Amable Sanchez, Guatemala

Amable Sanchez was born in 1880 in Guatemala. During the war she worked as a Spanish teacher in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Though she kept her Guatemalan nationality, it is not known when or why she went to Berlin, where she stayed until her death in 1966.

On February 27th, 1943, during the last great raid for the deportation of all the Jews still living at the German Reich, Amable Sanchez offered her help to her Jewish neighbor Erna Caminer, who, condemned to hard labor, escaped her arrest by chance. When the Gestapo tried earnestly to arrest her at her apartment, Amable Sanchez offered to accommodate her. Three days after, she took her to the house of a non-Jewish friend who gave refuge to other three Jewish women.

When the hideout became more dangerous due to suspicious neighbors, Erna Caminer came back to Amable Sanchez? apartment. By then, her daughter was living there, who, by being married to an Arab, was not yet subjected to repression. Amable Sanchez registered Erna Caminer under a false name at the police department and gave her the key to her place to hide there in case of danger.

She also supplied her with food until the end of the war.

Edited by: Adriana Karagozian

Source: /?en/saviors/rescuing/1572.htm