Hero – History of Sorts

Forgotten Hero—Koenraad Rozendaal

To many Koenraad (or Koen), Rozzendaal is a forgotten Hero, but for at least one friend of mine, he isn’t.

Koen (Koenraad) Rozendaal was born in Oud-Beijerland, the Netherlands . On April 19, 1911. He was a Dutch resistance fighter during the Second World War and a member of the KP-Waterland.KP stands for Knok Ploeg which translates in Fight Team.

Koen Rozendaal used the pseudonym Koen Visser, he worked as a gardener in Berkel.

This is from a genealogy site

Koen Rozendaal (Koen Visser) went into hiding with farmer Jan Ruijter in the Beemster in 1943. Here he came into contact with some OD officers.
As an employee of the resistance group around E.B. Brune, he was involved in espionage, various heists, and liquidations.
He also provided people in hiding with distribution documents.
As leader of the KP-Purmerend/Waterland, which he co-founded in March 1944, Rozendaal organized robberies at the Edam police station and distribution office, the Monnickendam distribution office, and the Purmerend post office, during which large quantities of ration cards were captured.
Weapons were seized during the robbery of a police post on Overtoom in Amsterdam.
On April 4, he and others in Purmerend, after a fierce firefight, freed the arrested LOer P. Peek during his transport to the police station in Amsterdam.
On May 1 he took part in the G.J. van der Veen organized (failed) robbery at the HvB-Weteringschans.
In early 1944, Rozendaal had done everything he could to free the arrested Brune from the Koepel in Arnhem, but at the beginning of July 1944, he was betrayed by the same Brune (who, after arrest and serious assault, had started working for the Sipo) at Heck. s Lunchroom on Amsterdam’s Rembrandtplein arrested by the police.
On July 16, 1944, he was shot dead

Koen (Koenraad) Rozendaal (Oud-Beijerland, April 19, 1911 – Overveen, July 16, 1944) is a Dutch resistance fighter during the Second World War and a member of the KP-Waterland.

Koen Rozendaal (Koen Visser) works as a gardener in Berkel.

In 1943 he went into hiding with farmer Jan Ruijter in the Beemster. Here he comes into contact with some OD’ers. As an employee of the resistance group around E.B. Brune, he later became active in espionage, various squatting (including in Middenbeemster), and liquidations. He also provides people in hiding with distribution documents.

As the leader of the KP-Purmerend/Waterland, which he co-founded in March 1944, Rozendaal organized robberies at the Edam police station and distribution office, the Monnickendam distribution office, and the Purmerend post office. Large quantities of ration cards are captured. Weapons are seized during the robbery of a police post on Overtoom in Amsterdam.

On April 4, he, together with others, freed the arrested resistance fighter P. Peek in Purmerend. This was accompanied by a fierce firefight. At that time, Peek is transferred to the office of the Security Police in Amsterdam’s Euterpestraat.

On May 1, he took part in the robbery of the Detention Center at the Weteringschans organized by Gerrit van der Veen.

At the beginning of 1944, Koen made every effort to free the arrested Brune from De Koepel in Arnhem. At the beginning of July 1944, however, he was betrayed by this man, who decided to work for the Security Police after his arrest and serious assault.

Koen was arrested at Hecks Lunchroom on Amsterdam’s Rembrandtplein. He was locked up in the House of Detention at the Weteringschans.

Under the direction of Johannes Post and Hilbert van Dijk, an attempt was made on July 14 to free him and other resistance fighters. However, this failed due to betrayal.

On Sunday afternoon, July 16, Koen, together with Johannes Post, Jan Niklaas Veldman, Willem Frederik Smit, Arie Stramrood and Jacques Stil, Nico Jonk, Rens Prins, Jacob Balder, Frits Boverhuis, Ernst Klijzing and Ferdinand Ploeger, will gather at the headquarters of the SD on Euterpestraat. The injured Hilbert van Dijk and Cor ten Hoope are also added to the group on stretchers. People are transported to the dune area in Overveen. There they were all shot dead by the Nazis. Involved in this execution is, among others, the 21-year-old Dutch SS man Johan Willem Snoek. He murdered the men by shooting them in the back of the head.

