Martin Spett

            

 

Brief History

Raised in Tarnow, Poland, (a city of 70,000 at the outbreak of the Second World War) with his sister, Spett's mother, Sala Leisten had been born a US citizen in Newark New Jersey, but returned to Poland to marry Arthur Spett. The family survived ghetto life, prison, and internment at Bergen-Belsen. During Passover, 13 April 1945, Martin and his family were liberated by American soldiers as their train headed for the Theresienstadt concentration camp. After the War, Spett and his family immigrated to the United States where he became a designer of women's handbags. Since 1980, Spett has been a frequent speaker on the Holocaust at schools throughout the region while also expressing his feelings on his experiences through art and poetry.

Spett's Poetry

War

Arid are the sands of time.
Cracked are the hopes of men
As of lime.
Never to learn from the past,
To live in peace at last.
Generation after generation,
Here are the cry of war,
To know peace no more.

 

Spett's Artwork

 

 

Spett's Videos




 

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Surviving the Holocaust: Anita's Narrative

Surviving the Holocaust: Anita's Narrative

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Anita was born to a German mother and Dutch father in 1936 in Emmen, a small town in northern Holland. In 1942, Anita had to wear a yellow star and was not allowed to go to school anymore. Anita watched her aunt and cousin leave to go to Auschwitz where they were immediately killed. One day a local Dutch government worker came to Anita's home and said he could get her family false papers. In August 1944, when the Americans liberated the south of Holland, Anita's family reunited. They came to the United States in 1952.

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