The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust

by Gilbert, Martin

  In the same television programme, Bruno Motzko spoke of how he had hidden Jewish families in his home in Essen, procuring falsified documents for them. Also shown on the programme was Helen Jacobs. In answer to the question ‘Why did you do it?’ she replied: ‘To defend democracy and to fight against discrimination—of which the Jews were the greatest victims.’ She had hidden Jews in her home and sent packages to people in concentration camps—with her return address on them. She had provided those hidden by her with food, clothes and necessary documents.20

  Among the many testimonies of Jews who were saved in Berlin is one from Ruth Gumpel, who was seventeen when war broke out. She wrote of her family’s rescuers, Max and Anni Gehre: ‘The Gehres had been patients of my father’s for many years. During that time their daughter had recovered from diphtheria, for which they were very grateful.’

  When it was time for her family to think of going into hiding, ‘Mrs Gehre was instrumental in finding hiding places for all of us. As a matter of fact the Gehre family kept my father hidden in a pantry of their small apartment from 9 January 1943 till the end of the war in May 1945. Mrs Gehre also arranged often new hiding places for me and my now sister-in-law Ellen Arndt, when it became necessary for us to move. The Gehres shared their meagre ration cards with all of my family. They did not accept any money from us. As ordinary working-class people, the Gehres were motivated by human decency to help Jews, with no expected rewards or remuneration. Many of our personal belongings were hidden in their apartment and returned to us at the end of the war. None of the neighbours knew about my father’s presence in the apartment. During air raids he stayed there while the Gehres had to go to the shelter. Of course whenever they had company, my father kept out of sight.’21

  Other Berliners who risked their lives to save Ruth Gumpel and her family were Gustav and Anni Schulz, who took in her mother on several occasions, and also hid her father’s medical instruments. Then, as she recalled, there were ‘Mr and Mrs Max Koehler and their son Hans, and Ernst and Maria Treptow’, of whom Ruth’s younger brother Bruno, who was seventeen in 1943, wrote: ‘I went into hiding on 30 January 1943 (three months after my mother was deported to Auschwitz). When my hiding places became unusable in April 1943, I remembered the Treptows and went there. They took me and my friend Joachim S., who was also in hiding, into their apartment. Since Mr Treptow was in the scrap and recycling business, there was a storage basement in the same house and we both slept there on bales of rags. Joachim S. was caught in a police dragnet on the streets of Berlin and was never heard from again. I stayed with the Treptows till their apartment house was destroyed during an air raid in May 1944. They moved to their one-room cottage in the suburb of Rangsdorf near Berlin and took me along. When neighbours became suspicious and started to ask questions, I had to move out.’ Bruno Gumpel then found refuge with another German friend, Erich J. Arndt.22

  Rudolf Horstmeyer was not Jewish, but his wife Felicia was. Although the Nazi authorities encouraged non-Jewish husbands to divorce their Jewish wives, he refused to do so. Both were teachers: when the Gestapo came to arrest them, former pupils who had later joined the Nazi Party interceded, and protected them. When deportation was imminent they were tipped off and escaped to the countryside, where they were hidden, and survived.23

  Evy Goldstein was only one year old when war broke out. Her father Ernst was among several thousand Berlin Jews deported to Auschwitz and killed in 1943. She and her mother Herta survived in Berlin thanks to the help given them by two rescuers, Dr Elisabeth Abegg and Hildegard Knies.24 In the Holocaust Museum in Washington, Evy Goldstein’s photograph is part of the photo archive, with a note that for the last part of the war she was hidden on the estate of the Baroness von Huellensen in East Prussia.25

  Beginning on 27 February 1943, in Berlin the Gestapo rounded up 4,700 Jewish men who were married to non-Jewish women. They were taken to a collection and detention centre in the Rosenstrasse, from which they were to be deported to their deaths. In front of this building, however, an estimated two thousand of the non-Jewish wives gathered to demonstrate—as close as they could to where their husbands were being held—and demand the men’s release. Their protest began on a Sunday morning. By nightfall as many as two thousand more wives had joined them. They stayed in the street for a whole week, refusing to leave until their husbands were set free. At midday on Monday, March 6, Dr Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda and one of the most actively anti-Jewish members of Hitler’s inner circle, gave in. Suddenly the Jews who had been about to be deported became ‘privileged persons’: free men who, the official announcement explained, ‘are to be incorporated in the national community’. The 4,700 Jewish husbands thereby survived the war, living in Berlin. Their wives’ protest is a little-known tale of courage—and of successful defiance.

