On Dec. 19, 2021, an article about Si Spiegel, “A Jewish New Yorker’s War Against Hitler,” by Laurie Gwen Shapiro, appeared in the New York Times, West Coast edition, on page 36.
“He bombed the Nazis, outwitted the Soviets and modernized Christmas. Si Spiegel, a WWII B-17 bomber pilot, can claim a dual legacy: as a war hero and as a father of the artificial tree.”
The article begins as follows:
“The B-17 he was piloting had lost two of its four engines to enemy fire, and as Si Spiegel surveyed the ruined landscape, he had one thought: We have to get behind the Russian front.
“As part of the Allied raid on Berlin, his bomber had dropped its payload over the German capital, but he’d been hit with flak and would almost certainly not make it back to the base in England. No pilot wanted to get shot down over Nazi Germany, especially not a Jewish pilot.”
Photos of Si Spiegal by Carly Zavala of the New York Times:
To view the article and hear it narrated, click here.