Although the story of Minna Ruelf Spier is, like that of her sisters Esther and Bette, a story that includes much tragedy and suffering, in its way it is also uplifting for what it reveals about the human spirit and the will to survive. As we move closer to Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, I find Minna’s story appropriate for these days and inspiring.
I have been in touch with one of Minna’s direct descendants, my fourth cousin- once removed Jennifer Spier-Stern, and she has shared with me what she knows about the family history as well as some family photographs. I am so very grateful to Jennifer for her help and her generosity.
Minna Ruelf was born on February 16, 1859, in Rauischholzhausen, Germany:
Three days after her 21st birthday, on February 19, 1880, she married Isaak Spier. Isaak was born June 12, 1850, in Leidenhofen, Germany, another town in the Hesse region, the son of Abraham Spier and Esther Schaumberg. Isaak was a merchant. Minna and Isaak settled in Ebsdorf, a small village a mile from Leidenhofen, where they had the first of their three sons, Abraham, who was born on January 18, 1881.
Their two younger sons, Julius (July 26, 1883), and Siegfried (November 29, 1886), were born in Rauischholzhausen.
Isaak Spier died on June 17, 1910, in Rauischholzhausen. He was sixty years old. At that time none of his sons had married.
Abraham, the oldest son, married nine years later on November 3, 1919; he was 38 years old. He married Jenny Wertheim, who was born on June 4, 1890, in Hatzbach, Germany, to Wolf Wertheim and Sanchen Edelmuth.
Abraham and Jenny had five children, one daughter and four sons: Edith (1920), Julius (1922),[1] Alfred (1924), Martin (1925), and Walter (1927); they were all born in Rauischholzhausen.
Just three weeks after Walter’s birth, his grandmother Minna Ruelf Spier died at age 68 on November 5, 1927.
The youngest son of Isaak Spier and Minna Ruelf, Siegfried, died when he was 48 years old in Rauischholzhausen on February 21, 1935, just seven months before the Nuremberg Laws were adopted by the Nazis in Germany. Siegfried was unmarried.
Not long after Siegfried’s death, Julius Spier (Abraham’s brother, not his son) left Rauischholzhausen. According to Alfred Schneider’s book, Die Juedischen Familien im ehemaligen Kreise Kirchain (p. 350), Julius was still in Rauischholzhausen in 1935, but as of 1936, his location was unknown. One source says that he went to Frankfurt where he had a seat on the stock exchange. That same source said that he immigrated to England by 1945, perhaps as early as 1938. (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Pedigree Resource File,” database, FamilySearch(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/2:2:SB2K-RMP : accessed 2017-09-06), entry for Julius /Spier).
According to Jennifer, Julius Spier married Lucie Henrietta Cohn. According to this website located by Jennifer, Lucie was the daughter of Hugo Cohn and Selma Marcuse of Halberstadt; she was born on October 28, 1897. The website also states that she’d gone to Frankfurt and married (no date or place was given, nor the name of her husband). If futher states that after getting divorced in 1938, Lucie had immigrated to England and worked in the fashion industry. Although I have no marriage record or other document showing her marriage or divorce, Lucie appears on many passenger manifests between 1947 and 1960—first residing in London, later in the US, listed at various times as a commercial traveler, a housewife, and a nurse.
Julius died in London on February 25, 1959. (England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007, on Ancestry.com)
UPDATE: Thank you to Anne Callanan of the German Genealogy for sending me some records she found on FindMyPast, a genealogy service to which I do not (yet) subscribe. Anne found Enemy Alien registration cards for several family members including Julius Spier and Lucie Henrietta Spier. From those records, I now know that Julius was in England by November 1939, working as an agent. He was at first granted an exemption from being detained as an enemy alien, but that decision was reversed and he was interned on June 21, 1940, but was released two months later on August 23, 1940.
Lucie also had to register as an enemy alien. She registered on December 8, 1939, when she was living in Manchester, England (thus not with Julius) and working as a house servant for a Mr. M. I. Marks in his home. She was granted an exemption and was not interned. The card does not reveal any information about her marital status.
