Influential German Jewish leader dies at 68

berlin | The head of Germany's Jewish community, Paul Spiegel, died Sunday of complications from cancer. He was 68.

Spiegel, who had leukemia and also suffered a heart attack earlier this year, had been placed in an artificial coma in February.

A small funeral was planned near his home city of Dusseldorf, and a public memorial service will be held at a later date, according to a spokesman for the Central Council of Jews in Germany. The council, which Spiegel was elected to lead in January 2000, is the political body representing Germany's official Jewish population of 120,000.

Dieter Graumann, a council board member, told the news agency DDP that "a light of warmth, welcome and friendliness has gone out."

The news drew immediate condolences from across the political and religious spectrum. German Chancellor Angela Merkel mourned Spiegel as "a very impressive personality," who "dedicated himself passionately to building a good future for the Jewish community in Germany."

"Paul Spiegel stood up for the foundations of democracy. He warned when many remained silent. His contribution for civil courage and mutual respect and against xenophobia and anti-Semitism set the standard," she added.

Spiegel was born Dec. 31, 1937, in the city of Warendorf, Germany. He and his mother, Ruth, survived the Holocaust by hiding in Belgium; his father, Hugo, survived Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Dachau.

Spiegel's older sister, Rosa, was arrested in 1942 at age 11 while procuring food for the family, deported to Auschwitz and killed.

After the war, the three surviving family members returned to Warendorf. Spiegel still dreamed that his sister would return, "that one day our doorbell would ring and a beautiful young woman who looked like me and my parents would throw her arms around me," he said a few years ago.

Spiegel described the ongoing pain of this loss in his 2001 autobiography, "At Home Again? Recollections." His German-language book on basic Judaism came out in 2003.

Spiegel's engagement with the Jewish community took off in 1967, when he became the Jewish council representative of Dusseldorf. In 1984 he became president of the community, and nine years later was elected one of the two vice presidents of the central council.

As council head, he presided over several major developments in the post-war Jewish community. In 2003, he signed the first contract between the federal government and the council, which placed the Jewish community on a legal par with the Catholic and Protestant communities of Germany. He also took part in crafting a reparations agreement for surviving Nazi-era slave laborers.

Rabbi Walter Homolka, a member of the board of the World Union for Progressive Judaism and chairman of the Potsdam-based Leo Baeck Foundation, called Spiegel's achievements "a great legacy."

Spiegel is survived by his wife, Gisele, and two daughters, Dina and Leonie.