Manfred Fischel: (Berlin Schoolboy, Child Refugee & Shoah Victim)
In 2026, a worn Jewish prayer book surfaced
in a second‑hand shop in
Ewijk, a village in The Netherlands. Inside the front cover, a fragile
Einsegnung (Bar Mitsvah) certificate was pasted onto the opening
leaf dated 15 January 1938 and issued by the Jüdische Gemeinde zu Berlin (Jewish
Community of Berlin) for a boy named Manfred Fischel. it marks a moment of joy
in the life of a twelve‑year‑old boy, only months before Kristallnacht devastated Jewish communal
life throughout Germany.
More than eighty years after it was given
to him at Berlin’s Alte Synagoge, the book reappeared, carrying with it the
traces of a life interrupted. Manfred, born on 1 February 1925, took this
prayer book with him when he was sent by his parents to The Netherlands as a child refugee in 1939. It
accompanied him into exile and survived long after his
murder at Sobibor on 2 July 1943, at the age of eighteen.
At the rear of the book, a worn page contains a handwritten prayer in pencil, signed with the initials M. F. matching the handwriting of Manfred’s known signature.
מִי שֶׁבֵּרַךְ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ אַבְרָהָם יִצְחָק וְיַעֲקֹב, הוּא יְבָרֵךְ אֶת אָבִי וְאֶת אִמִּי, בַּעֲבוּר שֶׁעָלָה לִכְבוֹד הַמָּקוֹם וְלִכְבוֹד הַתּוֹרָה. בִּשְׂכַר זֶה, הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא יִשְׁמְרֵם וְיַצִּילֵם מִכָּל צָרָה וְצוּקָה, וְיִשְׁלַח בְּרָכָה וְהַצְלָחָה בְּמַעֲשֵׂה יְדֵיהֶם, עִם כָּל יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲחֵיהֶם, וְנֹאמַר אָמֵן.
The translation is as follows:
"May He who blessed our forefathers,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, bless my father and my mother, because [he] went up
[to the Torah] to honor the Place [God] and to honor the Torah. In reward for
this, the Holy One, Blessed be He, shall guard them and rescue them from every
trouble and distress, and send blessing and success to the work of their hands,
along with all Israel, their brothers. And let us say, Amen."
The prayer belongs to the genre of Mi
Sheberach supplications (‘May He who blessed’) found in the Siddur. Within the
Shabbat and festival Shacharit service, such prayers are situated in the
liturgical framework surrounding the Torah reading.
That Manfred probably wrote this Mi
Sheberach into his prayer book during his years as a displaced refugee, far
from his mother and father, gives the blessing an added poignancy: it reflects
a child’s attempt to hold onto family, faith, and continuity at a moment when
all three were being stripped away.
The prayer book itself was one of the best‑known German‑Jewish prayer
books of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Compiled by Rabbi Dr.
Michael Sachs, it combined the traditional Hebrew liturgy with a respected
German translation and commentary, becoming a standard volume in many Liberal
and Conservative Jewish households across Germany. Manfred’s copy, a Breslau
printing of the Siebente Auflage, was already several decades old when he
received it, suggesting that it may have been a family possession passed down
or kept with care. It was precisely the kind of prayer book a Jewish boy might
be given for his Einsegnung; and in
Manfred’s case, quite possibly one with personal or familial significance.
The Fischel Family in Berlin
Manfred grew up in Berlin as the son of Siegmund Fischel, born in Czerk (West Prussia) in 1895, and Ruth Leopoldine Wangenheim, born in Berlin in 1898. He lived with his older brother Siegbert, born in 1923, and his younger sister Mignon Violetta, born in 1926. The family lived first at Prenzlauer Allee 49 and later at Oranienburger Straße 23. Like thousands of Jewish families after 1933, they experienced the steady erosion of rights, exclusion from public life, and increasing restrictions on education and employment.
The family remained actively connected to Berlin’s Jewish community. Manfred’s Einsegnung at the Alte Synagoge in January 1938 marked an important step in his religious life and was almost certainly the occasion on which he received his prayer book.
