Mr. Spiegel, a Holocaust survivor, paid a visit to Manchester Middle School, to speak to the students about his experiences. Spiegel wrote a book about his experiences, titled “Once the Acacias Bloomed: Memories of a Childhood Lost,” and plans to continue to share his story with others as long as he lives. 

Spiegel was born in Germany, and was considered a German of Jewish faith. He never thought anything of his faith, until about the age of four years old, when other children threw rocks and dirt at him. He did not understand why he was treated differently. 

Spiegel, who is 75 years old and now lives in Howell, described how the Holocaust started with small signs of discrimination against Jews, increasing slowly at first and then exploding on Kristallnacht, when the German Nazis raided the homes of Jews throughout their territories.  It was November of 1938 and Spiegel was only about 6 years old at the time.  He said he didn’t understand what was going on when he saw the synagogue on fire and all the Jewish homes vandalized and looted.  “They smashed everything,” he said.

Shortly after Krisallnacht, Spiegel went to Holland to live with his Uncle, where his mother thought he would be safe. He had never really known his father, because he died when he was just 1 ½ years old. Spiegel’s mother did not go with him to Holland; she obtained a visa and was working in England as an au pair.

Spiegel and his family thought they would be safe in Holland, but the German soldiers eventually attacked Holland. “They dismissed the Jewish teachers and civil servants”, Spiegel explained. He also explained how they were ‘banned’. “We were not allowed to shop in non-Jewish stores, we were also not permitted to ride bikes, go to movies, or attend sporting events”.  Eventually, all Jews had to wear a Jewish star on their clothing and the Nazis began rounding them up at night and sending them away.  “There were less children in school every week,” he said. “Many people went into hiding and it was very dangerous for the people who hid you.” If a neighbor was caught hiding someone, they were also sent away.

In 1941, when Hitler ordered that Holland be cleansed of Jews, Spiegel and his sister were sent to a labor camp in East Amsterdam and were eventually taken by train to the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands.  “Every week, trains went to Poland, to the death camps, and we lived in fear that we would be next,” he said.  When he was finally chosen to board the train, he said he began to scream as he was being pushed aboard and a guard gave an order to have him taken off.  “I don’t know why he did it, but if I hadn’t made such a commotion, I would be dead,” said Spiegel. 

Spiegel stayed in Westerbork for awhile, and eventually his uncle used a letter from his mother, in England, to convince some guards that his niece and nephew were English. Near the end of the war, Spiegel and his sister were sent to an exchange camp in Germany. The conditions in the camp were horrible. There was little water and food, infestations of lice, and many people were dying of typhus and other sicknesses.

Everyone from the camp was put on a train. They traveled in difficult conditions for six days, and as the Germans were defeated the guards and engineers left the train. American soldiers found the train, and they were liberated. Spiegel remembers this day. It was Friday, April 14, 1945, just before his 13th birthday.

Spiegel is trying to send the message that “People have to know that they can never again stand by and let such a terrible thing happen again.”