The victims were then buried in a mass grave in the dunes. In the summer of 1945, some of them were reburied at the honorary cemetery in Bloemendaal.

A street in Middenbeemster is named after Koen Rozendaal.

Epitaph

Koenraad ROZENDAAL
April 19, 1911 in Oud-Beijerland
July 16, 1944, in the dune area near Overveen (municipality Bloemendaal)
unmarried
reformed
gardener’s assistant in Berkel
burial pit II (memorial stone 4)
26
Remember, O Lord, how weak I am, how short-lived! Psalm 89:19

Many thanks to Matt Tinkelenberg for introducing me to the story of his Great Uncle Koen, and other family members, of whom I will do blogs in the near future.

Sources

https://oorlogsgravenstichting.nl/personen/131166/koenraad-rozendaal

https://www.genealogieonline.nl/van-der-waal-stamboom/I190493.php

https://database.documentatiegroep40-45.nl/details2.php?ID=16140

“We Don’t Do This Sort of Thing”—The Story of a Hero

Nowadays, Amsterdam is known across the globe for several things, primarily for the red-light district. The area is known for its legal prostitution, sex shops, sex theatres, peep shows, a sex museum, a cannabis museum, and many coffee shops selling cannabis.

The city has more to offer than that though, museums, art and football to name but a few things.

The history of Amsterdam is mixed, especially its history during World War II. The majority of the Jewish population of Amsterdam was murdered during the Holocaust, often either by the Dutch Nazis or the German Nazis, who were assisted by Dutch collaborators.

However, some people who risked their lives to help their fellow neighbours, the often-forgotten Dutch heroes. One of these heroes had a military rank—she was a captain in an army—The Salvation Army.

Alida Margaretha Bosshardt was born into a Protestant middle-class family in Utrecht. Already at a young age, she showed independence and a strong will. During her teenage years, Alida came into contact with the Salvation Army and decided to enter the service. In 1932, at barely the age of 19 years, she took the oath, “…with God’s help, I will be a true and faithful soldier of the Salvation Army.”

She then studied at its Salvation Army Welfare and Health Academy to become an officer, a rank she attained in 1934. As a beginning recruit in the Army, Alida started work at the Zonnehoek, a home for children (from broken homes) in the Jewish area of eastern Amsterdam. Among her wards were the Jewish Terhorst sisters, Hendrina, b.1927, Helena, b.1934, and Dimphina, b.1938. In 1941, a newborn baby sister Roosje was accepted into the home. That same year, on the orders of the German occupying authorities, the Salvation Army was outlawed, and its buildings and money were confiscated. The Zonnehoek continued to function for some time as a private home. In the summer of 1942, with the onset of the deportations of the Jews to work in the East, many desperate Jewish parents brought their infants to Alida, begging her to find safe havens for them. In a large number of cases, she was able to do so, sometimes bringing them herself to the eastern parts of the country by bicycle. Some of the Jewish children she kept in the home, among whom were Klaartje Lindeman, Floortje and Doortje de Slechter and two Samson children. When the Germans billeted the home, Alida took as many children as she could to a newly rented apartment in the northern part of Amsterdam. She insisted that the four Terhorst sisters as well several other Jewish children stay under her care. During the move, she removed the yellow stars from the clothes of the older children, saying, “We don’t do this sort of thing.” After a bomb fell next to their new home, Alida again needed to move, making sure the Jewish children were included in the group. This scenario repeated itself several times until Alida had to split up the children and was able to find homes for some of the Gentile children and hide addresses for her various Jewish wards. In order to be able to buy food and other necessities, Alida went out to collect money. She was betrayed and arrested by the German regular police for collecting for the banned Salvation Army. Even though she was held at police headquarters, she managed to escape. She then hid at the orders of her Army superiors. When it was considered that the immediate danger had passed, Alida resumed her resistance and rescue activities. In the Hunger Winter of 1944-1945, she regularly went on food treks to the eastern rural parts of the country—to find food needed in the various children’s homes in the West.

After the war, the Jewish children all went back to their families. She worked at the Army National Headquarters in Amsterdam. She noticed that the Army had no activities in Amsterdam’s red-light district. Through De Wallen, she obtained permission to start working there. Her work for the prostitutes gained her national fame. In 1965, she accompanied Crown Princess Beatrix (later Queen Beatrix) on a secret visit to the red-light district.

