- Description
- The Sender and Helen Spielman papers include identification documents, correspondence, photographs, and legal documents relating to the experiences of Sender (Alexander) and Helen Spielman and their family in the Netherlands, France, and the United States, including in the Westerbork transit camp, Vittel internment camp, and a displaced persons camp in France. The papers also document a travel loan the family received from the US State Department in 1944.
Documents relating to Sender Spielman include immigration documentation, birth records, a Certificate of Naturalization, identification cards for commercial travel, and proof of registration identifying Sender as stateless. Also included is an identification card, work assignment documentation, and transit documentation for Westerbork transit camp and Vittel DP camp.
Documents relating to Helen Spielman include identification documents and correspondence relating to her immigration status, as well as an identification card, a work assignment card, and correspondence to Sender relating to Helen’s time in Westerbork transit camp and Vittel DP camp.
Spielman family material includes Westerbork identification cards for Hanna, Bernard, and Nathan, a registration card and Vittel DP camp identification card for Edith Spielman, photocopies of birth records for Edith, and newspaper clippings.
Family photographs include Sender, Helen, Bernard, Nathan, Hanna, Edith, Miri Spielman, and the Hudes family.
Restitution material includes correspondence with a Representative of New Jersey, Hugh Addonizio, the Department of State, the American Consulate, a list of property, and a letter to the editor of the New York Times relating to restitution for the loss of property.
Documents relating to the court case include receipts, correspondence, legal paperwork, and payment records documenting payments made by Sender and Helen to the United States Government to pay back a $874 loan they received from the US State Department in 1944 to cover their travel costs from France to the United States. In June 1948, they received a letter from the U.S. General Accounting Office stating they were still liable for the outstanding balance of $730, plus interest and court costs. The claim was handed over to the Department of Justice and the District Attorney of New Jersey. Helen fought the payments, documenting that they were held in concentration camps, their property confiscated, and that they were not successful in getting reparations. The Spielmans were able to negotiate a payment plan and made payments in $10 increments, completing the payments in 1964.
- Date
-
inclusive:
1922-1986
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Edith Spielman Frankel
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Hanna L. Schrob
- Collection Creator
- Spielman family
- Biography
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Sender (Alexander) Spielman (1905-1971) was born September 15, 1905 in Poland and had twin sisters Jeanette (Jenny) and Mira. He worked as an optician and founded the International Optical Syndicate. Sender married Helen Hudes (1905-1979) in Germany and had four children: Bernard (Bernhard, b. 1932), Nathan (b. 1934), Hanna (Hannelore b. 1936), and Edith (Edye, b. 1942).
Helen Spielman (née Hudes, 1905-1979) was born in New York on July 3, 1905 to Isidor (Isaac) Hudes (b. 1882?) and Annie (Chana) Hudes (née Weiss, b.1882) and had five siblings: Michael “Max” Weiss (1903-1972), Nathan Henry Nathan (1906-1907), Josef (1909-1991), and Donald David (b. 1912), and Miriam. Annie immigrated to the United States shortly before giving birth to Helen. They lived in the United States for three years before returning to Austria with Isidor, Michael, Helen, and Nathan.
Helen worked as a seamstress in her brother Max’s shirt factory in Essen, and it was there that she met Sender Spielman. After the Nazis came to power, Sender and Helen with their baby Bernard fled Germany for Maastricht in the Netherlands where Nathan, Hanna, and Edith were born. Helen was an American citizen by birth, but only two of her children, Nathan and Hanna, received American citizenship at birth. She tried to obtain visas for Sender, Bernard, and Edith but was unsuccessful. In October 1942 the family was deported to the Westerbork transit camp. Sender was separated from his family and selected for forced labor. Helen and the children were sent to Liebenau and then to the Vittel internment camp in France. In March 1944, Sender was reunited with his family in Vittel, and they were liberated in September 1944.
After liberation, the family was sent to a displaced persons camp in La Bourboule, France. They arranged for passage to the United States on the USS Barry and arrived in Boston in December 1944. Sender’s sister Mira was deported to Westerbork and later killed at Auschwitz. Her twin sister Jenny survived in hiding for two years and later immigrated to the United States, sponsored by Sender.
