Elsa, a milliner (hatmaker) by profession, must have had a hard time making a living after the Germans occupied Vienna. In the beginning of 1941 what should have been a purely joyous event happened to Elsa – she got pregnant. Who was the father of this unborn child? He was probably a non Jew, because when Elsa gave birth on Dec 18th 1941 at the Rothschild Hospital in Vienna, only her name is listed. At that time, intimate relations between Jews and non Jews were strictly forbidden.
Jona was not even six months old when his mother Elsa Spiegel was deported on June 2nd 1942 from Vienna to Minsk. She was probably murdered at Maly Trostenets outside Minsk where a memorial tells that 201500 Jews were murdered.
In memory of
my grandfather Leopold Spiegel (1872 – Holocaust)
my uncle Rudolf Spiegel (1901 – Holocaust)
my mother Elsa Spiegel (1909 – Holocaust)
After his mother was deported, Jona Spiegel lived in a Jewish orphanage in Vienna till he, together with some other young unaccompanied children, was deported to Ghetto Theresienstadt on Sept 24
th 1942.
It is hard to imagine the efforts made in Ghetto Theresienstadt by unknown heroes enabling Jona Spiegel to live more than two and a half years in that ghetto – from being a baby of nine months to a toddler of three years and four months.
Jona was one of the around hundred children alive when Ghetto Theresienstadt was liberated.
Emilie Spiegel's grandson had survived Holocaust!
After the liberation, Jona spent some time regaining strength in Czeckoslovakia before he and some of the other young survivors were sent to England.
In England Jona was given up for adoption to a Jewish couple.
Jona grew up, married and had children.
Despite his adoptive parents' objection, he insisted of finding out who were his biological parents and what had happened to them.
He found out that his mother was Elsa Spiegel and that she was murdered in Holocaust.
He found out that his maternal grandparents were Leopold and Emilie Spiegel.
He found out that his grandfather Leopold Spiegel was murdered in Holocaust.
He found out that his uncle Rudolf Spiegel had been among the Jews deported to Nisko in Poland in October 1939.
He found out that his aunt Hilde and Hilde's husband Siegmund Neumann probably managed to flee Austria in the beginning of 1939, but he has found no trace of them.
It had not been clear when and where his grandmother Emilie Spiegel had died.
Lately, through a website with a database of those buried in Jewish cemeteries in Vienna, Emilie Spiegel's name turned up. Further investigations through the Jewish community in Vienna confirmed that this was indeed Jona's grandmother.
I do not know what will be written on the gravestone Jona wants to put on his grandmother's grave, but in my imagination I see the gravestone as both a gravestone for the grandmother and a memorial for those three murdered in Holocaust – his mother, his grandfather and his uncle.
Five Hebrew letters on Jewish gravestones remind us to keep those no longer alive, a part of the life of those still living.
ú.ð.ö.á.ä
“Tehiyu nafsham tzrura be-tzror ha-chaim” sometimes translated as “May their Souls be Bound in the Knot of Life”.
The new gravestone in Vienna may only have the minimal text of
“Emilie Spiegel nee Schwarz
1871 - Dec 12th 1939”
But we know that - hidden behind those few words - is the much longer story of a grandson who now has a family grave.
ô"ð
My grandmother
Emilie Spiegel nee Schwarz
1871 – Dec 12th 1939
In memory of
my grandfather Leopold Spiegel (1872 – Holocaust)
my uncle Rudolf Spiegel (1901 – Holocaust)
my mother Elsa Spiegel (1909 – Holocaust)
ú.ð.ö.á.ä
Written by
Eva Floersheim, Lower Galilee, IL – 15240 Shadmot Dvorah, Israel
April 1st 2005
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