  These wives had a choice. They could have opted to end, by divorce, the increasing discrimination, deprivation and danger which they had endured since Hitler had come to power ten years earlier. Instead, they chose to risk their lives to remain with their husbands. Charles C. Milford—then Klaus Mühlfelder—whose mother was one of those German spouses, noted: ‘Couples who divorced in the belief this would improve the lot of their children, inadvertently condemned the Jewish spouse to death, as these were to be deported and killed when the systematic extermination of German Jews got under way.’26

  The stories of mixed marriages often contain great heroism. Peter Gruner, a non-Jew, was inseparable from his Jewish wife. Margit Diamond, his niece by marriage wrote: ‘He remained with his wife throughout the war, saving her life and exposing himself to untold dangers when he could have had a much easier time by leaving her. He and his wife were not allowed in the air raid shelter during the bombing of Berlin, they received starvation rations, both had to do slave-type labour…he could have avoided all the hardships had he left his Jewish wife. Both barely survived the war.’

  Margit Diamond also recalled a second uncle, Paul Saloschin, who was married to another aunt. ‘The Holocaust records show that he was transported from Berlin to Lodz along with his wife, and then “liquidated”,’ she writes, and then adds: ‘When I told this to some survivors who knew my family intimately, I found out for the first time that my “uncle” Paul was not Jewish! Thus it appears that he, too, refused to abandon his Jewish wife and went to his death with her.’27

  Otto Weidt, a German pacifist, had a small brush factory in a courtyard in the centre of Berlin. Blind himself, he took in several dozen Jews, most of them blind, or deaf and mute, and, in his discussions with the deportation authorities, insisted that the work they did for him was essential for the German war economy.28 Today, at the entrance to his courtyard, a plaque notes: ‘Many men thank him for having survived.’29

  Every attempt to rescue a Jew was fraught with danger. Emmy Erdmann, from Trier, gave her identity card to a Jewish friend, who thereby survived the war, and helped other Jews escape across the border into Holland. For these humane acts, she was eventually arrested and executed.30

  FROM THE MOMENT of the German annexation in 1938, Austria’s identity was merged with that of Germany: even the geographical term ‘Austria’ was replaced by smaller regions. In 1943, in a declaration issued from Moscow, the Allies stated that Austria was the first victim of Nazism, as a result of the annexation. Austrian anti-Semitism had been strong, and many of the cruellest concentration camp commandants and guards were Austrian-born, but there were many individual Austrians, like individual Germans, who opposed the Nazi persecution of the Jews and suffered as a result; some tried to help save Jewish life, despite the great risks. Eighty-three Austrians have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.31

  One such Austrian was Lambert Grutsch. The life he saved was that of a young woman, Helena Horowitz, who on 15 December 1942 ran away from the ghetto in the Polish town of Debica, ‘without a name, without any identification papers’, as she later recalled. ‘I wound up, as “Sypek, Julia”, in Biezanow near Plaszow, working
in Firma Stuag, a Viennese construction firm.’ It was there that Lambert Grutsch, an overseer in the firm, offered to help her by getting her out of Poland. ‘He knew that I was Jewish, but when he went with me to the Arbeitsamt in Cracow, to apply for me to serve as a maid and farmhand for his wife, I was officially working for his Firma Stuag and I also had a bona fide Arbeitskarte.

