Today is Harry Spiro’s 91st Birthday! #SendSomeLove and we will pass it on to him. Harry is a Holocaust survivor and one of The Boys.

Let us tell you more about Harry's incredible life!

If you want to watch Harry speak, he gave his testimony to @RobbieRinder for our 2019 HMD webcast. You can watch it here: https://vimeo.com/314299674 

Harry was born in 1929 in Piotrków Trybunalski, Poland. He lived with his parents and younger sister and was raised in a religious Jewish house. Harry was 10 when Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Piotrków was the first city where the Nazis established a ghetto, in Oct 1939.

All Jews, including he and his family, were forced to go there. It was overcrowded and unhygienic. Jews were forced to work for the Nazis. Even as a child Harry worked in a glass factory. In Oct 1942, everyone in the ghetto had to stay at home except those working in the factory.

Harry wanted to stay with his family but they insisted that he go. The ghetto was liquidated and all 22,000 inhabitants, including his family, were taken to Treblinka where they were murdered. The factory workers were moved into a smaller ghetto with a population of around 2,000.

The smaller ghetto was liquidated and all were sent to a labour camp in a nearby city, making munitions for the German army. As the Soviet army advanced the prisoners were sent to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Here he did not work but he did have to endure roll call.

Prisoners were forced to stand for long periods while everyone was counted. After a short time he was sent to Rehmsdorf, a satellite camp of Buchenwald. The prisoners were put on trains to be transported to another camp, but the line was bombed.

The prisoners were forced to march to Terezín (Theresienstadt) in Czechoslovakia. Of the 3,000 people who started many died through illness, starvation, or were shot. Harry was one of 270 survivors to arrive at the camp, where he was later liberated by Soviet soldiers.

In 1945, the British government decided to allow 1,000 child survivors of the Holocaust to come and settle in the UK. Harry was one of the 732 children who travelled to Britain in 1945 as part of a group of teenage boys and girls who became known as ‘The Boys’.

After learning English and working in a number of jobs, Harry opened a shop. In 1957, he married Pauline. Today he lives just outside London and talks in schools to students about his experiences during the Holocaust as part of the Trust’s Outreach programme.