This school record card provides a glimpse into Manfred Fischel's early education in Berlin. The card records that Manfred was born in Berlin on 1 February 1925, was of Jewish faith, and was a German citizen. It was opened when he entered school in April 1931, at the normal school-entry age of six years old, and tracks his progression through the school's lower classes, showing his advancement from Class 8a in 1931 to Class 5a by 1934. The document suggests that Manfred was a regular pupil who progressed from year to year in the expected manner. It also places him within the context of Berlin's education system during the early years of Nazi rule. The fact that his religion was specifically recorded as Jewish is historically significant, as Jewish pupils in Germany increasingly faced discrimination and restrictions after 1933. Although the surviving card contains no entries after 1934, this should not be taken to mean that Manfred's schooling ended at that point. Since he remained in Germany until 1939, the absence of later entries may simply indicate that the card is incomplete, that he transferred to another school, or that a subsequent record has not survived. Nevertheless, the card provides valuable evidence of Manfred's early school life, family background, and place within Berlin society before the full impact of Nazi anti-Jewish policies was felt.
The Alte Synagoge and Kristallnacht
The Alte Synagoge was one of Berlin's
historic synagogues and had served generations of worshippers before the Nazi
era.
Less than ten months after Manfred's
confirmation, the synagogue became one of the many Jewish houses of worship
attacked during Kristallnacht. Although the building escaped complete
destruction, partly because of its location among surrounding buildings, its
interior was devastated, religious furnishings were destroyed, and the
congregation was forced from its place of worship. Like so many synagogues in
Germany, it ceased to function as the centre of a thriving Jewish community.
Knowing this gives Manfred's Einsegnung certificate extraordinary poignancy. It records one of the last celebrations of Jewish communal life in that synagogue before persecution turned into open violence.
German-Jewish Child Refugees in the
Netherlands
After Kristallnacht many parents in Germany and Austria decided to send their children abroad. Beginning in 1938, the Netherlands became a crucial, though temporary, haven for German-Jewish children fleeing persecution. Dutch Jewish organisations, together with international relief committees, arranged the transfer of hundreds of minors from Germany, often through improvised networks that combined private sponsorship, youth homes, and foster placements. These children arrived without their parents, who hoped that temporary separation might offer safety until emigration became possible. The Netherlands, still neutral and not yet occupied, was seen as a place where Jewish children could continue schooling, receive care, and escape the escalating violence of the Reich. Yet their refuge was precarious: Dutch policy remained restrictive, and many children lived in institutions such as the Jongenshuis in Arnhem or in small supervised homes scattered across the country. When Germany invaded the Netherlands in May 1940, the fragile protection these children had found collapsed. Their fate depended on the speed of occupation, the policies of local authorities, and the limited capacity of Dutch Jewish organisations to shield them. For many, including Manfred Fischel and his cousins, the Netherlands was not a final sanctuary but a brief interlude between flight and the catastrophe that followed.
Flight to the Netherlands
Among the German‑Jewish children placed in the Netherlands for safety were the three
Fischel siblings.
Manfred reached the Netherlands in 1939 and entered the Dutch system of homes for German‑Jewish refugee children. Records place him in Rotterdam and Arnhem: Quarantine Beneden Heijplaat in March 1939, Achterklooster in April 1939, the Jongens Tehuis on Westersingel in April 1940, and the Jongenshuis on Amsterdamscheweg in Arnhem from October 1940.
In April 1940, Manfred was
living at the Jongens Tehuis (Boys Home) on the Westersingel in Rotterdam, a residence for
Jewish refugee children. Having lived at Achterklooster since April 1939, he
was among the boys transferred to the Westersingel home, together with his cousin
Heinz-Siegbert and many children from the Dommelhuis in Eindhoven, which had
recently been closed. The Westersingel home therefore became one of the
principal centres for refugee boys in the Netherlands during the final weeks
before the German invasion.
Former resident Arno Rosenfeld later recalled the house as one of the large nineteenth-century patrician houses for which the Westersingel was known. He remembered being happy there and considered it an improvement over the Dommelhuis in Eindhoven. According to Rosenfeld, around seventy-five boys lived in the home. The atmosphere was nevertheless marked by growing anxiety as war approached. The boys reportedly took turns standing watch at night because the international situation felt increasingly threatening. During the day they helped clean and maintain the house, although there were few organised activities.
One surviving document,
dated April 1940, reveals a small but deeply human moment in Manfred's story.
The director of the Jongens Tehuis requested permission for him to spend five days with his aunt, Edit Wangenheim,
at Den Texstraat 43 in Amsterdam. The Dutch Ministry of the Interior approved
the request on 26 April 1940, less than two weeks before Germany invaded the
Netherlands on 10 May 1940.