  ‘I arrived in Tyrol on February 6, 1944. He was going home for a three-week vacation and he officially took me out of Poland as a slave-worker. He didn’t say a word to anybody. I worked on his parents’ farm all through 1944 till after the Liberation. The sons were all in the army and Adelheid and I did all the necessary farm work. I was “die Polin” Julia and got accepted as a cherished member of the family. They had absolutely no idea what was going on in the world. I worked hard, but I was in paradise.’32

  Lambert had taken Helena to his family home at Jerzens, in a remote valley high in the Austrian Tyrol—a narrow valley ending in the glaciers that mark the Austro-Italian border. He then returned to Poland.33

  Aram and Felicia Taschdjian were part of a small Armenian community in Vienna, refugees from the massacres of their compatriots in Turkey after the First World War. One night in 1942 Valentin Skidelsky, who had escaped from a train taking him to a concentration camp, came to their door in search of a safe haven. They took him in, and hid him in their attic until the end of the war.34

  Ella Lingens-Reiner was an Austrian doctor. In 1942 she hid a Jewish girl called Erika in her flat in Vienna. ‘We had to nourish her,’ she recalled, ‘but to get food, one needed ration cards. Friends of ours, a couple of teachers who were in charge of distributing these cards, put some of them aside for Erika. When Erika needed surgery for appendicitis, we could not bring her to the hospital without papers. It was our own maid who did not hesitate to give her the papers, so that she could be treated in the hospital. The last month Erika was with us, she took a sunbath on the roof of our house. Some people in the house opposite saw her and informed the police. A policeman rang at the door. Erika kept quiet. But the policeman said: “I know there is someone inside. I will fetch a man who will open the door by force.” When he went away, Erika was in panic. Suddenly, the door opened and there came a girlfriend of my brother-in-law who had given her a key. Erika informed her of her situation. Ten minutes later when the policeman rang again, a girl opened and told him: “I am sorry, I did not open the first time, but I was so ashamed for being seen naked.” The policeman fined her for her indecency. This girl, whom she had never seen before or afterwards, saved Erika’s life.’

  Ella Lingens-Reiner adds: ‘All these people would have been killed if discovered. None of them ever claimed to be a hero. Yad Vashem does not even know their names. But my husband and I could not have helped anybody without their assistance. For anyone who is honoured today for saving Jewish lives, there were ten or more who did the same.’35

  In 1942 Ella Lingens-Reiner helped another Jew escape from Austria. For her determination to help, she was arrested and sent to Auschwitz, but survived.36

  Several Austrians enabled Lorraine Justman-Wisnicki to avoid recapture after she and her friend Marysia Fuchs-Wartski had escaped from a prison in Innsbruck in January 1945, before the area was liberated. The first to help was Rudl Moser. ‘We found refuge, compassion and understanding,’ Lorraine later recalled. ‘Strangers became close family. They were deeply concerned, they cared. What an elated feeling after ten months in prison! “Don’t worry, doves! I will protect you from the Nazi-swines!”—Rudl’s voice sounds a bit high-flown now. A good-natured chap, he was happy for us and proud of his part in our escape.’

  Being a member of the Sanitation Department of the Kripo (Criminal Police) and a frequent guest in the prison kitchen, Rudl Moser ‘was quite aware of our presence and questionable fate. He tried to reassure us, by expressing his personal animosity towards the regime and—by promising help. Sitting now in the cozy dining room with Frau Maria Stocker and Rudl Moser, we gratefully acknowledged our good fortune. We slept that night in Mrs Stocker’s bedroom, and remained there in hiding the next day. “The girls aren’t too safe here,” sighed Moser, when he returned from work. “We have to secure another shelter.”’

  On the following day the two girls met Frau Stocker’s lifelong friend, Frau Maria Petrykiewicz, and her daughter Wanda. ‘Full of admiration for our daring escape from under the noses of the Nazis, they resolved to take us into their home.’

  Rudl Moser came to see them each night to make sure that all was well. When the Allied bombing drove the inhabitants of Innsbruck into their shelters, ‘we implored Frau Petrykiewicz and Wanda to join their neighbours. But, they wouldn’t hear of leaving us alone in the fourth floor apartment. They believed strongly that God will protect us, and as well them, from evil.’

  Eventually their Austrian rescuers managed to get the two girls false papers, so they could set off on their own, masquerading as foreign workers. ‘The moment of parting arrived. In the apartment of Frau Petrykiewicz, on a small table, in front of a picture of Saint Antony, patron of fugitives, candles flickered. The women prayed, as they felt fit to turn to God for the protection of their new adopted, two Jewish girls…We kissed Frau Maria Stocker and Frau Maria Petrykiewicz, and we all shed tears. Apprehension hung in the air, as our lives were again in deadly danger.’