Alida Bosshardt (in her nineties) stayed active with the Salvation Army as Majoor Bosshardt and kept in touch with her earlier wartime wards. On 25 January 2004, Yad Vashem recognized and honoured Alida Margaretha Bosshardt as Righteous Among the Nations.

After Alida’s death on 25 June 2007, her friend and colleague Colonel Margaret White wrote a fitting tribute to her in the UK Salvationist magazine. She said of Alida’s later life:

‘”With indefatigable energy and great love, she was the chaplain and social worker to the diverse population of the red-light district. For many years she lived, slept and had her office in one room in the building that housed the Goodwill Headquarters. Through a network of centres, she served the homeless and those with alcohol problems. She was instrumental in helping to formulate laws to safeguard the health of those in the trade of prostitution.

It is not hard to imagine the young Alida in occupied Holland, working to keep safe the 80 children in her charge. At risk to her own life, she would cycle past the Nazi soldiers with Jewish babies hidden in the wicker baskets on her bicycle, taking them to safe houses. For saving the lives of many Jewish children she was honoured with the Yad Vashem Award.

It is hard to imagine what Alida Bosshardt would have been had she not joined The Salvation Army. The Army was the rich soil which nurtured and gave opportunities and fulfilment to her remarkable and gifted life. It matched her and she matched it. To God be all the glory.”

Major Bosshardt was immortalised in a bronze statue on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal in the Red Light District – in front of the Salvation Army, where most of her life took place. It presents this wonderful woman sitting on a bench, in her simple Salvation Army uniform.

^{The inscription on the bench (full photo of the bench is the first photo on the page) reads, “Serving God is serving people, serving people is serving God.”}

Sources

https://www.salvationarmy.org.uk/news/holocaust-memorial-day-reflection-lieut-colonel-alida-bosshardt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alida_Bosshardt

Major Bosshardt

https://collections.yadvashem.org/en/righteous/4442841

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Ralph G. Neppel-WWII Hero

We live in an era where social media ‘influencers’ or celebrities, who make a token gesture for the latest political hype , are seen as heroes. I find it very hard to comprehend this misguided notion. None of these people have ever done a heroic deed.

I cam across the picture above on an article titled “62 Historic Photos Of Love During Wartime”

The picture is of Jean Moore kneeling and kissing her fiancé, wheelchair-bound World War II Veteran Ralph Neppel, the picture was from 1945.At first I hadn’t noticed that Ralph was missing both of his legs. I think the smile on his face made me miss it the first time I glanced at the picture.

I then decided to do a bit of research into Ralph Neppel and I came across an amazing story of an extraordinary heroic deed.

Ralpg was a leader of a machine-gun squad defending an approach to the village of Birgel, Germany, on 14 December 1944, when an enemy tank, supported by 20 infantrymen, counterattacked. He held his fire until the Germans were within 100 yards and then raked the foot soldiers beside the tank, killing several of them. The enemy armor continued to press forward, and, at the point-blank range of 30 yards, fired a high-velocity shell into the American emplacement, wounding the entire squad. Sgt. Neppel, blown 10 yards from his gun, had one leg severed below the knee and suffered other wounds. Despite his injuries and the danger from the onrushing tank and infantry, he dragged himself back to his position on his elbows, remounted his gun, and killed the remaining enemy riflemen. Stripped of its infantry protection, the tank was forced to withdraw. By his superb courage and indomitable fighting spirit, Sgt. Neppel inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and broke a determined counterattack.

His left leg was also severely injured and had to be amputated. He was sent to England for a long series of rehab programs.

During his recovery and rehabilitation at McCloskey General Hospital in Temple, Texas, Neppel was fitted with prostheses and was promoted from sergeant to technical sergeant. He married his fiancée Jean Moore, and was discharged from the Army in 1946

Within a year he was walking on a prosthesis, playing golf, driving a car and playing baseball. He and his wife had three children. He worked his way through college earning a B.A., attended graduate school and spent 22 years working for the VA. He was a finalist for the 1969 President’s Trophy for the disabled Person of the Year and served 8 years on the Iowa Governor’s Committee for the Employment of the disabled.