The document provides a rare
glimpse of Manfred's life beyond official refugee records and administrative
files. As a German-Jewish refugee child living away from his family, Manfred's
opportunities to maintain personal and family connections were limited. The
visit to his aunt's home represented far more than an ordinary holiday. It
offered a brief chance to leave institutional life behind and spend time with a
close relative, something that must have carried particular
meaning for a boy living in exile and uncertainty.
Viewed in retrospect, the
document is especially poignant. Neither Manfred nor his aunt could have known
that the German invasion was only days away. The visit may well have been among
the last moments in which Manfred experienced a degree of family life outside institutional care before the war engulfed the Netherlands and dramatically altered the lives of
Jewish refugees throughout the country.
Despite extensive archival research, no further information has yet been found concerning the fate of his aunt, Edit Wangenheim, beyond this brief reference in April 1940. Nevertheless, the document serves as a powerful reminder that behind every refugee file was a young person with family ties, hopes, and relationships that persisted despite exile and uncertainty.
The Relocation to Arnhem
Contemporary accounts indicate that most of the boys from
the Westersingel home were transferred to Arnhem during September and October
1940, making it likely that Manfred and Heinz-Siegbert were part of a larger
group relocation rather than an isolated transfer.
The move was almost certainly a consequence of a German
order issued in September 1940 requiring all non-Aryan* foreign nationals to
leave the Dutch coastal regions within a matter of days. The measure was
justified on the grounds that these individuals might assist the British in the
event of an invasion. As a result, the refugee home on Rotterdam's
Westersingel, together with other refugee institutions in the coastal zone, was
evacuated. The Jongenshuis in Arnhem was opened to accommodate Jewish refugee
boys displaced by these measures.
The transfer is significant because it reflects the
increasingly precarious position of Jewish refugee children under German
occupation. The Arnhem Jongenshuis opened in October 1940 as a home for Jewish
refugee youth, and the arrival of both Manfred and Heinz at that time suggests
that they were among the first group of boys relocated there following the
evacuation of the Westersingel home.
The move marked another upheaval in Manfred's young life.
Having fled Germany only a few years earlier, he now found himself uprooted
once again as German occupation policies increasingly restricted the lives of
Jewish refugees in the Netherlands.
Deportation and Murder
The German occupation of the Netherlands ended whatever safety German-Jewish refugee children had found there.
 |
| Manfred Fischel |
After several years in Dutch refugee homes, including the Jongenshuis on Amsterdamscheweg in Arnhem, Manfred became one of the many young refugees caught in the machinery of Nazi persecution.
On 11 December 1942, German forces raided the Jongenshuis, loading its residents, children and adults alike, onto trucks bound for Westerbork transit camp. Eyewitnesses later recalled the brutality of that day: frightened children struggling to climb into the vehicles, soldiers throwing them aboard like discarded objects many of the residents were deported to Westerbork.
Manfred’s cousins Heinz‑Siegbert Fischel, Gerhard en Edith Perl, who were also residents at the Jongenshuis, were seized during the raid and transported to Westerbork; Manfred, however, managed to evade deportation. Together with another refugee boy, Gerd Weinberg, he went into hiding in Bussum, at the home of Julius Schürmann, a Jewish manufacturer, and his non‑Jewish wife Else Frengler.
Their refuge was short‑lived. On 22 June 1943, the house at Lothariuslaan 68 was surrounded
by Bussum police commissioner Evert Jan Woerts and two other officers. During
the raid, both Manfred and Gerd were discovered and arrested. Else Schürmann‑Frengler later recalled that someone must have betrayed the boys’ presence in her home,
although she never learned who was responsible.
A week after their arrest, Manfred and Gerd
arrived in the punishment barracks at Westerbork. There was no longer any
realistic possibility of rescue. On 29 June 1943, they were placed on a
transport to Sobibor.
Manfred Fischel and Gerd Weinberg (born 16
December 1924) were murdered immediately upon arrival at Sobibor on 2 July
1943, both just eighteen years old. Their transport from Westerbork was one of
the many in which every deportee was sent directly to the gas chambers without
registration. The two boys, who had shared months of fear, hiding, and flight
in the Netherlands, met the same fate within minutes of reaching the camp.
Their deaths form part of the nearly total destruction of the German‑Jewish refugee children who had sought safety in the Netherlands.