Abraham and Jenny Spier and their children were still in Germany during the Nazi era, but they were eventually able to get some of their children to England. According to my cousin Jennifer, Edith Spier left Germany on one of the early Kindertransports to England where she worked as au pair; according to the Schneider book (p. 351), Edith left on October 20, 1937, when she was seventeen. She eventually went to New York, where in 1943 she married Alfred Baumann, who was born in Adelsberg, Germany, in 1913, and had immigrated to the US in 1938.
Julius Spier (Abraham and Jenny’s son) was arrested along with ten thousand other Jewish men in the aftermath of Kristallnacht on November 9, 1938, and sent to Buchenwald. His daughter Jennifer wrote this about his experiences:
My father, John Sanders (nee Julius Spier) was born in Rauischholtzhausen, Germany on June 17, 1922. At the age of 16, on November 9, 1938 he was arrested in his home by the Gestapo. It should have been my grandfather, but he was in a few towns over at his mother’s home. Rumors around the towns were that the Gestapo were going from house to house to arrest the eldest male.
My father was taken to Buchenwald concentration camp where he remained for 10 weeks. During this time, his mother heard about the organized efforts of the Jewish Agency of Bloomsbury, London to get as many Jewish children, between the ages of four to 17, out of Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. She went to the Jewish Agency and the police, where she was told to get all the documents ready, as well as a visa to leave Germany.
Upon release from Buchenwald, my father had only two weeks to leave Germany. His father took him to the Frankfurt train station, where he was to meet the Kindertransport train that would take him to England. At the train station there were other families with children. The parents and their young ones had to say their good-byes inside the train station. The children, regardless of age, had to go onto the platform and then onto the train by themselves. Families with infants gave the infants to the older children. It is difficult to comprehend all sides. How does a parent give up a baby and how does a young adult care for one. My father said goodbye to his father, not realizing that this was the last time he would ever see him. …
After his tenure in Dover Court, my father was taken into the home of an Orthodox family in Westgate, London. He was there until June of 1939 when his brother [Alfred] came over from Germany. Together, they went to a hostel in London. Shortly thereafter they were taken to a farm in Aberdeen, Scotland. An aristocrat owned the farm by the name of Sir Robert Grant. He treated my father and his brother with the utmost of respect and kindness. One memorable time for my father was when the chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce took him and his brother to Harrod’s department store in London and they were able to pick out all that they needed. Sir Robert Grant applied for visas to get my father’s parents and brothers out of Germany. Unfortunately war broke out a few days later and all visas were denied.
That left Abraham and Jenny and their two youngest children, Martin and Walter, stranded in Germany. On September 7, 1942, all four were deported to Theriesenstadt. Then on May 18, 1944, all four were transported to Auschwitz, where Abraham and Jenny were murdered. Martin and Walter survived. Walter Spier talked movingly about his experience in this video. I implore you all to watch it. It’s less then fifteen minutes long, and when you considered what he suffered for years, you know you can spare fifteen minutes to hear him talk.
When I think of the two young men being reunited in Rauischholzhausen in 1945, it moves me to tears.
Meanwhile, their older siblings were for a time in the United Kingdom. But like many other Jews who were sent to England for safety from the Nazis, Julius and Alfred were sent to the Isle of Man as possible “enemies of the state” after England declared war on Germany in September, 1939.
According to this article from B’nai Brith Magazine, the first inmates arrived on the Isle of Man in May, 1940, and by August, 1940, there were over 14,000 men, women, and children imprisoned on the Isle of Man, some being Nazi sympathizers, many others being Jews who’d been born in Germany and thus were considered enemy aliens, ironically. Because of overcrowding, in July, 1940, England decided to send some of the inmates to Canada or to Australia. (Cheryl Klemper, “Imprisoned On The Isle Of Man: Jewish Refugees Classified As “Enemy Aliens”, ” B’nai Brith Magazine, September 19, 2016)
Julius and Alfred Spier were among those sent to Australia. According to Jennifer, they both were on the ship known as the HMT (Hired Military Transport) Dunera. According to the Australian website for the Migration Heritage Centre:
On board the HMT Dunera were about 2,000 male German Jewish refugees aged between 16 and 45, who had escaped from Nazi occupied territories. Also on board were 200 Italian POWs and 250 Nazis. The voyage lasted 57 days. The conditions were appalling. Apart from overcrowding on the ship with the attendant problems of hygiene and harsh treatment by crew members, the journey was also made unpleasant by the fear of torpedo attacks, the uncertainty of the destination, and by tensions between Jewish refugees and Nazi passengers.