He was awarded the United States military’s highest decoration—the Medal of Honor—for his actions in World War II.

Medal of Honor

AWARDED FOR ACTIONS
DURING World War II
Service: Army
Division: 83d Infantry Division
GENERAL ORDERS:
War Department, General Orders No. 77, September 10, 1945

CITATION:
“The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Sergeant Ralph George Neppel, United States Army, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty while serving with Company M, 329th Infantry Regiment, 83d Infantry Division. Sergeant Neppel was leader of a machinegun squad defending an approach to the village of Birgel, Germany, on 14 December 1944, when an enemy tank, supported by 20 infantrymen, counterattacked. He held his fire until the Germans were within 100 yards and then raked the foot soldiers beside the tank killing several of them. The enemy armor continued to press forward and, at the pointblank range of 30 yards, fired a high-velocity shell into the American emplacement, wounding the entire squad. Sergeant Neppel, blown ten yards from his gun, had one leg severed below the knee and suffered other wounds. Despite his injuries and the danger from the onrushing tank and infantry, he dragged himself back to his position on his elbows, remounted his gun and killed the remaining enemy riflemen. Stripped of its infantry protection, the tank was forced to withdraw. By his superb courage and indomitable fighting spirit, Sergeant Neppel inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy and broke a determined counterattack.”

This to me is what a hero is.

sources

https://www.boredpanda.com/old-photos-vintage-war-couples-love-romance/

On this day – Ralph Neppel wearing his newly awarded Medal of Honor around his neck, gets kissed in the White House by his fiancee, Jean Moore. – September 10, 1945
byu/jecinci inColorizedHistory

https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/ralph-g-neppel

https://valor.militarytimes.com/hero/2616

Karl-Heinz Rosch—Hero Without Glory

Hate is never good, it clouds judgement and mind. I am not only saying this to those who read this but more so to myself.

I have written so many pieces about World War II, and although for all the horrors, I have always been careful to place the blame on the Nazis and not on the Germans. The fact that my country was occupied by the Germans, and I learned early in life that my Grandfather was killed by them, I grew up hearing the evil Germans from my family, so it is no wonder I developed a distaste for the Germans.

However, writing about the war and the Holocaust and doing the research has given me a more balanced view. Over the years, I found that not all Germans were bad; and not all Dutch were good.

Karl-Heinz Rosch was a young German soldier during World War II who saved the lives of two Dutch children.

Three days after Rosch turned 18 on October 6 1944, the young German soldier, along with his platoon, was stationed on a farm in Goirle, near Tilburg in the Netherlands, when Allied forces fired on them. He was about to hide in the basement with his comrades when he noticed that the two children of the farmer who owned the land seemed oblivious to the danger that was on them and continued to play in the courtyard.

He ran to them, took each in his arms and brought them into the safety of the basement. He again ran outside to position himself on the other side of the courtyard when a grenade hit him right at the spot where the children were earlier. Rosch was killed instantly.

“His corpse was completely torn apart, there were body parts everywhere,” according to one who witnessed the appalling scene.

As so often before and after the war, hypocrisy ruled. There were no issues channelling Nazi war criminals to the United States, United Kingdom and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics under the guise of Operation Paperclip and other similar operations. Many of them received great jobs and even had awards named after them.

However, when it was time to honour this young man—who saved two children—he paid the ultimate price—and it became a problem.

Rosch was a German soldier and the enemy. Therefore, his story was kept private after the war. The Dutch did not show any sympathy towards the German soldiers who had occupied their country during the war.

According to Herman van Rouwendaal, a former city councillor of the area, Karl-Heinz Rosch’s story was kept under wraps for 60 years—due to the fact that he was an enemy.
“Because he was just a damn Kraut,” were his exact words.

“Because he was just a damn Kraut,” were his exact words.

Even his parents and grandparents did not know how Rosch died. It was not until the rescued children gave their testimonies that the story of the young German soldier’s sacrifice was made known to the public.

But in 2008, change in how the Dutch treated the Germans became palpable that then 76-year-old Rouwendaal, along with his friends, decided to make a push that would make amends to the one-of-a-kind, historical image.

