Max [Moses Leib] Spritzer was born in March 1888 in Cholojow in Poland. He married in March 1916 Elsa Schmimmel in Vienna.The couple had three children Julius, Suzanne and Lisbet.
According to his daughter Max was arrested during the Night of Broken Glasses in November 1938, and released later. In a report dated February 9th 1939, written by the chief of the constabulary of the district of Eupen in Belgium and addressed to the administrator of public safety in Brussels, it is stated that a group of thirty Jewish subjects had been arrested and driven back in the night.
“Four of these foreigners were found at two o’clock in the morning at the home of the named Heinen… in the commune of Eupen. Ten people were found in the wood close to the bridge of Belfort at 4 o’clock, and sixteen were found at Vennkreutz at 5.15 am.”
Amongst these people was Max Spritzer, businessman living in Vienna at 13, Wasnergasse and holder of German passport no. 42379. On 12th February Max Spritzer requested political asylum and declared himself to have been imprisoned by the Gestapo. He also stated that he held a visa for Paraguay and an affidavit for the United States.
His admission file at Anvers is dated March 3rd 1939, and a little later he made a statement declaring that the Gestapo had detained him for 9 days.
In August 1939 the Belgian police received the response from Vienna to its request of May 4th, confirming that Max was not wanted by the police. In November 1939 Elsa, the wife of Max who had stayed in Vienna, requested to pass through Anvers before heading for Rotterdam to embark with a view to emigrating to the United States. Max bought a visa costing 44 Belgian francs so that his wife could visit him. They had not seen one another since February.
He was arrested on May 10th 1940 in Anvers as “suspect” and the convoy that transported him from Belgium to the St Cyprien camp passed through Sainte Livrade in the Lot region and Villemur in the Tarn region. In October 1940 he was transferred to Gurs. On March 6th 1941 Max Spritzer arrived in the camp of Les Milles , where he was given two blankets His dossier tells us that he measured 1 m 72 and that he had grey eyes and dark hair, that he was Jewish and held a Belgian identity card (probably design B reserved for foreigners). His wife was already in the United States and in possession of 2000 francs. His request to emigrate had been accepted because Max SPRITZER was “redundant to the national economy and was of no use to France”.
On March 10th 1941 he requested a first leave of five days from the head of the camp to prepare his emigration to the United States and to go to Marseilles. The commander granted him two days. On the 26th April he requested three days’ leave, and again the camp authority only granted him two.
We don’t know if Max Spritzer asked for other permissions of leave. On December 9th 1941 he was freed and embarked on board the S.S. Chanzy. His grandson told us that Max traveled via Alger and Cuba before reaching New York, where he arrived in January 1942. He died in 1955 in the United States at the age of 67.
Julius left Vienna for Palestine in May 1938. Suzanne departed on a Kindertransport to England on June 21, 1939, and her mother left for the United States in September 1939. Suzanne spent the next eighteen months in Edinburgh, Aberfoyle and Selkirk, Scotland. In January 1941 she secured passage on a ship to Canada. From there, she continued to New York, where she stayed with her mother and aunt. She met her future husband, Otto Perl, in Brooklyn, and they married on June 20, 1943.
His admission file at Anvers is dated March 3rd 1939, and a little later he made a statement declaring that the Gestapo had detained him for 9 days.