Henriette Kretz

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Henriette Kretz, 2019

Henriette Kretz (born October 26, 1934 in Stanisławów , Poland , today Ukraine ) is a Holocaust survivor who, as a contemporary witness, reports on her fate in lectures and books.

Life

Henriette Kretz was born in 1934 as the child of the Jewish lawyer Elza Kretz, b. Schöps and the Jewish doctor Maurycy Kretz in Stanisławów, Poland, today Iwano-Frankiwsk, Ukraine, and grew up as an only child near Opatów . The persecution of her family began immediately with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939. The family fled to Lemberg , later to Sambor , in eastern Poland, which was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the family from Germany was Kreishauptmann Mogens von Harbou in a forced Ghettobriefed. Henriette Kretz survived the German persecution of the Jews in various hiding places. When the family was led away after treason, their father resisted and told his daughter to run away. As she ran, she heard two gunshots and the calls and screams of her parents fell silent. She managed to get to a Catholic orphanage alone, undiscovered, which she knew through her father's work and in which, like several other orphans of persecuted families, she found shelter undetected until the end of the war, which was mainly thanks to the religious sister Zelina.

After the end of the Second World War, she came to Belgium as a displaced person . She studied art history and became a French teacher in Israel , where she lived from 1956 to 1969. Then she returned to Antwerp , where she later married. Henriette Kretz has two children.

Henriette Kretz is a member of the Polish association Children of the Holocaust and is active as a contemporary witness for the Maximilian Kolbe factory .

In December 2020, Henriette Kretz and Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch were awarded the Cross of Merit 1st Class by the German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier for their commitment as a contemporary witness . Due to the COVID-19 pandemic , the award could not be presented personally, which is why Steinmeier sent both women handwritten letters.

Works

  • Henriette Kretz: Do you want to be my mother? A childhood in the shadow of the Shoah , Hille-Verlag, Dresden 2013, ISBN 978-3-939025-38-2

Web links

Commons : Henriette Kretz  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "The germ of hatred and violence lies in violent language". In: SWR Aktuell . January 27, 2019, archived from the original on January 27, 2019 ; accessed on December 19, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Ingeborg Toth: Henriette Kretz, a Jew, remembers the Nazi reign of terror in Hochheim. In: Allgemeine Zeitung. January 27, 2016, archived from the original on January 27, 2019 ; accessed on December 19, 2020 . Against oblivion - contemporary witness Henriette Kretz from Antwerp visits RS plus Mendig. In: Realschule plus and Fachoberschule Mendig. November 7, 2018, accessed December 19, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Order of Merit: Steinmeier honors Holocaust survivors. In: tagesschau.de . December 18, 2020, accessed December 18, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Kretz, Henriette
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish Holocaust survivors
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Stanislau