The Joods Cartotheek Card
This Joods Cartotheek card is a small but
devastatingly precise administrative record, created by the Jewish Council (Joodse Raad) under German orders to catalogue every Jew living in the Netherlands. Manfred’s
name appears at the top, followed by his address and his
birth details, but the most consequential markings are the ones added later in
red pencil. These red annotations signified updates of immediate importance to
the deportation machinery: in Manfred’s case, the notation “T. 29‑6‑43” marks the day he was
placed on a transport from Westerbork to Sobibor. The smaller red entry “29/6/43 WBK – Bl. 63” shows the clerk recording
the exact page of the transport ledger where his name appeared. Red pencil was
routinely used to highlight changes that sealed a person’s fate, and on this
card it transforms a simple registration form into a final witness of the
moment Manfred’s life entered its last, fatal stage.
Siegbert Fischel
Manfred’s older brother, Siegbert Selig Chajim Fischel, was born in Berlin on 11 December 1923 and, like his siblings, was sent to the Netherlands in 1939 in the hope of safety. His early months as a refugee were spent in Rotterdam, first in Quarantine Beneden Heijplaat on Quarantainestraat 1, where newly arrived German‑Jewish children were medically screened and processed, and later at Achterklooster, Hoogstraat 79, one of the city’s central reception addresses for Jewish refugees. In 1940 he was transferred to Westerbork, which had originally been established as a refugee camp but was transformed after the German occupation into the main transit camp for deportations. According to the Page of Testimony submitted by his mother Ruth, Siegbert was selected as one of the 100 “Alte Lagerinsassen”, long‑term camp inmates, chosen for the first transport from Westerbork to Auschwitz on 15 July 1942. This transport marked the beginning of systematic deportations from the Netherlands. Siegbert was murdered in Auschwitz on 26 August 1942, at the age of eighteen, his life extinguished only weeks after the deportation system began operating at full force. His trajectory through Rotterdam and Westerbork reflects the rapid collapse of the refugee network that had once offered hope to German‑Jewish children, and his fate stands as one of the earliest tragic losses within the Fischel family.
Mignon‑Violetta Fischel, born in Berlin on 19 July 1926, was the youngest
child of Siegmund Fischel and Ruth Leopoldine Wangenheim and only thirteen when
she was sent to the Netherlands with her brothers in early 1939. After arriving she passed through the refugee intake points at
Quarantine Beneden Heijplaat and Achterklooster in Rotterdam before being
placed, on 1 September 1939, in the foster home of Chief Rabbi Abraham Salomon
Levisson at Alma Tademastraat 20 in Leeuwarden. Levisson, a respected member of
the Leeuwarden Jewish community, took in several German‑Jewish refugee children during 1939, and Mignon became part of his
household at a moment when Dutch Jewish families were stepping forward to
shelter young refugees.
That fragile safety ended abruptly on 1
February 1943. On that day, a Jewish man in hiding in Haren (Groningen) shot
and lightly wounded an SS officer during his arrest. The Germans used the
incident as a pretext for retaliation: three days later, they arrested more
than two hundred Jews in Friesland and Groningen. In Leeuwarden, 27 people were
taken, among them Mignon. All detainees were transported to Westerbork the same
day. Levisson himself was spared because he served on the Joodse Raad (Jewish Council), but he
immediately tried to intervene on Mignon’s behalf.
A week after her arrest, Levisson wrote a
letter to Rabbi Frank, who was held in Barrack 10 in Westerbork. He asked him
to look after his foster daughter, who had been assigned a place in the camp’s
orphanage, Barak 35. This barrack housed orphaned children and had separate
dormitories, a pediatrician’s room, and its own kitchen. The children received
lessons and were allowed to attend the synagogue. Mignon stayed there only ten
days.
On 15 February 1943, she was transferred to
Camp Vught, where she remained until early June. On 8 June 1943, she was sent
back to Westerbork as part of the infamous Kindertransport, and on the very
same day placed on a deportation train to Sobibor. Upon arrival on 11 June
1943, she was murdered immediately, together with 1,268 other children. She was
just sixteen years old.
Her brief life in the Netherlands, beginning
with rescue and ending in one of the most brutal deportations, remains
preserved through administrative traces, foster‑care records, and the memories of the community that once sheltered
her. Her fate, closely intertwined with that of her brothers and cousins,
stands as one of the most devastating examples of the collapse of the refugee
network that had once offered hope to German‑Jewish children.
