A former Sutton High School student who survived the Holocaust has been awarded an MBE for raising awareness of the atrocity and for services to the Jewish community.
Agnes Grunwald-Spier, 71, also helped establish the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and has written two books about Holocaust rescuers and how the Jews were betrayed during WWII.
She said: “Lots of people do voluntary work and it is just very nice that someone has acknowledged what I have done, it is a great honour and I am very proud.
“Naturally I am really chuffed and grateful to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for nominating me.
“Lots of people do what I have done but don’t get acknowledged, so it’s lovely.”
Ms Grunwald-Spier was born in Budapest in July, 1944.
Five months later her family was sent to the Budapest Ghetto to be deported to Auschwitz – but were sent back.
She said: “Being a holocaust survivor, the cause was very close to my heart.
“I have known about the Holocaust all my life but I never read or watched anything about it.
“I found myself in my mid-50s with three teenage boys who, for all intents and purposes, were Englishmen, who were interested in my background but I didn’t feel equipped to tell them about it.
“Around that time the University of Sheffield started an MA in holocaust studies so I signed up for that.”
Her research for the MA sparked an interest in Holocaust rescuers, leading to her first book ‘The Other Schindlers’, which explores the reasons why some people were moved to save Jews from the death camps, and was published in 2010.
Her second book, ‘Who Betrayed the Jews?’, which looks at the ways Jews were betrayed by their fellow countrymen during the holocaust. It is set for release in the coming weeks.