“Some Dutch are caught in a black-and-white way of thinking. The Germans were all Nazis, the Dutch were all good. That there were also unsavoury characters among us, who for example betrayed Jews and robbed them, one does not like to hear,” he commented.

However, the monument honouring young German soldier Karl-Heinz Rosch was not put up without a fight.

Those who supported a memorial for Karl-Heinz Rosch were met with opposition in every way.

They had to stand against the argument that it was not right to make a statue for the enemy when the five men who came from Goirle, tied in stakes and were killed by German troops as a warning to resistance fighters—did not have any memorial honouring their unreasonable deaths.

There was a suggestion for a monument of the five men next to the stakes. which were preserved by the history museum in the locality. Finally, Rosch’s statue was erected near the five men’s monument. Through this, the two sides of the German occupation would be aptly represented—the all-too-common brutality and the scarcely evident show of humanity by some of the enemy soldiers.

However, after much discussion, the city council still turned down the making of Rosch’s monument, citing that one in honour of a Wehrmacht soldier would still be “too socially sensitive.” Besides, they did not want to make Goirle a pilgrimage site for the German neo-Nazis. Not only was the state funding for the said statue refused—but the city council refused to display the monument in any public area—a resolution regarded wrong by many Dutch.

Being turned down by the government did not, however, dampen the desire of the monument’s supporters to see through to its success. They did a fundraising drive to have the needed funds for its erection.

Artist Riet van der Louw depicted Karl-Heinz Rosch as he was – a Wehrmacht soldier complete with the steel helmet many would instantly recognize and have come to hate. But it also showed the extent of compassion he extended to Jan and Toos Kilsdonk, the two children who were tucked in each of his arms as he carried them to safety.

“We will not be honouring the Wehrmacht, but rather the humanity of a young German soldier,” van Rouwendaal strongly pointed out during the drive for Karl-Heinz Rosch’s memorial.

On 4 November 2008, a bronze statue was erected on private property in Goirle in memory of Karl-Heinz Rosch. The statue is considered to be the only monument in the world to a German World War II soldier who was part of an occupying force.

Just consider this, less than a week before saved the two children and was killed, Karl Heinz had still been a child himself.

Many thanks to my friend Norman Stone for drawing my attention to the story.

Source

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/controversial-memorial-honor-wwii-german-soldier-karl-heinz-rosch.html

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The Hero Gino Bartali

Gino Bartali won the Giro d’Italia 3 times, in 1936,1937 and 1946. He also won de Tour de France twice, the first time in 1938 and again in 1948. This alone would make him a sporting hero. Especially his 2nd Giro d’Italia win, when his younger brother, Giulio, died in a racing accident on 14 June.1936 Gino came close to giving up cycling.

I could fill the blog will all his efforts as a cyclist, but he also a Hero for a completely different reason. In facts, with these heroic acts he risked his life every time.

Gino Bartali was born on July 18, 1914, in Ponte a Ema, a small village south of Florence, Italy. His father, Torello, was a day laborer. His mother helped support the family by working in the fields and embroidering lace. Gino had two older sisters, Anita and Natalina, and a younger brother, Giulio, who shared his passion for cycling and racing. Gino began to work at a young age, laboring on a farm and helping his mother with embroidery work.

Bartali was a devout Catholic. The summer of 1943 was a turning point for Italy. Mussolini was overthrown in July. In September, the new government signed an armistice with the Allies. Germany invaded the northern regions of the country, including Tuscany. With the German occupation, conditions for the Jewish population grew much worse.

Also in September 1943, Italian Cardinal Elia Dalla Costa asked to meet Bartali. Dalla Costa had been secretly aiding thousands of Jews seeking refuge from other European countries. The fugitives needed falsified identity cards. Dalla Costa shared his plan with Bartali. Under the cover of his long training rides, Bartali could carry counterfeit documents and photos in the hollow frame of his bike. The plan was a nearly perfect one as Bartali knew those roads well and his need to train provided an ideal alibi.

Under the pretense of training, Bartali would set off from his hometown of Florence with life-saving, counterfeit documents hidden away in his handlebars.