Manfred's Parents’ Escape to Shanghai
While their children were scattered across Europe, Siegmund and Ruth Leopoldine Fischel (née Wangenheim) remained in Germany for as long as possible, desperately trying to maintain contact with their three children who had been sent to the Netherlands for safety.
In August 1940, shortly before their own departure, Siegmund and Ruth wrote another urgent letter to Levisson. They asked whether he could use his influence to arrange for all three children; Siegbert, Manfred, and Mignon to join them in Shanghai, where they hoped to rebuild their lives. “We pray to God and hope to hold them again in our arms soon,” they wrote. Levisson immediately contacted the Comité voor Bijzondere Joodsche Belangen, afdeling Kinderen, the main Dutch organization responsible for refugee children. He conveyed the Fischels’ plea, but the committee quickly responded that obtaining visas (for Europe) for the children was impossible. By that time, Siegbert had already been transferred to Westerbork, making any rescue attempt even more unrealistic.
With no remaining options, Siegmund and Ruth left Germany in the autumn of 1940, joining nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees who found sanctuary in Shanghai, one of the few places in the world that required no entry visas. After arriving in Shanghai on 21 July 1940, they settled at 416/39 Tongshan Road in the Hongkou district, where most European Jewish refugees eventually lived.
Life in Shanghai was harsh: refugees arrived with almost nothing, endured overcrowding, shortages, and, after the Japanese occupation and the creation of the Restricted Sector for Stateless Refugees in 1943, severe restrictions on movement. Yet Shanghai remained a place of survival, and Siegmund adapted with remarkable resilience. Formerly a businessman and insurance agent in Berlin, he became a book dealer and later served as President of the Jewish Community in Shanghai, helping sustain religious, cultural, and educational life under wartime conditions.
Their survival, however, came at an unbearable cost. Cut off from Europe after late 1941, Siegmund and Ruth learned only after the war that all three of their children; Siegbert, Manfred, and Mignon had been murdered, and that Ruth’s mother Emma Wangenheim had perished in Theresienstadt. The letters they once sent to Levisson, filled with hope and longing, became tragic reminders of a reunion that never came.
Heinz Siegbert Fischel
The tragedy extended beyond Manfred’s
immediate family. His cousin Heinz Siegbert Fischel, born in Berlin on 3 April
1922, was one of several members of the extended Fischel family who were sent
to the Netherlands in 1939.
Heinz was the son of Julius Fischel and
Käthe Aronsohn and travelled as part of the same refugee network that brought
Manfred, Siegbert, Mignon‑Violetta to safety in the Netherlands. Like Manfred, Heinz passed
through Quarantine Beneden Heijplaat and Achterklooster in Rotterdam before
later residing in the Boys’ Home on Westersingel and subsequently the Jongenshuis in Arnhem.
His parents eventually escaped to Shanghai, joining other
members of the Fischel family who sought refuge there. Heinz himself remained
in the Dutch refugee system until he was arrested during the raid on the
Jongenshuis, alongside his cousins Gerhard and Edith Perl. He was subsequently
deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered on 21 November 1943, aged
twenty-one.
His story illustrates how closely intertwined the lives of the Fischel cousins were, both in their flight from Germany and in the persecution that followed.
Edith Perl, a cousin in the Fischel family line, was born in Berlin on 21 September 1925, the daughter of Ewald Perl (Bischofstein, 30 May 1890) and Sara “Cédi” Fischel (Czerk, 27 February 1897). Like her brother Gerhard and her Fischel cousins, she was sent to the Netherlands in March 1939 as part of the rescue effort for German‑Jewish children. Her refugee journey took her through several Dutch intake and care facilities: KL Smitoord in Losser (15 March 1939), Achterklooster in Rotterdam (17 April 1939), Huis ten Vijver in Scheveningen (17 April 1940), and later Den Haag (3 June 1940). On 21 March 1941, she was placed in the Jongenshuis on Amsterdamscheweg 1–3 in Arnhem, the same institution where her cousins Manfred and Heinz-Siegbert Fischel lived. According to Oorlogsbronnen, Edith was registered as a verpleegster (nurse) during the war, a detail that highlights her maturity and sense of responsibility at a young age, even while living under refugee care.
