The story of Ann Frank and her family, hiding from the Nazis from 1942 until they were betrayed in 1944, is very familiar. Her Diary is required reading in many Middle and High Schools and has been turned into a drama production. Less familiar are the countless tales of Jews hidden, often by common strangers. Though few survived, Jews hidden by selfless and generous people, often at great risk to themselves, lived to tell their stories once World War II ended.
Who Helped to Hide Jews?
Historian Marion Kaplan of Queens College and City University in New York, states that between 10-12,000 Jews went “underground” as the deportations began in Germany; only 25% survived. These “submerged Jews” frequently shuttled from one safe house to another while others tried to blend into society. Kaplan’s study emphasizes the lives of Jews in Berlin.
Kaplan, writing about German Jews, comments that, “The Germans who hid them showed compassion and daring, revealing the possibility of resistance to genocide.” Ordinary citizens knew the potential costs of hiding Jews. In most cases, this meant death for the entire family. Sharing meager food supplies, especially as the war progressed, added to the strain.
These hidden refugees had no documentation cards, living in a “no-mans-land” ripe for detection and arrest. Families were often split. Hiding places changed weekly. And the monotony of total exile from social interaction took a toll on their mental well-being.
In Holland over 40,000 Jews were concealed by everyday citizens, yet only 15,000 survived. The Ten Boom family of Haarlem saved an estimated 800 Jews with their “secret room,” specially constructed for the purpose of moving Jews to permanent safe havens.
The Ten Boom family, however, was also betrayed. Sisters Corrie and Betsie and their aged father were beaten by the Gestapo and taken to internment camps. Although their father died shortly thereafter, both sisters were sent to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp. Worked to the point of death, Betsie eventually died. Corrie was released due to a “clerical error” and went on to tell their stories in her book, The Hiding Place.
Hiding in the Midst of the Enemy
Solomon Perel’s harrowing story, popularized by the film Europa Europa, describes his sojourn with a German army unit on the Russian front and later “hiding” in an all-boy’s elite Nazi prep school in Berlin. For Perel, hiding his Jewishness was a daily endeavor.
Jews were hidden in every country occupied by the Nazis. In Belgium, even members of the royal family, notably the Dowager Queen Elizabeth, hid Jews from the Nazis. To this must be added many monasteries and churches throughout the occupied regions.
The Role of Occupied Governments
The actions of the Danish government and people regarding the Jews of Denmark have been described as a “miraculous exodus.” The night before the mass deportations were to take affect, all Danish Jews were transported across the sea to neutral Sweden. This action saved almost 7,000 Jews from Nazi death camps.
In Finland, a loose ally of Hitler, the parliament refused to surrender the 2,000 Finnish Jews despite tremendous pressure to do so by Heinrich Himmler. At the same time the Hungarian government, under pressure from the Swedish envoy Raoul Wallenberg, temporarily thwarted Nazi efforts to eliminate the last Jewish community in Europe.
The effort to “hide” Jews thus took many forms. The ultimate goal of many heroic people was to show solidarity with their neighbors and take them in secretly once the deportations began. In many cases, as with the Ten Booms of Holland, these heroic people suffered torture and death.
Sources:
- Philip Friedman, Their Brothers’ Keepers (New York: Holocaust Library, 1978)
- Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (Oxford University Press, 1998)
- Corrie Ten Boom, The Hiding Place (Bantam Books, 1978)
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