A Holocaust survivor will give live testimony of his experiences of a Nazi concentration camp and death march in a webcast to thousands of students across the country on Thursday in an event marking Holocaust Memorial Day this weekend.
Harry Spiro, 89, will be interviewed by Robert Rinder, a barrister and star of the television reality courtroom series Judge Rinder. The hour-long webcast, to more than 550 schools and more than 100 other organisations, including government departments, universities and workplaces, has been organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET).
Rinder’s great-grandparents and five of their children were killed in the Treblinka death camp. Only his grandfather, Morris Malenicky, survived the Holocaust.
As teenagers, Malenicky and Spiro worked in the same glass factory in the Polish town of Piotrków Trybunalski. They were both sent to camps in Germany, and then on a death march to Theresienstadt in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. Both were among 732 youngsters, known as the Boys (although they included about 80 girls), who were brought to the UK after the war by a Jewish charity.
“Harry and my grandfather found themselves as refugees in Windermere. The Boys, most of whom had no family left, formed a de facto extended family, meeting at reunions [and] attending each other’s weddings,” said Rinder. Spiro and Malenicky “were friends for their whole lives” until his grandfather’s death in 2001, he added.
Spiro, whose mother, father and sister were killed in Treblinka, is a regular visitor to schools as part of the HET’s outreach programme. “The feedback I get gives me a lot of encouragement, especially when I tell them I don’t hate the world because of what happened to me,” he said.
In the camps, the urge to survive dominated everything. Interviewed by his grandson two years ago, he said: “On a daily basis, whenever I’d go in the washroom, [they] always had bodies on the floor. Very often, I saw a body lying on the floor who didn’t finish their ration of bread. I felt it was my lucky day – I got hold of [the bread] and ate it. I never felt ashamed of it or sorry for the guy that was dead.”
Spiro was one of 270 people out of 3,000 that survived a death march from Rehmsdorf camp to Theresienstadt towards the end of the war. “People on that march died purely and simply from starvation or being shot.”
He told the Guardian: “I came to the conclusion a long time ago that hating people doesn’t achieve anything. People are capable of doing horrendous things to each other, but that isn’t overcome by yet more hate.”
Immediately after the war, he was wary of trusting in human nature, but now “I really couldn’t wish for a better ending”. Spiro has been happily married for over 60 years, and has three children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
“I believe in life you need a little bit of luck, and I had a lot of luck when I met my wife,” he said.
Rinder said: “Harry is completely devoid of any bitterness – on the contrary, he’s full of hope and joy. Prejudice in any form is unacceptable to him, and he tells young people: ‘The courage starts with you.’
“The story of the Holocaust is more urgent than ever. We must watch against complacency. Don’t think that just because we have what looks like the protections of democracy that it can’t all disappear in the blink of an eye.”
Hearing the testimony of a survivor had enormous impact, said Martin Winstone of the HET. “People tend to think of the Holocaust in very big numbers; it’s very difficult to comprehend. Hearing one person’s story brings some reality.”
He added: “Inevitably, as the number of survivors sadly diminishes, something like this webcast enables us to reach as many people as possible. It would be wonderful to send a survivor to every school, but this is a practical alternative.”
About 50 survivors work with the HET’s outreach programme, but “it’s becoming more of a challenge” as their numbers reduce and they get older, he said. “They want to speak to as many people as they can in the time they still have. I’m in awe of the dedication they bring to this task.”
Holocaust Memorial Day on Sunday will be marked by a commemorative event in central London with senior politicians, dignitaries, religious leaders and survivors, and almost 11,000 more activities across the country.
