna in 1907, was a cabinet maker by profession. After the annexation of Austria by Germany, he left for Luxembourg in September 1938, and remained there until the German invasion of May 1940. Papernik fled to Spain, but his convoy was turned back to France and he was interned at Bayonne for several months. During this period, American representatives of an organization seeking to establish a settlement for Jewish refugees in the Dominican Republic visited internment camps in southern France, seeking candidates with necessary skills who could build this new settlement. In the process, they recruited Papernik and his fiancee, Irene Koppel, and the two travelled to the Dominican Republic, arriving in May 1941, and they married in Puerto Plata in August 1941. The Paperniks lived in Sosua until 1951, when they immigrated to the United States, settling in New York, where Papernik established a cabinet-making business with his brother Julius, who had joined him in Sosua after being interned at Gurs.