This Survivor is Turning 102 Years Old

Imagine the changes witnessed by someone born more than a hundred years ago, journeying from a 1924 childhood in the gas-lit, Yiddish-speaking textile center of Lodz, Poland, to a centennial life in modern Philadelphia.

Pearl Hinda Nagel’s story is one of extraordinary survival, stretching from the age of horse drawn ice wagons and communal wells to an era of artificial intelligence and instant global connection. She endured the hunger of the Lodz Ghetto and the horrors of the Holocaust. She lived to see the world map redrawn with the founding of Israel and the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Her father was a beloved Hebrew teacher. An only child, Pearl Hinda enjoyed simple family life with her parents, unaware of how quickly childhood would disappear.

Pearl Hinda’s father

Her father passed away when she was just nine and a half years old. Her mother, Rivka Leah, worked in a textile factory as a fabric inspector.

A Childhood Interrupted by War

When the war began in 1939, a German woman who worked with her offered to hide them both. Rivka Leah refused, worrying about compromising someone else’s safety. “It was too dangerous for her. If the Germans found out that she was hiding a Jew she would be killed.”

Pearl Hinda was 15 years old when they were forced into the Lodz ghetto.

“What was going on in the ghetto, I cannot put into words. Hunger became constant. A small piece of bread had to last a week. A few potatoes, sometimes a little margarine. People collapsed in the streets. The dead remained where they fell. Hospitals were emptied. Children were taken.”

Pearl Hinda’s mother

Her Mother’s Final Words Never Faded

Pearl Hinda would never forget her mother’s weakening state. At 17, she sat beside her mother, trying to care for her. That final night, she felt her mother slipping away. Her last words continue to be a beacon of light for Pearl Hinda even today at 101.

“Ich muz geyn, ober du bist yung un du muz lebn. I have to go, but you are young and you have to live.”

Rivka Leah died in her daughter’s arms and Pearl Hinda was left alone.

She moved from place to place, finding shelter wherever she could. Again and again, families were taken on what they called “wedding invitations,” a cruel code for deportation and death. Each time, she was left behind.

Through connections her mother had made, she found work in a factory inside the ghetto. The Germans had taken over homes and turned them into production spaces. Pearl Hinda was put to work on a sewing machine.

Work provided soup and it meant survival. She was not a big eater and even shared her food with another girl who was always hungry. Pearl Hinda always tried to be kind, even in the most horrific situations.

Then came the knock at the door. Two policemen entered and told her to get dressed.

Her instructor tried once more to intervene, but this time Pearl Hinda refused.

“You saved my life once. This time I have a feeling I am not going to a death camp and I will survive.”

In the Czestochowa camp, she worked in an ammunition factory, checking and weighing bullets. She worked day and night. One time, a machine caught her finger. It had to be cut and it took months to heal.

“I had a strong connection to God, praying, living with hope and asking for a miracle.”

Pearl Hinda often spoke to her mother and in her dreams, her mother came to her, comforting and guiding her. Once, when Pearl Hinda was sick and worried about not being able to work the next day, her mother appeared and reassured her that she would be strong enough to go to work. In the dream, Rivka Leah gave her daughter an apple and told her to eat it. She did and woke up feeling strong enough to go to work.

“My mom helped me from the other side.”

The Day Freedom Finally Came

Liberation came on January 17, 1945. Pearl Hinda remembers the date clearly.

The Russians arrived on tanks, and on one of those tanks stood a woman. She called out, “You are free.”

Pearl Hinda remembers how they stood there shaken by the news, not knowing where to go. They walked into a strange city, guided by locals, and crowded into one room, twenty people together. Four girls shared one narrow bed.

They stayed there for weeks. The war was ending, but danger still lingered in the streets, so Pearl Hinda returned to her hometown of Lodz.

She remembers walking to the place where she had once lived with her mother. The janitor’s wife saw her and asked, “Where is your mama?”

“In the cemetery,” she replied, with tears streaming down her face.

She wanted to go upstairs to their room but the janitor's wife kindly suggested, “Do not go there because it will take you back. Pick yourself up and go forward.”

So Pearl Hinda did not return to the room, but she carried her past and memories with her through life.

Building a Future from Nothing

In the courtyards of Lodz, she met the man who would become her husband. Eliezer had survived unimaginable suffering in Auschwitz Birkenau. Miraculously, he survived typhus, and after liberation, returned with his brother to Lodz. Weak and impoverished, they had nowhere to go. It was the summer of 1945. Pearl Hinda and her friends saw the brothers and felt they needed to help their fellow survivors.

“We had two bedrooms and we couldn't let them stay outside so we gave the brothers a room.”

There was no time for a long courtship. Life moved quickly after survival. Pearl Hinda and Eliezer married on October 30, 1945, in a simple double wedding.

“I didn’t have a dress, so I borrowed one, a mint-colored dress made from salvaged material.” They made a chuppah from whatever they could find. The guests were a few boys and girls from the camps. No parents. No family.

The couple left for Germany and soon after immigrated to the United States, on Thanksgiving day in 1949.

Their first child, a son, Aaron Mendel Spigler was born in 1947. When in 1951 Pearl Hinda had a baby girl, she knew that her mother’s name would live on.

With her two children her husband stood beside her throughout life. They celebrated fifty years of marriage. Her husband passed away in 1996.

Today, she is surrounded by generations of grandchildren and great grandchildren, her ultimate victory over the Nazis.

Secret to Long Life

When asked the secret to her long life, Pearl Hinda shared, “I always tried to be kind to people. I never lost hope and always believed in God's help. I want to bless you to appreciate life, to be close with your family, to love them. Peace in Israel and in the entire world. I am 101 and a half and I know the importance of time. Use your time wisely and do kindness to each other. I saw much pain and suffering and I know that despite all of the hardships you can still find happiness and joy. I bless everyone with a long, healthy and very happy life, to love God and other people and to always remember to be kind.”

Pearl Hinda’s century long wisdom reminds us what truly endures.