Edith’s fate followed the tragic pattern of many German‑Jewish refugee children in the Netherlands. After the December 1942 raid on the Jongenshuis she was taken to Westerbork, from where she was deported to Auschwitz. She was murdered there on 11 February 1944, at just 18 years old. Edith’s short life, marked by displacement, responsibility, and courage, remains preserved through refugee records, transport lists, and memorial archives that testify to her presence and her loss.
Gerhard Perl
Alongside Edith, her brother Gerhard Perl (born 21 December 1922) formed part of the same group of German‑Jewish children who were sent to the Netherlands in 1939 in the hope of safety. Born in Berlin and closely connected to the Fischel family through his mother Sara (“Cédi”) Fischel. His name appears in Dutch memorial databases and in Westerbork transport lists, confirming his presence in the Netherlands.
Gerhard Perl shared the same fate as his sister Edith Perl and his cousin Heinz Fischel, being arrested during the raid on the Jongenshuis and transported to Westerbork on 11 December 1942. Unlike his sister Edith and his Fischel
cousins, however, Gerhard survived the Shoah. Although the circumstances of his
survival have not yet been established, surviving records confirm that he was
alive at the liberation of Westerbork in April 1945. His survival stands in
stark contrast to the fate of his sister and cousins, underscoring both the
fragility of the refuge the Netherlands offered and the devastating losses
suffered by nearly every branch of the extended family.
Gerhard’s survival is also documented in the Joodsche Raad (Jewish Council) Cartotheek, where his tracing card records the essential administrative details of his trajectory. The card lists his birth in Berlin on 21 December 1922, notes his removal on 24 May 1944, marked with the crucial annotation “In leven!” (“Alive”). Additional entries; his registration address, internal correspondence notes, and the indication “Bevrijd in Wbk,” meaning he was liberated in Westerbork, reflect the bureaucratic path through which liberated refugees were identified and verified in the Netherlands.
The Perl Family
Before the war, Edith and Gerhard’s father
Ewald Perl worked as a jeweller in Germany. As emigration options narrowed,
Ewald and his wife Cédi Fischel secured passage to Shanghai, one of the few
places still open to Jewish refugees without immigration visas. In 1939, they
made the painful decision to send their children, Gerhard and Edith, to the
Netherlands for safety.
Ewald and Cédi reached Shanghai by 1940,
where Ewald re‑established
himself as a jeweller while living in the Hongkou refugee district. After the
war, the couple moved first to Australia and later to the United States, where
they were eventually reunited with their son Gerhard and his Dutch wife. Their survival
stands in stark contrast to the destruction suffered by so many members of the
wider Fischel family.
The intertwined histories of the Perls and
the Fischels highlight both the extraordinary efforts families made to save
their children and the tragic reality that, despite those efforts, most of the
children entrusted to the Dutch refugee system did not survive.
When the situation in Germany became
untenable, all three branches of the family fled to Shanghai. Their escape was
part of a larger, extraordinary movement of more than 18,000 German and
Austrian Jews who reached Shanghai between 1938 and 1941 at a time when almost
every other nation had closed its doors. In world capitals, Shanghai was often
spoken of with a mixture of disbelief and condescension: a chaotic, war‑torn city under Japanese occupation, lacking infrastructure, plagued
by poverty, and seen by Western governments as an undesirable destination. Yet
precisely because it was politically fragmented and outside the reach of
Western immigration controls, Shanghai became one of the last open havens for
Jews fleeing Nazi persecution. Refugees built a dense community in the Hongkou
district, where overcrowded housing, disease, and shortages shaped daily life,
but where synagogues, schools, newspapers, and aid committees quickly emerged.
To many observers abroad, Shanghai seemed an unlikely sanctuary; to families
like theirs, it was the only place left where survival was still possible.
After the War
Following Japan’s surrender in 1945, the
refugee community in Shanghai slowly dispersed. Siegmund and Ruth remained
until 1947, when they were able to emigrate to Australia, settling in
Melbourne. There, Ruth began corresponding with distant relatives in the United
States, recounting the family’s wartime experiences, their years in Shanghai,
and the devastating confirmation in March 1948, via the Red Cross, that Manfred
and Mignon had been killed in Sobibor.
