Spira-Steinhaus family. Collection

Michael alias Max Spira was born in Tarnow, Poland, on 4 August 1901. He became an accountant and religiously married Sara Steinhaus (born in Tarnow on 11 October 1903). The couple relocated to Berlin where both their children were born: a son named Herbert on 3 April 1929 and a daughter named Hella on 1 February 1935. Michael and Sara officially married in the German capital on 23 February 1932. In January 1939 the Spira-Steinhaus family fled from Nazi-Germany to Belgium, holding an affidavit for the United States of America and hoping to leave Europe soon. Upon their arrival, they settled at Lange Kievitstraat 42 in Antwerp. On 10 August 1939 Michael, Sara and their children were placed at the refugee centre in Marneffe, where they still resided when Nazi-Germany invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940. On 12 May 1940 Michael, Sara and their children fled to France. Their flight attempt being unsuccessful, they returned to Antwerp on 5 June 1940 and settled at their previous address at Lange Kievitstraat 42. In December 1940, the first anti-Jewish decree forced Michael and Sara to register in the municipal Jewish register. By that time the family was living at Wipstraat 30. In January 1941, Michael and Sara received an expulsion order: on 9 January 1941 they were forcefully relocated to Neeroeteren in the province of Limburg where they lived at Geysteren 5. In May 1941, Sara and the children were allowed to return to their old home at Wipstraat in Antwerp. Michael, however, was sent to the Op den Holven labour camp in Overpelt in July 1941 before being allowed to move to Rue Gaucheret 87 in Schaerbeek, Brussels later that Summer. In September 1941, Sara and the children joined Michael in Schaerbeek, where they lived at Rue Josaphat 153. Michael and Sara Spira-Steinhaus were arrested in July 1943 and were deported from the SS-Sammellager Mecheln (Dossin barracks) to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Transport XXI on 31 July 1943. Both were murdered. Their children Herbert and Hella both survived the war in hiding. After the war, Herbert was taken in by abbé Joseph André in Namur. Herbert went on to marry Dorothea Rubin, who was also a hidden child.

On 26 November 1994, Dorothea Rubin, wife of Herbert Spira, kindly donated photocopies of the two identity cards of her parents-in-law to the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance, predecessor of Kazerne Dossin. The original documents were confiscated upon the arrival of Michael and Sara Spira-Steinhaus at the SS-Sammellager Mecheln (Dossin barracks) in 1943. They were stored in the archives of the transit camp and, after the war, at the Belgian Ministry of Reconstruction - Service for War Victims until they were returned to Herbert Spira on 15 March 1993.

Dorothea Rubin-Spira, 1994