After arriving in Australia, Julius and Alfred spent two years interned at camps in Hay and Tatura in Australia. The Migration Heritage Centre website reported this about the Hay camp:
The Hay POW camp was constructed in 1940. The first arrivals were 2036 German and Austrian Jewish refugees who fled the Nazis. They were mostly professionals who had simply fled for their lives. They were placed along side 451 German and Italian POWs many of whom were pro Nazi and fascist.
While awaiting release, the Dunera Boys developed a rich cultural and intellectual programme at their camp, giving concerts and establishing an unofficial university. The small group of strictly Orthodox Jews also managed to organise a kosher kitchen. After a period of time the injustice of their situation was realised and they were permitted to return to Britain.
Here is a record identifying Julius Spier as a POW in Australia during the war:
According to Jennifer, when Julius and Alfred were finally released, they were given a choice either to return to Germany or join the British Army, so they both joined the British Army, where they served for the duration of the war and then returned to England.
UPDATE: Thanks again to Anne Callanan, I now have enemy alien registration cards for both Edith and Julius Spier. Edith registered on December 12, 1939, and was granted an exemption; she was working as a domestic. Her brother Julius registered as an enemy alien on November 28, 1939, when he was working on Sir Robert Grant’s farm in Scotland. But as we know he was denied an exemption and interned until June 21, 1942, when he was returned to the UK from Australia.
In the years immediately after the war Edith was in New York City, Julius and Alfred were in England, and Martin and Walter were in Germany. Martin and Walter both stayed in Rauischholzhausen for a year after their liberation from the camps in 1945, and then both immigrated to New York City where both of them later married.
In England, Alfred married Hannelore Reimers, who was from Bielefeld, Germany. Hannelore wanted to return to Bielefeld where her family still lived[2], so Alfred and Hannelore ended up back in Germany.
Julius married Helene Trunec in England in 1952; Julius and Helene stayed in England until 1963 when they immigrated to the United States and were reunited with Edith, Martin, and Walter in New York City. Julius and Helene had two children, Jennifer and Mark.
The five children of Abraham Spier and Jenny Wertheim thus all survived the Holocaust, although their parents did not. The five siblings not only suffered the loss of their parents and of their home; two were tortured and suffered terribly in the Nazi concentration camps, and two were imprisoned like criminals by England, the country where they had sought sanctuary. It’s hard to imagine how any of them coped with what they had endured.
But listening to Walter Spier on that video reveals that somehow the human spirit can endure unimaginable suffering and still have faith, hope, and love. All five of the Spier siblings went on to have children after the war, one sign of the incredible power of faith, hope, and love.
[1] I find it interesting that Abraham named a son Julius since his brother Julius was still alive. I assume the son was named for another family member, not his uncle.
[2] Hannelore was not born Jewish, but converted when she married Alfred.
Oh my word! I don’t even know what to say about this! I had no idea that Jewish refugees were treated as prisoners of war by the British. It seems so incredibly unfair!
My in-laws live in a village in England where a wealthy friend of the royals lived during the war. He was arrested as a Nazi sympathizer and sent to the Isle of Man as well, but was apparently allowed to live under house arrest in his own mansion.
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I didn’t either until I started researching my family and learned of another relative who’d been sent there. It was shocking to me, but then the US interned Japanese-Americans and enslaved Africans they kidnapped so no country is without sins.
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It seems that we still struggle with this issue today, though perhaps in different forms. The stranger is always the enemy, no?
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Sadly, yes.
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The video does touch your heart.
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That video! I’m only halfway through and already crying. That part about Captain Wolf! Do you know what it was he said each night? I couldn’t understand it. It’s at about 6:47.
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I believe he is saying, “Nicht schlafen.” Don’t sleep. But I am not sure. Maybe he was telling him to stay alert, not to sleep?
