An Eye Witness to History

Friday, September 6, 2024

Featured Guest: Holocaust Survivor Peter Feigl

Peter Feigl, born on March 1, 1929, in Berlin, Germany, was the only child of Ernst & Agnes Bornstein Feigl, non-practicing Jews, who moved to Vienna in 1937. His father, a mechanical engineer, worked for a multinational company that sold automotive equipment throughout Europe, while his mother stayed home to raise Peter in an upper middle-class environment. Once relocated to the Austrian capital, Peter was baptized in the Catholic Church in the hope he would be shielded from antisemitism.

When Nazi Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, Peter & his parents first fled to Belgium, where they stayed until Belgium attacked on May 10, 1940. Then Peter’s family split up with his father being arrested in Belgium. Along with his mother and grandmother, Peter fled to France. There French authorities first arrested them as enemy aliens after the start of the German invasion in May 1940. After France’s capitulation in late June, Peter & his mother found refuge, where they were later released, but then found themselves in what became Vichy, France. With the help of local nuns, they settled in Auch, west of Toulouse, in Vichy France. In the summer of 1942, the Vichy government under the leadership of Marechal Petain rounded up Jews, whom the Germans deported East. In late August, Peter’s parents were arrested.

The Germans deported them to Auschwitz, where they were murdered within a month. Peter, who had been away from his parents in a Quaker summer camp, was sent to the predominantly Protestant village of Le Chambon sur Lignon. He was one of some 3,500 Jews hidden and sheltered in the village and surrounding areas. With false papers, Peter became a boarding student at a high school in Figeac, France. In May 1944, the Germans raided Figeac. Peter escaped, reaching and crossing the Swiss border with the help of the Jewish underground. He immigrated to the United States in July 1946, where he pursued a private-sector career in international sales of aircraft. He also served five years as a Senior Negotiator in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. After his retirement, he became a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.