These fake identity documents would be used to help Jews escape across the border, or at least help hide their Jewish ethnicity if they were ever stopped and questioned. He would often ride as far as Assisi (over 100 miles one way), where many Jews were being hidden in Franciscan convents.

By taking on this role, he put himself at huge risk. At one point he was arrested and questioned by the head of the Fascist secret police in Florence, where he lived.

The Goldenberg family had met Gino Bartali in 1941 in Fiesole. Shlomo Goldenberg-Paz, who was 9 years old at the time, told Yad Vashem that he remembered a meeting with Bartali and his relative Armando Sizzi, who was a close family friend. The two sat with Shlomo’s father and had “a discussion of adults”. He remembered the event well because the renowned cyclist had given him a bicycle and a photo with a dedication, which Goldbenberg-Paz has always kept. In 1941 the conversation with Bartali could not have dealt with illegal papers, but meeting his childhood hero became engraved in Goldenberg’s memory.

When later on, following the German occupation in 1943, the Goldenbergs went into hiding, Shlomo was first sent to a convent, but then joined his parents who were hiding in an apartment in Florence belonging to Bartali. Gino Bartali helped and supported them. Goldenberg’s cousin, Aurelio Klein also fled to Florence because he had heard that one could obtain forged papers. He stayed in the apartment with the Goldenberg family for a short while, and then fled to Switzerland with the help of forged documents. Klein told Yad Vashem that Shlomo Goldenberg’s mother had received forged papers from Bartali, and that she was the only one in the family who dared set foot outside the apartment and go shopping.

For many years after the war, Bartali did not speak about his role in saving hundreds of people, sharing just a few details with his son Andrea. It was only after his death in 2000, that Bartali’s rescue activities came to light. In 2013, Yad Vashem recognized Gino Bartali with the honor of Righteous Among the Nations.

On July 7, 2013 Yad Vashem recognized Gino Bartali as Righteous Among the Nations.

He had everything to lose. His story is one of the most dramatic examples during World War Two of an Italian willing to risk his own life to save the lives of strangers. We can do with a few heroes like Gino nowadays.

sources

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/gino-bartali

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27333310

https://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/righteous-sportsmen/bartali.asp

The Gino Bartali Story

https://www.bicycling.com/news/a27483888/cycling-school-gino-bartali/

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Otto Weidt’s workshop for the blind.

Sometime you come across stories and you are amazed that they are not widely known. We all have heard about Oskar Schindler because of Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” , but the story of Otto Weidt is probably just as amazing.

It is a story which is close to me due to the fact that I am half blind, and more then likely at some stage in the future I will become completely blind, I hope it will a long time into the future. At one stage I was actually blind for about 6 months, so I have an idea on how it is not being able to see.

Otto Weidt’s decreasing eyesight forced him to give up his job in wallpapering. He adapted and learned the business of brush making and broom binding.

Otto Weidt and Else Nast met in Berlin in 1931 and married five years later, on September 22, 1936. This was Otto Weidt’s third marriage; he had two sons from his first marriage.

In 1936 Otto Weidt opened a Workshop for the Blind in Kreuzberg in Berlin; Else Weidt worked there with him. Otto Weidt took great risks in trying to help his Jewish workers persecuted by the Nazis; his wife gave him constant support. After Otto Weidt died on December 22, 1947, Else Weidt took over the management of the Workshop for the Blind. She died aged 72 on June 8, 1974.

In 1936 he established a company with the name “Otto Weidt’s Workshop for the Blind” in the basement of Großbeerenstraße 92 in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg. From 1940 on the workshop was based at Rosenthaler Straße 39 in the Mitte district, occupying the entire first floor of the side wing of the building. As one of his customers was the Wehrmacht, Weidt managed to have his business classified as vital to the war effort.

Up to 30 blind and deaf Jews were employed at his shop between the years of 1941 and 1943.When the Gestapo began to arrest and deport his Jewish employees, he fought to secure their safety by falsifying documents, bribing officers and hiding them in the back of his shop. But in February and March 1943 many were arrested and deported to concentration camps during the police raids known as “Operation Factory”.

