Springer stories Springer stories

TV’s shock jock remembers family’s Holocaust history

Jerry Springer receives documents detailing his parents’ World War II rescue

By Jessica Steinberg

You will receive email alerts from this author. Manage alert preferences on your profile page

You will no longer receive email alerts from this author. Manage alert preferences on your profile page

15 July 2015, 3:10 am

Edit

Jessica Steinberg, The Times of Israel's culture and lifestyles editor, covers the Sabra scene from south to north and back to the center

Jerry Springer (right) with his parents Richard and Margot (Courtesy World Jewish Relief)

Jerry Springer, host of TV confessions (“transgender woman reveals new breasts,” “woman loses husband to stripper,” “man can’t stop sleeping with wife’s sister”), is now turning to a new subject, his family’s experiences during the Holocaust.

The 71-year-old spoke about his family history at a private dinner last week to support World Jewish Relief, the international development agency that brought his parents to the US before the start of World War II.

Springer was given a copy of his parents’ immigration documents created by the Central British Fund in 1939. The couple, originally from Germany, first settled in London, where Springer was born. Records show that his mother Margot, from Berlin, was 32 when she arrived in the UK, and his father Richard, from Landsberg, was 34.

Jerry was born five years later in 1944, in the Highgate Tube Station, which then doubled as a bomb shelter. His mother, like many others, slept in the tube station rather than run to the shelter each time there was a siren. The Springers lived in London until 1949 when they moved to New York.

“I was deeply touched when I received the records of my parents’ WWII immigration,” said Springer. “These papers are a piece of family history which I will treasure forever.”

Jerry Springer (center) with his parents' documents, with Linda Rosenblatt, World Jewish Relief vice chair and James Libson, World Jewish Relief chair (Courtesy World Jewish Relief) — Jerry Springer (center) with his parents’ documents, with Linda Rosenblatt, World Jewish Relief vice chair and James Libson, World Jewish Relief chair (Courtesy World Jewish Relief)

Known then as the Central British Fund for German Jewry, the organization rescued more than 40,000 people in the 1930s and 1940s. It is perhaps best known for the Kindertransport that helped save 10,000 children, primarily Jewish, from Nazi-occupied Austria and Germany.

World Jewish Relief has now digitized hundreds of thousands of document pages in order to ease the process of returning original documents to families who were supported 70 years ago.

The archives, which are free, will be inaugurated this fall and can already be viewed online.