Through recent research conducted in Berlin and New York, the IRWF confirmed that Paul and Leni Pissarius sheltered Ernst Joseph and his parents, Leopold and Bertha, in their Berlin home for more than two years.

After losing their family business and the increased round-ups occurring in 1940-1941, Ernest feared for the safety of himself and his parents. A business associate, Oscar Materne encouraged them to contact Paul and Leni Pissarius, who agreed to help them. For the next two years, the Joseph family hid in the Pissarius’ home. While Ernst occasionally left to search for food and other supplies, his parents never left the apartment.

Leopold Joseph died of a stroke in February of 1945.  When Berlin surrendered on May 2, 1945, Ernst and his mother had been in hiding at the Pissarius home for 27 months. For decades, the heroic works of Paul and Leni Pissarius have gone unacknowledged, but now their day has come.

Last month, two cases that were researched and documented by the IRWF, have gained the official recognition of Yad Vashem. The cases in question are those of rescuers from Berlin, Paul and Helene (Leni) Pissarius who for more than two years sheltered Ernst Joseph and his parents in their Berlin home; and that of Hannah Sotschek and her grown-up daughter Eva Cassirer who sheltered Mrs. Elisabeth Joseph (born Jacoby).

Having been familiar with our work, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph’s daughter had contacted us last year asking for help in honoring the rescuers who helped her mother and father live through the WWII in Berlin. Our team of researchers from Jerusalem and New York has been working on these cases, documenting facts and gathering testimonies. The key testimony was certainly that of Elisabeth Joseph who gave a first-hand account of her hiding in the Sotschek/Cassirer house and also confirmed the story of her then friend, Ernst Joseph, who became her husband after the war.

Elisabeth Joseph had a comfortable life living in Berlin with her parents, brother and their nanny. She was taking ballet classes and was dreaming of a career in dance. In 1937, when she was 14 years old, Hitler forbade Jews to attend any type of school and her formal education ended. Her family also had to move to a much smaller apartment as they were no longer allowed to live in their old neighborhood.

When an order on forced labor for Jews came Elisabeth and her brother were both summoned for work in the Siemens-Halske factory. One evening, they came back from work to found their apartment sealed by the Gestapo and a notice nailed at the door calling them to report to the detention center. They went into hiding, first in the home of their former nanny, and later, after her house was bombed, they started to move from one place to another, usually staying in the empty cellars and bombed houses. One day Elisabeth’s brother didn’t return to the hiding place and Elisabeth never found out what had happened to him, and never saw him again.

In the days that followed Elisabeth kept walking through Berlin during the day and spent nights sitting on a toilet seat at the Bahnhof-Zoo train station constantly in fear of being discovered. On one of her walks she heard someone calling her name. It was Eva Cassirer, a girl few years older than she was and whom she knew from school. Eva invited Elisabeth to come to her house that evening and hinted that her mother perhaps could help her. Ms. Sotschek, a wealthy and beautiful woman who knew that Elisabeth’s parents were taken away, agreed to help her without any hesitations. Elisabeth was given a new identity and lived openly as a maid in the house. Her new identity paper with the name of Liselotte Lehmann was provided by Eva through her friend from university.

Elisabeth lived in Sotschek’s house for more than two years. After the war she married Ernst Joseph who survived the war thanks to the help of other German family from Berlin.

Ernst Joseph was born on July 17, 1915. His family owned “Firma Lippman,”a small import-export business of canned goods that they were forced to liquidate after anti-Jewish laws came in effect.
From 1940 to 1941 he was forced to work on road construction and at the Siemens-Halske factory. Knowing that the Gestapo was taking people from their jobs and off the streets, Ernst searched for a hiding place large enough for him and his parents Leopold and Bertha. He took the recommendation of his business associate Oscar Materne to contact Paul and Leni Pissarius, who agreed to help him.

During the next two and a half years the Joseph family stayed hidden in the Pissarius house. While Ernst occasionally left to search for food and medicine on the black market, his parents Leopold and Bertha never left the apartment. Leopold had a history of medical problems and with the lack of medical care he died of a stroke in February of 1945. It was Paul Pissarius who helped Ernst Joseph placing the body of his father on a cart, and discharging it into the Spree River, in the middle of the night, not too far away from their house. When Berlin surrendered on May 2, 1945, Ernst and his mother had been in hiding at the Pissarius home for 27 months.