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A Mother's Act of Remembrance
After the war, Ruth Leopoldine Fischel (née Wangenheim) ensured that her children would not disappear into anonymity. She submitted Pages of Testimony to Yad Vashem for Siegbert, Manfred, and Mignon, preserving their names, family relationships, and biographies within the official memorial to the victims of the Shoah.
The Page of Testimony submitted for Manfred contains an understandable but significant error: it lists Treblinka as the place of death, whereas archival transport records show that he was murdered in Sobibor on 2 July 1943. This kind of discrepancy is common in Pages of Testimony completed in the 1950s and 1960s; a fact noted explicitly by Yad Vashem in its guide to the collection. Families often had only fragments of information, rumours from survivors, or incomplete Red Cross notifications.
In Ruth’s case, she knew her son had been
deported “to the East” and murdered, but she did not yet have access to the
detailed Dutch transport lists that later established the exact date and
destination of his deportation. Only later research revealed that Manfred was
on the 2 July 1943 transport from Westerbork to Sobibor, where all 2,030
deportees were murdered upon arrival.
The Page of Testimony therefore reflects
not a factual mistake in intention, but the historical reality of postwar
uncertainty: parents and siblings trying to reconstruct the fate of loved ones
with almost no surviving records, relying on memory, hearsay, and the limited
information available at the time.
The same archival landscape explains another inconsistency in Manfred’s Yad Vashem records: the differing birth years that appear in the database. This discrepancy stems from the existence of two separate documents; the Page of Testimony his mother completed in her own handwriting, and a later DAF‑ED administrative card transcribed by Yad Vashem staff. Her original testimony gives his birth as 1 February 1925, a date that aligns perfectly with Dutch wartime documentation such as the Joodse Raad cartotheek and the Westerbork registration. The administrative card, however, lists 1924, probably the result of a clerical slip introduced when information from handwritten forms was copied into internal databases during the 1950s–1970s. Because the original Page of Testimony is not published online, researchers often encounter only the transcribed summary and the derivative administrative card, both of which can obscure Ruth's more reliable handwritten source.
A Page of Testimony is often the only surviving document confirming a person’s existence and fate. It is a deeply personal act of remembrance: a family member ensuring that the victim’s name is preserved in the historical record. For many families, these forms became the only surviving testimony that their loved ones had existed. Ruth's act transformed private grief into permanent remembrance.
Her act of remembrance unfolded within a
larger promise made by the State of Israel in 1953, when the Martyrs’ and
Heroes’ Remembrance Law established Yad Vashem and defined its mission. The law
charged the institution with gathering every fragment of evidence about Jews
who died, fought, or resisted the Nazi regime, and with preserving the memory
of the individuals and communities destroyed simply because they were Jewish.
Ruth’s Pages of Testimony, like thousands of others submitted by survivors
around the world, became part of this national vow: that those who left no
official records behind would still be named, still be remembered, and still be
restored to history through the voices of those who lived on.
The Prayer Book as Historical Witness
Viewed through a historical lens, Manfred
Fischel’s prayer book functions not merely as a devotional object
but as a rare surviving artifact of German‑Jewish childhood on the eve of destruction. It offers material evidence of a life otherwise documented only through
administrative records and postwar testimony. The volume preserves two
exceptional survivals: the printed certificate of Manfred’s Einsegnung in
Berlin on 15 January 1938, marking his formal entry into the religious
community just months before Kristallnacht, and the handwritten prayer he
composed as a refugee in the Netherlands. Together, these elements capture both
the public ritual of belonging and the private articulation of fear, hope, and
faith during a period of profound uncertainty.
Manfred himself did not survive, nor did
his siblings Siegbert and Mignon or their cousins Heinz-Siegbert and Edith. His parents,
Siegmund and Ruth Leopoldine Fischel, escaped to Shanghai and later rebuilt
their lives in the United States, carrying the knowledge that all three of
their children had been murdered. Ruth Fischel’s Pages of Testimony at Yad
Vashem ensured that their names entered the historical record.
More than eighty years after it was given
to a twelve‑year‑old boy in Berlin, the prayer book endures as a silent witness. Its
worn pages, Bar Mitzvah certificate, and pencilled prayer bridge the divide
between archival history and lived experience, allowing us to encounter not
only the fate of one family but the individuality of a child whose voice, against all odds, still reaches us.