  Wanda Petrykiewicz and Rudl Moser brought the two girls to the deserted station of Rum, a small town near Innsbruck. ‘It seemed safer this way, since the police and the Gestapo of Innsbruck diligently proceeded with their hunt for us.’ Their last words were: ‘Goodbye, Herr Moser, and thanks for all!’

  The two girls survived the next few months on the move with their false papers. With the coming of the Allied armies in the first week of May 1945, they returned to Innsbruck, to the Petrykiewicz apartment. ‘There was rejoicing and jubilation.’37

  Chapter 9

  Germans beyond Germany

  TENS OF THOUSANDS of Germans lived and worked in the occupied areas beyond the borders of the Third Reich during the Second World War—as soldiers and administrators, businessmen and factory owners. There were also the Volksdeutsch, the local, German-speaking Ethnic Germans who had long lived as minorities throughout eastern Europe, and who expected to be among the main beneficiaries of German rule.

  The Germans living outside Germany included many who had no sympathy for the Nazi regime. Some were former Communists or Socialists; most were ordinary decent human beings, repelled by the murder of Jews. In the East Galician town of Drohobycz, a German army major, Eberhard Helmrich, was put in charge of a farm at the Hyrawka labour camp nearby. His job was to supply food for the German army. More than half his almost three hundred workers were Jewish, many of them teenage girls. At the time of the deportations from Drohobycz—on 6–8 August 1942, when two thousand Jews were deported to Belzec in three days and killed, and again on August 17 when a further three thousand were rounded up and murdered—Major Helmrich hid some of his workers in his home, and secured the release of others who had already been rounded up for deportation by insisting that they were needed ‘for the proper functioning of the farm’.

  There was a third deportation from Drohobycz in October, when another two thousand Jews were arrested. The ghetto was then almost empty. In an effort to save as many of his remaining workers as he could, Helmrich and his wife Donata—who had remained in Berlin—devised a plan to get some of the girls out of Poland altogether. Having provided them with false papers, which Helmrich prepared himself, the women were sent to Germany in the guise of Ukrainian and Polish housemaids, to work for German families inside the Reich. In Berlin, Donata Helmrich made sure that the Jewish women were not placed in domestic positions near ‘real’ Polish and Ukrainian women who might suspect their true origins.1

  In Vilna, Major Karl Plagge was in charge of the large workshops where German military vehicles were repaired, the HKP (Heeres Kraftfahrpark or Army Motor Vehicle Repair Park). In the First World War he had
fought on the Western Front in the battles of the Somme, Verdun and Ypres, before being taken a prisoner of war by the British. A pharmacologist by profession, he joined the Nazi Party in 1932, before Hitler came to power, hoping for better work and pay, but was soon disillusioned by Nazi ideology, and allowed his Party membership to lapse before the outbreak of war. After Kristallnacht he had shown his contempt for the racial laws of Nazi Germany by becoming godfather to the son of a friend of his, Kurt Hesse, whose wife Erika was Jewish.

  On the outbreak of war in 1939, Plagge was drafted into the German army, becoming an engineer officer with the rank of major. According to some sources, one of the first things he did on reaching Vilna—and seeing the harsh situation of the Jews in the ghetto there—was to ask his superiors if he could set up a special labour camp for his Jewish workers next to his Motor Vehicle Repair Park, in order to protect them from the regular raids on the ghetto, and the frequent deportations to the death pits at Ponar, a few miles outside the city.

  Word spread through the ghetto, recalled Perela Esterowicz (later Pearl Good), then fourteen, that Plagge ‘went all the way to Berlin with this request. And that he had argued the war effort needed his skilled Jewish workers. He was much loved and respected, because we knew if not for Major Plagge, we would be dead in concentration camps.’ In the work camp he ‘saw to it we were treated decently and had food’. Pearl Good was certain she and her parents, Ida and Samuel Esterowicz, and many others, owed their lives to Plagge.2 Heinz Zeuner, the German who was Plagge’s deputy in charge of food distribution, recalled how his boss ‘was very worried about the food rations and whether all his people were really satisfied and so I met with him almost daily…I observed especially his great sense of justice, he always required that there would not be any injustice in his park, particularly when it was against Jews.’ With his knowledge, Jewish men, women and children hid in the Motor Vehicle Repair Park for weeks at a time.