Phillip Maisel says he has enjoyed two miracles in his life. The first was during the war when both he and his twin sister Bella survived the Nazi extermination camps of the Holocaust. The second was in Melbourne this week, when they both turned 100.
Or did they? The letters of congratulation that these living treasures received from the Queen, the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and the Premier say their birthday is not until August 15. But that is an 80-year lie which Maisel told to the Nazis – a lie that was never corrected.
“When I was in the concentration camp I needed to hide my identity in case I escaped, so I changed my birthday from 31st July to 15th August. When we both came to Australia in 1949, I never bothered to change it back,” Maisel says with a grin.
So Phillip and Bella and their family celebrated their real 100th birthday last Sunday, July 31 – and now they will have to wait until Monday week, August 15, for it to become official.
There was also a third miracle in Phillip’s large life that could have been taken straight from the script of a Hollywood movie.
Having somehow survived a series of concentration camps, Phillip found himself stranded and alone in Germany in the months after the war with no knowledge of whether his family, including Bella, was still alive.
Read the article by Cameron Stewart in The Australian.