The Journey of Manfred’s Prayer Book
The journey of the prayer book suggests how
closely Manfred must have valued it. He carried it from Berlin into exile in
the Netherlands, kept it with him through the disruptions of refugee life, and
added his own handwritten blessing during those years. Yet the fact that the
book reappeared in Ewijk, only about twenty kilometres from the Jongenshuis in
Arnhem, after more than eighty years, strongly suggests that he did not take it
with him when he went into hiding in Bussum following the German raid on the
Jongenshuis on 11 December 1942. With no surviving inventory of the residents’
possessions, if such a list ever existed, we can only conclude that he either
left the book behind in the Jongenshuis or entrusted it to someone nearby to
keep safe. We will never know. Its survival, when so little else from his world
endured, offers a quiet indication of the personal meaning it held for him.
That it resurfaced in 2026 in Ewijk simply extends that story, allowing the book to
continue bearing witness to the life of the boy who once used it.
Text Sources
My thanks go to Peter Jetten of Joodsmonument Arnhem for his assistance; to Simcha Looijen, whose research on the Jongenshuis in Arnhem illuminated key parts of Manfred’s story; and to Liesbeth Molenberg, editor of The Jewish Monument, for her translation and explanation of Manfred’s handwritten prayer.
Digitaal Joods Monument (Joods Cultureel
Kwartier, Amsterdam) – entries for Manfred Fischel, his family, addresses,
refugee history, and post-war information on his parents.
Yad Vashem – Central Database of Shoah
Victims' Names – Pages of Testimony submitted by Ruth Leopoldine Fischel (née
Wangenheim) for her children Siegbert, Manfred and Mignon.
Nationaal Archief (The Hague) – Zorg
voor Vluchtelingen uit Duitsland (Care for Refugees from Germany), including
refugee registration cards and correspondence relating to Manfred Fischel's
stay in the Netherlands.
DOKIN (Duitse Oorlogskinderen in
Nederland) – documents relating to Manfred Fischel's refugee care in the
Netherlands &
Arolsen Archives – International Center
on Nazi Persecution – deportation and victim documentation for members of the
Fischel family.
Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archives) –
records concerning Berlin's Jewish community and persecution.
Holocaust survivor and refugee records
relating to the Shanghai Jewish community, including documentation on the
Fischel family's residence in Shanghai after their escape from Germany.
Contemporary editions of Dr. Michael
Sachs, Gebetbuch der Israeliten – for the history and significance of the
prayer book.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: Ruth Fischel Correspondance. Perl Family Reunification Records – post‑war reunion of Gerhard Perl with his parents.
Auke Zeldenrust – De Joodse Bruiloft – Levisson, refugee children, Mignon’s life in Leeuwarden.
Leeuwarden Municipal Archives – arrest of Mignon Fischel (1 February 1943); Levisson foster care records; correspondence from Siegmund and Ruth Fischel.
NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies – documentation on the Haren incident (1 February 1943) and subsequent mass arrests in Friesland and Groningen.
Jewish Council Archives (NIOD) – Levisson’s letter to Rabbi Frank in Westerbork (Barrack 10).
Westerbork Memorial Center Archives – records on Barrack 35 (children’s barrack), internal camp correspondence, deportation lists.
National Monument Camp Vught Archives – documentation on the Kindertransport of 8 June 1943 and Mignon’s transfer on 15 February 1943.
Regional Archive Gooi & Vechtstreek (Bussum) – police report on the arrest of Manfred Fischel and Gerd Weinberg (22 June 1943).
Gemeentearchief Arnhem (GA), Collectie Haverhoek, inv. nr. 2174.34, Lijst van in kamp Westerbork aanwezige personen uit Arnhem, 31 december 1942.
Nationaal Archief (NA), Centraal Archief Bijzondere Rechtspleging (CABR), dossier Evert Jan Woerts.
Alphons Siebelt, “Geen vijandige vreemdelingen in de
kuststrook (september 1940)”, Leiden4045.nl. Discusses the 4 September 1940
order requiring non-Aryan German refugees and other designated foreign
nationals to leave the Dutch coastal region.
* It should be noted that the Dutch circular referred to "non-Aryans", even though the concept of an "Aryan" had no legal status or meaning within the Dutch administrative system at the time. The so-called Aryan declaration for civil servants would not be introduced until early October 1940.
Image Sources
Stichting Duitse Oorlogskinderen in Nederland
Nationaal Archief (The Hague)
Wikipedia - Seward Road 1943 Shanghai Ghetto
Yad Vashem
