In 1939, Liesel Kaufmann and her young brother, Werner, fled the town of Wanne Eickel in Germany. Their parents had arranged for them to join the “kindertransport” that was ferrying persecuted Jewish children to England.

Now, the town from which the teenage girl — now Liesel Kaufmann Spencer — fled has welcomed her home.

From Jan. 24 to Feb. 2, Spencer, now 84 and a resident of Matawan, was accompanied by her daughter, Madeleine, and son, Allen, when she returned to the town of her birth. The town is now called Herne, but that wasn’t the only change Spencer experienced on this journey to her past.

Several years ago, Spencer was contacted by a German historian who interviewed her for a book on wartime experiences. She also began a correspondence with a teacher, several teenagers, and a retired university professor and his wife, all of whom lived in Herne.

Last year, Spencer was informed by the town’s governing body that a memorial was planned for her parents, Arthur and Julie Kaufmann, who died in the Stutthof concentration camp near the Polish border in 1944. Spencer and her family were invited to witness the dedication as Herne’s honored guests.

Spencer discussed the invitation with her children. (Her husband, Eric, died 12 years ago.)

“The memories were so painful, but when my children said they would go to Germany with me, my mind was made up,” said Spencer. “I was aware that there had been major changes in the German attitude toward what happened during the war and toward the people who suffered so terribly.”

Her memories of her hometown were happy until 1933, when the influence of Nazism became painfully obvious. She recalled staring at the Nazi flag in her classroom and watching her classmates participate in the Nazi salute. In the same classroom, her desk was set apart so she would not “contaminate” the other children, she recalled.

After Kristallnacht in 1938, her father was imprisoned for three weeks; he had aged noticeably by the time he returned home, Spencer said. Her parents began planning their children’s escape from the three-story home, which housed a grocery store on the ground floor and a spacious garden that had been the scene of many happy family gatherings. But the happy times were over.

“They applied to every kindertransport they could find,” Spencer said. “It took a while before they found one that could take my brother and me. You were allowed to take only a single suitcase. We took a train through Holland and the SS inspected everything we had at every stop.”

The SS inspections were of particular concern to Spencer; her mother’s engagement ring was hidden in her luggage. The Germans never found it.

For a while, she was able to keep in limited contact with her parents through the Red Cross; they were permitted to exchange 25 words per month. In a message Spencer received in 1941, she realized her parents were about to be deported. By 1945, she learned through the Red Cross that they had been sent to Riga before perishing in Stutthof.

“I always felt guilty that I had left my parents,” Spencer. “For years, despite the trouble, I always hoped we would somehow be together again and get to the United States. How they must have suffered — I had nightmares about that every night for a long, long time.”

She met and married Eric Spencer in England in 1943. He was born in Austria and made his way to England in 1938, where he joined the British army; the couple arrived in the United States in 1952. They moved to Monmouth County in 1975, where she eventually began working as a volunteer at the Center for Holocaust Studies at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft. Talking to other survivors helped her cope with the loss of her parents and a host of aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends who also perished in Europe.

“It has helped me come to terms with what happened,” said Spencer. “You never forget, but it becomes a little easier to live with.”

Revisiting the town of her birth has also helped, she added.

Upon their arrival, the group was met by a limousine, which chauffeured them to all the places they visited during their stay. They were housed at Herne’s finest hotel, and taken to meals at the area’s best restaurants.

And the local media was invited to record the visit. Spencer was interviewed on television, radio, and in the area newspapers. She also addressed school-age children and spoke at several community gatherings.

At the dedication ceremony in honor of her parents, a memorial panel was erected in a park near the site of her girlhood home. The town’s mayor praised her parents for their courage. The children of the town sang “Hatikva.” It was one of many times Spencer wept during the trip.

“I heard the mayor of Herne say how sorry he was about what happened during those terrible years,” Spencer. “I never thought I would ever hear anyone in Germany say that. Residents of the city, many of whom were not born until long after the war, came and embraced me. This was the place from which I ran for my life. Now, I felt like I was among friends.

“I also accepted that there were always good people in Germany, even during the war years,” she continued. “Some of them tried to help us, but they were afraid for their own lives and the lives of their family members. Fear was everywhere.”

Spencer continues to correspond with a group of high school students in Herne. Communication and understanding had helped pave the way for her trip, and serves as another way she can memorialize her parents, she said.

“I understand that so many of the German people want to atone,” she said. “But the people who are in Herne now were either very young or not even born during the Nazi years. I can’t blame all those people; they are trying to make amends.”

Her only regret about the visit was that her husband and her brother — who died four years ago — were not there to bear witness.

“But I think they knew; I hope somehow they saw what happened during that return trip,” Spencer said. “I have been blessed with a loving family all my life and I’ve never, not for a moment, forgotten them. And now I know that my parents and all the others will be remembered by their native country. There is no way I can adequately express my joy.”