Hosenfeld was named by the committee set up by Israel’s Holocaust museum Yad Vashem after Szpilman wrote to Yad Vashem to say that the Wermacht officer stationed in Poland helped him find a hiding place and provided him with food, blankets and moral support in November 1944.

The pianist also mentioned Hosenfeld in his diaries, which later became the basis for Roman Polanski’s film ”The Pianist,” the museum said in an e-mailed statement.

The title, Righteous Among Nations, is awarded by a special commission headed by a Supreme Court justice based on a well- defined set of criteria and regulations, according to the Yad Vashem Web site.

About 6 million European Jews were killed in the Holocaust during World War II in a systematic Nazi campaign across Europe that included random executions, plunder and death camps.

Hosenfeld, who was arrested and tried by the Soviets after the war, died in Soviet prison in 1952. He was also named as a rescuer by Holocaust survivor Leon Wurm, who said Hosenfeld employed him at a sports center he was in charge of.

The committee decided on Hosenfeld’s title after it was given his diaries and as letters to his wife showed he consistently opposed the Nazi policy toward the Jews, Yad Vashem said.

Hosenfeld’s children, who live in Germany, will receive a medal and certificate on their father’s behalf, Yad Vashem said, adding that no date has been set yet for the official ceremony.

To contact the writer on the story: Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at gackerman@bloomberg.net

Wilm Hosenfeld was drafted into the German Army shortly before the outbreak of World War II and was stationed in Poland, where he spent most of the war as a sports and culture officer. During the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, he interrogated prisoners.

After the war, Hosenfeld was arrested and tried by the Soviets and sentenced to life imprisonment. His sentence was subsequently commuted to 25 years, but Hosenfeld died in a Soviet prison in 1952.

Over the years, the testimony of two Holocaust survivors was presented to Yad Vashem, detailing how the German officer had provided them with shelter from the Nazis.

Leon Wurm testified that Hosenfeld employed him at the sports center after his escape from the train to Treblinka, while Wladyslaw wrote to Yad Vashem, as well as in his diaries (which became the basis for the film), that in November 1944 Hosenfeld helped him find a hiding place and that he provided blankets, food and moral support.

Yad Vashem had previously considering bestowing the German officer with its highest honor for saving the pair, but waited until it was clear that he was not involved in war crimes during the Warsaw Uprising.

Recently, new material, including Hosenfeld’s personal diaries, and letters to his wife were reviewed by Yad Vashem, which clarify his ”consistent stance” against the Nazi policy toward the Jews, Yad Vashem said.

In his writing, Hosenfeld stressed his growing disgust with the regime’s oppression of Poles, the persecution of Polish clergy, abuse of the Jews, and, with the beginning of the Final Solution, his horror at the extermination of the Jewish people.

Although Hosenfeld supported the Nazi party in its beginnings, it is clear that as he saw the consequences of the Nazis’ rise to power, his opposition to them was deep and consistent, Yad Vashem said.

Hosenfeld’s children, who live in Germany, will receive the medal and certificate on their late father’s behalf.

More than 22,000 non-Jews have been recognized as ”Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem.

When, on November 30, 1942 the Foss family, living at Pestalozzistrasse in Berlin, was threatened with deportation, the acquaintanceship with the salesperson, Helene von Schell, proved to be a lifeline. She offered the married couple and their two sons a hiding place in her small apartment on Waldstrasse in the Moabit district, where the family was able to hide until liberation in April 1945.

This courageous act is commemorated on a memorial plaque which since March 1996 hangs on the apartment building where Helene von Schell lived until her death in 1956. Although by now hundreds of examples have become known, in which non-Jewish Germans at high personal risk offered help to Jews who were persecuted and threatened with deportation, a comprehensive presentation befittingly honoring these courageous acts of solidarity is still lacking.

For this reason, in April 1997, a research group began to investigate the ”rescue of Jews in National Socialist Germany”. During a two year project phase, a differentiated database was developed in order to register as many as possible different kinds of rescue efforts, both successful and failed, that occurred between 1933 and 1945 in Germany. The project concentrates on the period from 1941 to 1945. Until now, data entries of approximately 2,000 women and men who helped persecuted Jews and of almost 1,000 Jews who lived in hiding have been inputted. In each ”case”, whenever possible, the length of time, type and degree of help offered, as well as statements pertaining to the motivation of the rescuers is noted. Whether the rescuer or rescued person knew each other beforehand or whether they were complete strangers is also of importance. Moreover, information on the profession, education level, religion and political affiliation of each person is entered into the database. Whether or not the act has received official recognition since 1945 is also recorded. Not only the successful cases, also the unsuccessful rescue attempts, are researched in order to gather information on how help given to Jews was punished under the National Socialist dictatorship and on the conditions of the war.

