Marga Spiegel (21 June 1912 – 11 March 2014) was a German woman who went into hiding with her daughter in 1943 during the Holocaust of World War II.

Her husband also hid during the war, but separately from the family since it was harder to conceal a Jewish man of military age.

Siegmund Rothschild was sent to a concentration camp early in the Holocaust and died there in 1938, one year after the death of his wife.

After being forced to leave their home and business in Ahlen, the Spiegels lived in an apartment for Jews with six other families.

Then, Germans assigned Siegmund to a forced labor work unit, and he lived with his family in a run-down, former Army barracks back in Ahlen.

[1][2] Her parents, Cilly (Rosenstock) and Siegmund Rothschild, raised her in Oberaula, which had been the hometown of their ancestors for 300 years.

She graduated from high school the same year that Adolf Hitler, a dictator, became the chancellor, and the Nazi Party came into power and initiated antisemitic laws.

[4] The family considered fleeing Germany, but Cilly was in very poor health[4] due to a chronic heart condition.

[1][3] Her husband served during World War I and received the Iron Cross for courage on the battlefield.

[6][12] Spiegel's mother, Cilly, died on 18 March 1937,[8] about the time of Marga and Siegmund's marriage.

His feelings changed after Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass, 9 to 10 November 1938)[11] when men from the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) organization entered the Spiegel's residence in Ahlen and used clubs to beat Siegmund, Spiegel, and her sister Inge Johanna (Johanna) Rothschild.

[4] Spiegel and her husband were required to wear badges in the shape of yellow stars on their clothes to identify themselves as Jews.

They had supervisors who ordered them around like slaves and harassed them when in the mood.The Spiegels began to hear rumors that German Jews were sent east to Poland by the Nazi government.

[7] To avoid his family from being taken by the Nazis, Siegmund reached out to cattle farmers in the Lüdinghausen area that he knew to help develop a plan to hide.

He found that the farmers offered shelter when they needed it, and until then, they dropped off food periodically for the Spiegels.

[2] They received a summons to report to a meeting with the Gestapo at a slaughterhouse on 27 February 1943, with the pretext of ensuring that their working papers were in order.

[2][18] On the day that they were supposed to report to the Gestapo, the Spiegels removed their yellow patches from their clothes and headed for the railroad station.

[13] Marga had blonde hair like stereotypical Aryans, so the mother and daughter would more easily blend in with other Germans.

[2] Mother and daughter assumed new names[9] and headed for the town of Herbern to stay with Heinrich Aschoff.

[13] That situation only lasted for three weeks due to their own family crises and because the children feared being found to have harbored a Jew.

[9] Spiegel said that she believed the farmers and their families were motivated by their faith and sense of humanity, explicitly mentioning that they were driven by the commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself".

[9] He put on Pentrop's uniform from World War I, wore his own Iron Cross medal, and Siegmund pretended that he was visiting on a holiday.

After the war, he was recognized for supplying essential goods, rescuing and hiding Jews, and arranging shelter.

[24] The story for the other children and people outside of the family was that the mother and daughter needed a safe place to stay outside the city where they would not be subject as much to air raids.

[6] The Aschoffs, prone to sheltering other refugees[24] and having a lot of visitors, entertained a policeman one day who put Karin on his lap.

[2] In one case, Spiegel moved out after one of the yellow badges fell out of its hiding place in her glove seemingly unnoticed.

[27] After the war, Sickmann received the title Righteous Among the Nations on 20 July 1969 for sheltering and providing goods for Spiegel and Karin.

[30] After the war, Südfeld received the title Righteous Among the Nations on 20 July 1969 for sheltering and providing goods for Spiegel and Karin.

[31] After the war, Silkenbömer received the title Righteous Among the Nations on 20 July 1969, for sheltering and providing goods for Siegmund.

[7] Spiegel wrote her book, Saviors in the Night in 1960 that told about how German citizens saved her from the concentration camps.