Aside from the blind, Weidt also employed healthy Jewish workers in his office. This was strictly forbidden, as all Jewish workers had to be mediated through the labor employment office, which would ordinarily post them to forced-labor assignments. However, Weidt, managed to hire them by bribery.

The Jewish Inge Deutschkron was among the eight healthy Jews employed at the workshop. Inge and her mother were living in hiding to live , Weidt arranged an Aryan work permit for Deutschkron which he had acquired from a prostitute, who had no use for it.

Unfortunately, the permit had to be discarded three months later when the police arrested the prostitute.

One of Weidt’s most spectacular exploits involved the rescue of a Jewish girl who had been deported to the camps in Poland. In February 1943 Otto Weidt hid the Licht family in a storage room in the workshop for the blind at Neanderstraße 12 in Berlin-Mitte. The Gestapo arrested the family in October 1943 and deported them to the Theresienstadt ghetto on November 15, 1943.

There Weidt could support them with food parcels. All of 150 parcels arrived. After 6 months Alice and her parents were deported to KZ Birkenau. Alice managed to send a postcard to Weidt who promptly traveled to Auschwitz in attempt to help her.

Weidt found out that as Auschwitz was emptied, Alice was moved to the labor camp/ammunition plant Christianstadt. He hid clothes and money for her, in a nearby pension to aid her return. Through one of the civilian workers he contacted Alice and made her runaway and return to Berlin possible.

Alice eventually managed to return to Berlin in January 1945, and lived in hiding with the Weidt’s until the end of the war.

Alice’s parents both were murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau

In the period from March 1943 until the end of the war there were only a few employees left in Weidt’s workshop. Apart from three non-Jewish workers, there were Jews married to non-Jews or people who had one Jewish parent, as well as several people in hiding like Inge Deutschkron, Alice Licht, Erich Frey, and Chaim and Max Horn.

Of the 33 only 7 survived.

After the war Otto Weidt supported the establishment of the Jewish Home for Children and the Aged at Moltkestraße 8-11 in the Berlin district of Niederschönhausen. After Liberation it was the first secure place for children and elderly people who escaped Nazi persecution.

All of this make Otto Weidt a hero, in my opinion. Just think of it, not only did he help Jews, he helped blind and deaf Jews. They were seen as lesser human beings in 2 categories as per the Nuremberg Laws. Otto died of heart failure in 1947, at 64 years of age.

On September 7, 1971, Yad Vashem recognized Otto Weidt as Righteous Among the Nations.

sources

https://www.museum-blindenwerkstatt.de/en/first-of-all/

Otto Weidt

https://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/weidt.html

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Happy Birthday, Marcel Marceau

(originally posted March 22, 2020)

I did a blog on Marcel Marceau about two years ago. Today, he would have been 100 years old. Therefore, I thought it appropriate to do another tribute to this Silent Hero.

He survived the Nazi occupation and saved many children during World War II. He was regarded for his peerless style of pantomime, moving audiences without uttering a single word, and was known to the world as the “Master of Silence.”

Marcel Marceau was born Marcel Mangel in Strasbourg, France, to a Jewish family. His father, Charles Mangel, was a kosher butcher originally from Będzin, Poland. His mother, Anne Werzberg, came from Yabluniv, present-day Ukraine.

At the beginning of the second world war, he had to hide his Jewish origin. He changed his name to Marceau when his Jewish family were forced to flee their home. His father was deported and murdered at Auschwitz in 1944. Marceau and his brother, Alain, were part of the French resistance, helping children escape to safety in neutral Switzerland. Marceau also served as an interpreter for the Free French Forces under General Charles de Gaulle, acting as liaison officer with the allied armies.

He gave his first major performance to 3,000 troops after the liberation of Paris in August 1944.

In 1947, Marceau created the character Bip the Clown, whom he first played at the Théâtre de Poche (Pocket Theatre) in Paris. In his appearance, he wore a striped pullover and a battered, be-flowered silk opera hat. The outfit signified life’s fragility and Bip became his alter ego.

He died on 22, September 2007. The Silent Hero who should never be forgotten.

