All knowledge of his earlier antecedents was lost with his grandmothers, so Jerry first sets out to discover if he can trace the Springer line further back. He visits Landsberg (now Gorz\u00f3w, part of Poland), where his father once owned a successful shoe shop. At the town\u2019s archive Jerry learns more about the rising tide of anti-Semitism that, in 1937, forced the family to flee to Berlin.<\/div>\n\n

Two generations earlier the Springer family were in nearby Neustettin, now in Poland but once part of the German Kingdom of Prussia. At local archives Jerry learns how his great-grandfather, Abraham Springer, struggled against \u2013 but ultimately overcame \u2013 a campaign of hate directed at the town\u2019s Jewish community. \u201cMy family [were] victims of anti-Semitism for the last 150 years, but there he was at the centre of it, fighting back,\u201d says Jerry. \u201cI\u2019m proud.\u201d<\/div>\n\n

Next Jerry turns to the most painful chapter in his family\u2019s past \u2013 the fate of his two widowed grandmothers, Selma Springer and Marie Kallman. He first seeks the help of his Berlin-born cousin Erica, who describes the family\u2019s attempts to help Marie escape to America. They failed and she was sent to the ghetto in Lodz, Poland, and it is here that Jerry heads next.<\/div>\n\n

In Lodz he learns more about Marie\u2019s life in the ghetto, and follows in the footsteps of his ancestor\u2019s terrifying final journey. At Radegast Station, where thousands of Jews were crammed into train carriages that took them to their death at Chelmno Extermination Camp, Jerry is overcome with emotion.<\/div>\n\n

His paternal grandmother Selma Springer also died in the Holocaust, but Jerry has no idea where or when. In Germany\u2019s Potsdam Archive he finds the answer \u2013 a record of her deportation dated 1942 shows that Selma was sent to Theresienstadt, a Jewish ghetto outside Prague.<\/div>\n\n

In an attempt to hide the brutality of the \u201cfinal solution\u201d from the international community, Nazi propagandists publicised Theresienstadt as an idyllic community with a holiday camp atmosphere, but the reality was far different. \u201cThis is part of the fraud \u2013 that\u2019s what\u2019s disgusting about this place,\u201d says Jerry. \u201cNot just the starvation, not just the loss of liberty, the torture. The hell of this place is that it perpetuated the lie.\u201d Most of Theresienstadt\u2019s inhabitants were killed at Auschwitz, but Selma was spared that final horror \u2013 documents reveal that she died, aged 72, in the ghetto hospital.<\/div>\n\n

In the midst of these sad discoveries, there is a chink of hope when Jerry has the opportunity to meet with a relative he never knew he had \u2013 the son of another Springer who escaped within days of his own parents. \u201cIf you have family, it always goes on. That\u2019s the lesson of all of this,\u201d says Jerry. \u201cWho do I think I am? I\u2019m a link in the chain of a wonderful family.\u201d<\/div> <\/body><\/html>\n

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