Anna Alma Pole

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Anna Alma Pole (* late 19th century ; † 1944 ) was a Latvian resistance member against the National Socialist tyranny. She was posthumously awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations .

Life

Pole lived as a housewife in the 1940s , other sources also call her a caretaker , in the Latvian capital Riga at the address Schwimmstrasse ( Latvian Peldu iela ) 15. At this time, Latvia was occupied by German troops during the Second World War . In the summer of 1943, the German authorities began to deport and murder the Jews of the Riga ghetto . One of the neighbors of Anna Alma Pole, who is between 50 and 60 years old, was the Jew Isaak Vange , a friend of her son. In the summer of 1943, Vange brought several Jews who had managed to escape from the ghetto to Anna Alma Pole, who she then hid in the cellar of the house. Those in hiding included Isaak Vange, the two Lipmanovich brothers and their sister, and the doctor Yudel Yudelovich, who had previously worked with tuberculosis patients in a Riga hospital . Other people seeking protection were Sergei Gurvich, Yosel Grudman and another person with the first name Abel. A source says that refugees initially stayed away from the hiding place because there were rumors among refugees that Anna Alma Pole was only helping out of interest in money.

She managed to hide the eight, according to other information, seven people for a year until August 1944. Anna Alma supplied, supported by her already with their own family and a young son in another apartment on the other side of the Daugava living daughter Margarita Kestere, the refugees with food. Margarita brought the supplies for the group of people undercover in a stroller. On August 24, 1944, the apartment was searched by the security police , presumably following a tip-off from neighbors . The eight refugees, Anna Alma Pole, but also Margarita, who was visiting with her son, were arrested. The Jewish refugees and Anna Alma Pole were tortured and ultimately murdered. Margarita, who had recently given birth to a girl, was released because everyone had insisted that she knew nothing about those who were hiding. Margarita managed to leave Riga, so she survived. Other data indicate that six of the refugees were already killed in the house search. Further accounts indicate that there was an exchange of fire with the armed refugees. Some of them managed to escape initially, but were caught and murdered.

Less than two months later, on October 13, 1944, the National Socialist tyranny in Riga ended when the Red Army moved in.

Honors

Damaged memorial plaque in Schwimmstraße 15 in 2018

On November 3, 2004, Alma Anna Pole was recognized by the Yad Vashem Memorial with the title Righteous Among the Nations.

In 1998, on the initiative of the publisher Alexi Sheinin, a memorial plaque was put up on the house at Schwimmstrasse 15 to commemorate Anna Alma Pole, the refugees and the events of 1943/44. The lower part of the plaque, which described what happened in Latvian, Russian , Hebrew and English , was destroyed in 2011.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Entry Anna Alma Pole db.yadvashem.org (English)
  2. ^ Katrin Reichelt, Rescue knows no conventions: Help for persecuted Jews in German-occupied Latvia 1941-1945 , Lukas Verlag 2016, ISBN 9783867322553 , page 225
  3. ↑ Entry Anna Alma Pole db.yadvashem.org (English)
  4. ^ Katrin Reichelt, Rescue knows no conventions: Help for persecuted Jews in German-occupied Latvia 1941-1945 , Lukas Verlag 2016, ISBN 9783867322553 , page 225
  5. ↑ Entry Anna Alma Pole db.yadvashem.org (English)
  6. ↑ Monuments to those who Sheltered Jews on rigaslatvija.com (English)
  7. ↑ Entry Alma Anna Pole db.yadvashem.org (English)
  8. ↑ Monuments to those who Sheltered Jews on rigaslatvija.com (English)
  9. ^ Katrin Reichelt, Rescue knows no conventions: Help for persecuted Jews in German-occupied Latvia 1941-1945 , Lukas Verlag 2016, ISBN 9783867322553 , page 225
  10. ↑ Why Can't Riga Just Replace a Plaque on the Wall? from November 14, 2016 on defendinghistory.com (English)
personal data
SURNAME Pole, Anna Alma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Latvian resistance against the Nazi tyranny
DATE OF BIRTH 19th century
DATE OF DEATH 1944