Source

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0545131/bio

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marcel-Marceau

https://www.history.com/news/marcel-marceau-wwii-french-resistance-georges-loinger

MSgt Roddie Edmonds—“We Are All Jews Here”

Roddie Edmonds and many of his fellow US Army mates were captured by Nazi forces on 19 December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge. Some of them were sent to Stalag IXB. Edmonds was the senior noncommissioned officer (Master Sergeant) and was made responsible for the camp’s 1,275 American POWs.

The men of the 422nd Regiment were forced to march approximately 50 kilometres to Gerolstein, Germany. Upon arrival, they were loaded into cattle/box cars, 60 to 70 men per car, with almost no food or water. The following 7 days and nights, they travelled to Stalag IXB in Bad Orb. They arrived on Christmas day, 25 December 1945. After about a month in Bad Orb, the American POWs were divided into three groups: officers, non-commissioned officers (NCOs), and enlisted men. The NCOs were taken to Stalag IXA in Ziegenhain. There were 1,000 men in this group.

On 25 January 1945, two days before Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops- they arrived in Stalag IXA, Ziegenheim.

The camp commandant ordered Edmonds to tell only the Jewish-American soldiers to present themselves at the next morning’s assembly so they could be separated from the other prisoners. Instead, Edmonds ordered all 1,275 to assemble outside their barracks. The German commandant rushed up to Edmonds in a fury, placed his pistol against Edmonds’ head and demanded that he identify the Jewish soldiers under his command. Instead, Edmonds responded, “We are all Jews here,” and threatened to have the commandant investigated and prosecuted for war crimes after the conflict ended, should any of Edmonds’ men be harmed.

Luckily, the camp commandant still had a smidgeon of common sense left. He took the threat seriously. Many others would not have done that and would have executed all men.

MSgt Edmonds saved 200 Jewish men because of this brave stand against the Nazi tyranny. Truthfully, more than 200 persons were saved as these men had children, grandchildren and even great-grandchildren—multiply this number several times over.

Roddie Edmonds was a hero who was (rightly) awarded the recognition as Righteous Among the People by Yad Vashem.

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Sources

Edmonds, Master Sgt. Roddie

Left without a Father

mYERS

The US armed service often get bad press and maybe sometimes that’s warranted. but what is often forgotten nowadays and especially in Europe, we owe these brave men and women a great deal.

As a Dutch man I am so aware of the liberty that was bestowed upon me by the sacrifice of so many Fathers.

Over the end 180,000 American children were left fatherless by World War II, many of these children never even met their dads.

The children of Cpl. William H. Myers, Jr. wre left without their Father on February 3, 1945. He was killed in action.

His remains are buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery,Margraten in the Netherlands.

This is fo his children.

Your Father died so that many others could live. I and the world owe him a debt which cannot be paid. all I can say is thank you.

His death was not in vain and every time people forget about the sacrifice and his brothers in arms made, I will remind them

Because of them we are free to do what we ant and free to say theing s we feel are important to say.

I think it is extermely important to say that your Father was a Hero.

Richard Ira Bong- WWII Hero

Richard Bong

I could do a very lengthy blog about Richard Ira Bong but I decided to stay with the facts that really matter. For everything else I urge you to look up his name, so much has already written about him.

He is credited with shooting down 40 enemy aircraft in aerial combat.

The citation on his Medal of Honor descried him best.

“The President of the United States of America, in the name of Congress, takes pleasure in presenting the Medal of Honor to Major (Air Corps) Richard Ira Bong (ASN: 0-433784), United States Army Air Forces, for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty while serving with the 49th Fighter Group, V Fighter Command, Fifth Air Force, in action in the Southwest Pacific area from 10 October to 15 November 1944. Though assigned to duty as gunnery instructor and neither required nor expected to perform combat duty, Major Bong voluntarily and at his own urgent request engaged in repeated combat missions, including unusually hazardous sorties over Balikpapan, Borneo, and in the Leyte area of the Philippines. His aggressiveness and daring resulted in his shooting down eight enemy airplanes during this period.”

Ironically though he didn’t die in combat but he died in California while testing a jet aircraft.

But even the date of his death is significant because it was also the date that the Enola Gay dropped the “Little Boy” atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

enola

But despite that massive historic event , Richard Bong’s death was featured prominently in national newspapers,

paper

Happy Birthday Major Bong, may you rest in peace.

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