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That makes sense. Clearly my German is none too good!
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Well, I am not at all confident about my own!
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I intend to work on learning it, but it seems like there is never enough time! My mom has been using duolingo to learn Italian for months now and never misses a day. She’s amazing!
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That’s what I used to “learn” German. I also did it every day until we went to Germany. At that point I’d finished all the lessons and had reviewed for months, but now I need a real teacher to get any further.
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I’m impressed you did that much already! Despite the family emigrating in 1831, many family members spoke German up until my grandma’s generation–her older siblings learned it, she and the younger siblings didn’t. I don’t know if it was the world wars that made a difference, but it wasn’t passed down any farther. I wish I’d learned it. It would make research so much easier!
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I so wish I had taken German in college. But I hated French and just was lazy. Just another way that youth is wasted on the young!
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Ha! I know exactly what you mean. I wish I’d done things differently on a regular basis. On the bright side, you can actually appreciate what a blessing learning is now!
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Very true!
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Amazing wonderful story to have survived telling a most frightening and will to survive. Thank you for sharing. Happy NewcYear!
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Thank you, Lois. And wishing you a good and sweet year also.
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Very interesting and well written Amy.
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Thanks, Wendy!
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You are a wonderful teller of your familys’ history. I was particularly encouraged to hear of the altruistic Scottish gentleman who took such fine care of the two Spier brothers.
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Thank you! And yes, it is important for us all to remember the good people out there so that we don’t become too cynical about human beings.
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An amazing story of survival. What struck me was the question ‘did you ever lose faith in G-d?’ or something like that and he said ‘never’ that moved me to tears. …I am always so humbled by these stories of faith and survival.
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As I am. Thanks, Sharon.
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I loved that you included the video – what a powerful message he shares. I may have missed something but did all five children reunite at some point? I hope so!
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They all ended up living in NYC except for Alfred, who had moved to Germany. I assume he came to visit them all, but I don’t know for certain.
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I like to think they were all able to be together for at least a short period of time. I’m going to hang on to that thought!
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Thanks for this informative account. Although I may have seen some of the “dry” information about these relatives, I wasn’t aware of all of the stories. As always, a mix of heartbreak and hope.
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Thank you, Margie. Are you part of the Spier-Ruelf family?
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This may be the best piece you’ve written since I’ve followed your blog, Amy. I watched the video before continuing to read to the end. Walter replied to the questions with such calmness but you could tell he was very moved – the power of faith, hope, and love absolutely showed through.
I think people are appreciative of all the work you are doing to get the stories told. This is why, especially in the Germany Genealogy group, people are so eager to help decipher and translate and even find more records to help you write the story.
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Thank you so much, Cathy. I find these posts so hard to write but also the most important ones for me to write. It’s always hard to find a way to tell the story without either minimizing it or overdramatizing it to the point of exploitation. I appreciate your kind words.
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It is perfect. Not too much and not too little. You’re welcome, Amy.
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Amy, Just to let you know I think you did an excellent job of pulling all the data together into one posting. It’s very hard for me to go into the Holocaust with any kind of level discussion since my emotional responses are very high. There is so much going on now that is unbelievable and unacceptable. Holocaust deniers, or people misusing the word to take away the impact it has and the associations with what happened in WWII are starters.
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It’s hard for me also. But I feel duty-bound to tell their stories.
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Another powerful post, Amy. Walter’s interview was moving. He is so stoic. When he talked about working in the munitions plant (or something along those lines) and said that if they didn’t work fast enough they would be pushed into the fire, oh! I just felt so much horror for him. It was such a terrible time.
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I think when you’ve survived what he survived, you have also developed an outer toughness. Inside, you are still probably shattered in many ways.
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I think you are right about that. It’s such a lonely group to belong to.
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Now I sort of understand why they returned to Germany (but not really). Wow, this really goes hand in hand with Jennifer’s essay in the other post. The term “enemy alien” is chilling, isn’t it?!
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LOL! You are reading them backwards! No wonder you are confused!
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Not that I am not easily confused!
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What an interesting story.
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Thank you, Danny! And thanks for following the blog.
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