98-Year-Old Jewish Mom Reunites With Daughter Given up for Adoption During WWII

daughter given up for adoption Jewish mom Gerda Cole Sonya Grist vienna Austria World War II Nazis Holocaust survivor england toronto Canada Stephen Grist Austrian Roots Wendy Gilmour

By Lili Scott , Parent Herald May 28, 07:04 pm

Photo: (Photo : ERIC CABANIS/AFP via Getty Images)

A Jewish mom celebrated her 98th birthday at a Canadian care home with the daughter she gave up for adoption during World War II. It was the first time they would see each other after nearly 80 years.

Gerda Cole was only 18 years old when she give birth to Sonya Grist in England in 1942, at the height of World War II. A native of Vienna, Austria, Cole, who is an only child, left her homeland in 1939 to escape the persecution of the Jews.

Due to her situation as a refugee, Cole decided to give up her baby for adoption. She was advised to never contact or establish a connection with her baby at all as she built her new life as a Holocaust survivor in Canada.

Speaking with The Washington Post, Cole said that she made the tough choice because she was not in a good position to parent a baby, as a refugee in an unhappy marriage. A German couple who moved to England adopted her daughter.

Sonya Grist's Son Was Looking for His Austrian Roots

Back in England, Sonya grew up knowing her biological parents could still be alive but she didn't have any luck searching for them. In 2021, her son, Stephen Grist, had to look up his Austrian roots for his citizenship application. He knew he had biological Austrian grandparents. When he couldn't find a death certificate for his grandmother, he later found out, via Cole's stepson on Facebook, that she was still actually alive.

It took months for Stephen to track down the details about his grandmother. He learned that Cole had been married five times but did not have other children, except for Sonya, who was always on her mind. She couldn't look for her because she had to abide by the conditions of her adoption.

Stephen took weeks to break the news to his mother because he still could not believe Cole was living in a home care in Canada. He was making arrangements with the management to facilitate a reunion between mother and daughter.

In 1942, Gerda Cole, a Jewish refugee and teen who’d fled from Austria to England, put her newborn daughter up for adoption. That daughter’s son found Gerda. Mother and daughter were reunited.

Sonya Grist, 79, was Gerda’s only child.

H/T @ChristinaPushaw https://t.co/RdfveLZndO
— Ajit Pai (@AjitPai) May 25, 2022

Speaking with CBC, Wendy Gilmour, the senior vice-president of the home care, said that the reunion was just what they needed after more than two years of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Grist family arrived in Canada from England for the reunion and Cole's birthday celebration in early May 2022.

Sonya was shaking when she met her mother for the first time. Now pushing 80 years old, she didn't expect this reunion was still possible and she had a thousand questions to ask her biological mother. Cole, on the other hand, said that their reunion has been a miracle.

"It means so much to be able to live to see this moment," the 98-year-old grandmother said.

Mother and Daughter Have a Lot in Common

Though they are still learning more about each other, Cole and Sonya have discovered they share many things in common, such as a love for music, language and traveling.

Sonya said that she has no bitterness for her birth mother. When she learned that she was still alive, all she could think of was flying to Canada to give her a hug.

She plans on returning to Canada so her entire family could meet her mom and Cole is looking forward to that visit. She said that there's nothing else she wants in life at this point but to be with her family," per Kveller.