Fred Spiegel was born in 1932 in Germany, were he was brought into the Jewish faith. As he got old enough to go play outside with his neighbors, he did, but his mother told him to be careful.

He started to play with the kids on his block, but the children started to be very mean to him. Spiegel said that he used to get rocks thrown at him and be called "dirty Jew." Later, “The Night of Broken Glass" happened. Late in the night Spiegel woke up and was frightened. He heard bangs and screaming. To his surprise, synagogues were being burned down. The windows were smashed in, glass everywhere, smoke in the air.

Spiegel told the student audience that nearly every synagogue was burned that night. About 30,000 men were sent to concentration camps that night as well. After this happened, Spiegel’s mother said that it was not safe in Germany anymore, so she sent him and his sister to Holland to live there with his aunt and uncle.

Spiegel threw in a interesting fact about his uncle, his uncle’s name was Adolf. After the Holocaust, you would rarely find people with the name Adolf, he explained.

Spiegel and his sister moved into Holland. He picked up Dutch very quickly; by the age of 6 he knew it very well.

On May 10, 1940 the Germans were in the streets of Holland.

Tanks, bike and cars were everywhere filled with Germans. After only five days of the Germans being in Holland, Spiegel said the Dutch Army surrendered. Nazi’s started to make up rules. The first rule was to dismiss all Jewish civil services. Everyone had to have an identity card, Spiegel said if you were Jewish you would have to have a capital J on it. Also, they had curfews and check points. From 2-5, no bikes, and no public transportation. Fred said that there were signs that said "No Jews, no dogs." Jewish people were not allowed to shop in non- Jewish stores.

Spiegel told students here that the Jewish students were expelled from all public schools in 1942, and that they had to have a permit to get on a bus to go to the Jewish schools. On a positive note, Spiegel said that the Jewish schools were nice.

In the new neighbor hood that they lived in, the Nazi’s would round up Jews at night, give them 20 minutes to get their things and to get to the railroad. There were going to Westerbork. At the end of 1942 Spiegel said there were barely any children left at the schools. In 1943, Nazi’s came up with another rule. This was that Holland was to wipe out all Jews.

On April 10, 1943, at 11 years old, Spiegel was taken to a camp. He stayed there for six weeks. The food was rotten. Some of the children died from poor nutrition; the Germans got rid of some of the children. When the Germans got rid of them they sent these young children on trains, and no one knew where they were going. To Spiegel’s surprise, later he found out that if they had sent him on that train to Sobibor , he would have never came back, because those children did not survive.

After this, Spiegel and his cousin were sent to Westerbork. However, Spiegel got separated from his aunt, uncle and sister. This scared him. "I started to scream and yell saying take me off this train." When the train stopped he got off with his family. Spiegel said that if he did not make a fuss about being away from his family, he and they would have been sent to Eastern Poland. That whole train was sent right to the gas chambers. If he did not get off, he would have not been sharing this story.

Spiegel was at Westerbork for about eight months. His mother sent him letters that took four months to get; they were only 25 words, including the address. Those letters kept him and his sisters stationed in Westerbork. His uncle, aunt and cousin were sent somewhere after 6 weeks.

In 1943, 35,000 Jews were sent to a death camp in Eastern Poland, and Spiegel said only 19 came home. In June 1943 he and his sister were sent to an orphanage. There was a transport from the orphanage that was being sent to Auschwitz. Luckily he and sister were not taken there, because no one survived. In January 1944, Spiegel and his sister got their names called and were sent to a non-death camp. As they were walking a German solider was whispering, "You people are so lucky."

The others, however, were not so lucky; they were being sent to death camps. Spiegel said that among those kids that were being sent to Bergen-Belsen camp was Anne Frank. Spiegel said that his sister was friends with Anne Frank. Later, Spiegel found out that Frank had died in that camp.

In spring of 1944-1945 when this was all coming to an end, the dead were just left there, laying everywhere. Thousands of bodies just laying there.

Fred Spiegel has a great deal to tell us. Yet, it is probably the hardest things to talk about. After he was done talking, some students had questions for him. One of the questions was, “What was your darkest moment?” He had told us that he just didn’t have just one, it was everyday. He just wanted to know when was this going to stop.

Spiegel told students to try and understand, and that whatever he tells us might be a small part of the story. It is really important because his generation will be the last to be able tell what happened to them. He told students, "You are the ones who can change history." And he reminded students that they can make a difference by telling others of the past.