The relevant files throughout various regions were analyzed including files of the Nazi judiciary, court proceedings from the postwar period, police reports and files of restitution offices. Requests were sent to all the Jewish communities asking for information and to the state archives and many other relevant institutions. Even cases that have already been published were recorded and interviews were conducted with rescuers, rescued persons and other witnesses who are still living.

The project focuses on the region of Berlin, since this is where the largest Jewish community existed before World War II. About half of the attempts to escape deportation by hiding took place in Berlin and its environs. The Berlin senator for internal affairs Joachim Lipschitz’s initiative in 1958 to honor as ”unsung heroes” Berlin citizens who during the Nazi regime provided help to people persecuted resulted in an extensive collection of files on 1500 processed requests for this honor at the restitution authorities, which was analyzed by the project. This makes it possible to document for Berlin a large number of helpers and survivors and their respective stories and will serve as the basis for a later sociological analysis.

There is also information available on rescue cases in other regions of the Germany based on its 1937 borders. The second and final project phase (March 2000 to March 2002) will focus on research in other German cities which once had relatively large Jewish communities. Just how many names and stories will be documented in total cannot be estimated yet. This has partially to do with the fact that often many people were involved in one single rescue case: Informed persons, family members, or perhaps a doctor who helped a persecuted person. In addition, many of those who were in hiding did not remain in one place, but instead were forced often to change their place of shelter. Another aspect that makes giving an answer more difficult is the question of at what point help actually begins: usually acts of help are documented when the person offering assistance is also endangered.

Given the millions of Germans who looked away with indifference or who approved of the genocide and actively supported it, the number of rescuers is shockingly low – but still larger as is generally known. The documented examples show that even under the conditions of the Nazi dictatorship a considerable number of non-Jewish Germans were willing and in a position to show solidarity with persecuted Jews and save them from extermination.

Moreover, the aim of the project is to provide the resistance research with new stimulus. Most of the helpers did not regard their behavior as resistance, but rather as a matter of course. Nonetheless, from today’s perspective, we should understand the lifesaving efforts of these women and men as a form of resistance. This view brings with it a new definition of the term resistance which no longer solely applies to military action directed at eliminating the regime, as was the case for so long in the Federal Republic of Germany. Given the impossibility of overthrowing Hitler, for many Germans, helping Jews was the only way to express their resistance to National Socialism.

The following are responsible for the research project:

Dr. Beate Kosmala and Dr. Claudia Schoppmann with assistance from Isabel Enzenbach, Frank Görlich, Markus Pfeiffer and Dennis Riffel.

We ask anyone who has information regarding a (successful or failed) rescue or who knows of someone involved in such an act to please contact us at

TU Berlin, Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7, D-10587 Berlin
Phone: 49-30-314-25467 / 24086 Kos@zfa.kgw.tu-berlin.de and schoppm@zfa.kgw.tu-berlin.de

After an air attack destroyed Adelheid’s sister hideout, Therese, who was sheltered there with her husband, Francisca Bereit also sheltered them in her small apartment. Adelheid, Therese, and her husband survived there whereas their parents had been deported and murdered.

Bibliography

• Kurt R. Grossmann, Die unbesungenen Helden, Berlin 1957, S. 88ff.
• Hans-Rainer Sandvoß, Widerstand in einem Arbeiterbezirk (Wedding), (Hrsg. Gedenkstädte Deutscher Widerstand), Berlin 1987, S. 90.

Bibliography

• Kurt R. Grossmann, Die unbesungenen Helden, Berlin 1957, S. 32ff.
• Hans-Rainer Sandvoß, Widerstand in Pankow und Reinickendorf (Hrsg. Gedenkstädte Deutscher Widerstand), Berlin 1994, S. 217, 249f.
• Ursel Hochmuth: Illegale KPD und Bewegung ”Freies Deutschland” in Berlin und Brandenburg 1942, Berlin 1998, S. 125.