Survivor’s story is a poignant lesson for pupils
ON AN October morning in 1942 in the Piotrków ghetto in Poland, 12-yearold Harry Spiro was summoned from home by the Nazis, along with everybody else who worked in a local glass factory.
“My mother said to me: ‘Get ready to go.’ I said: ‘No, I’m not going’. We argued a lot. She kept on saying that, hopefully, one of us should be alive. I didn’t understand.”
His mother’s insistence saved his life — but it was the last time they spoke.
When he returned soon afterwards, she and the rest of his family were gone. The ghetto was liquidated, its occupants taken to the gas chambers of Treblinka.
“The terrible thing was that I had a very, very close relationship with my mother,” Mr Spiro, now 89, recalled during an hour-long conversation with TV personality Robert Rinder at an HMD event at Stoke Newington School in North London. “She pushed me out of the family house.”
Tens of thousands of pupils tuned in to the Holocaust Educational Trustor ganised discussion, which was livestreamed to 550 schools, plus more than 100 other organisations, including government departments, universities and workplaces.
Mr Rinder spoke of his personal connection to Mr Spiro, who he has known his entire life.
His grandfather, Morris Male nicky, and Mr Spiro were among The Boys, the 732 orphaned Shoah survivors who were brought to the UK to after the war.
Mr Rinder’s mother now chairs the ’45 Aid Society, which was established to support The Boys. “What’s so moving is there were these groups of survivors who had no extended family forming mishpachah [family] among themselves and creating the ’45 Aid Society,” Mr Rinder told the JC.
“There would be an annual do, where effectively it was an opportunity for them to celebrate with one another.
“It’s only really recently that he [Mr Spiro] felt able to tell his story.”
After he was taken from his family, Mr Spiro and his fellow factory workers were taken to a smaller ghetto of about 2,000 people, which was later liquidated.
He was then moved to a labour camp in Czestochowa, southern Poland, where he produced munitions for the German army.
As the Soviet army advanced, the prisoners were moved to Buchenwald, and then a satellite camp, Rehmsdorf. He was finally liberated from Theresienstadt, after surviving a “death march”, during which all but 270 of the 3,000 prisoners perished. “Inevitably there were always dead bodies lying on the floor [in the camps],” he said. “The worst part was you were dehumanised. You stopped caring about other people.
“Unfortunately, I am the only survivor from my entire family. If I could speak to my mother, I would tell her that I didn’t want to leave, but yes, you were right.
“I am glad you pushed me out [of the door]. I survived because of you.
“Terrible things [the Nazis] did to me. But by hating them – no, you will not solve anything. Killing each other, hating each other, where do we end up?
“The young generation does take notice. They do learn. That gives me encouragement to carry on. Hopefully, eventually, we will successfully overcome this terrible hatred.”
George Neyhus, a year 11 pupil at Stoke Newington School, told the JC he found Mr Spiro’s testimony “horrifying” — but that it “brought the Holocaust to life. Whenever we hear about the Holocaust, it’s facts and figures. These are the people you never see or hear about — the real stories.
“Families were torn to pieces. I am Jewish, and like [Mr Spiro] I am close to my mum. That could have been me.”
Lucas Ribeiro, in year nine, struggled to comprehend how Mr Spiro could feel no hatred towards those responsible for the murder of his family.
“I thought: ‘How would I react if I was in his situation?’ At my age I’m just trying to do well in school, work hard towards my dreams. I was just imagining having it all taken away, being taken away from my family. I can’t pretend to know what that’s like.
“The sad truth is there is still racism and antisemitism. We are the coming generation and we need to build a better world than the one we have now.”
After coming to the UK in 1945, Mr Spiro learned English and worked in a number of different jobs, eventually opening a shop. He married in 1957 and started a family. Today, he lives near London and regularly gives talks on his Shoah experience as part of the HET’s outreach programme.
There were always dead bodies lying on the floor’