Kurt and Herta Fuchs

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Kurt Fuchs ( November 22, 1908 in Leipzig - May 12, 1945 in Oberpoyritz ) and Herta Fuchs ( May 21, 1908 - after 2004) are two German Righteous Among the Nations .

Life

The childless couple lived in Oberpoyritz , a small village on the outskirts of Dresden . Herta worked as a laundress, Kurt Fuchs was a trained locksmith and paramedic, but was classified as “not fit for use in the war” due to his physical weakness. In mid-April 1945, in the last days of the Nazi regime , the two took in three refugees from a death march and looked after them.

The Poles Abraham Sztaier , Josef Szwajcer and the only 17-year-old Roman Halter belonged to a work detachment of around 500 concentration camp inmates who had to do forced labor in a munitions factory at Schandauer Straße 68 in Dresden . After the factory was destroyed in an air raid on February 13, 1945, the concentration camp inmates were first used to rescue corpses and clear rubble. When the camp was then dissolved, the SS sent Sztaier and Szwajcer on one of the so-called death marches south. On the third night of the march, some escaped, including Sztaier and Szwajcer. "At some point they'll be in ragged and emaciated places on the doorstep of Herta and Kurt Fuchs."

The couple asked no questions, took Sztaier and Szwajcer in immediately, and a few days later Roman Halter, provided them with food and clothing. When rumors arose in the village that the “guests” were Jews and were wanted, “Herta Fuchs countered the suspicious neighbors that they were Catholic forced laborers from Poland. They lost their jobs because of the tragic events of the war. But the mistrust remains. ”When the German Reich surrendered on May 8, 1945, Halter was already on his way back to his homeland,“ in order - in vain - to look for surviving relatives in Poland ”. Despite the end of the war, the couple found themselves “exposed to persecution by the anti-Semitic mayor and other local National Socialists”. On the night of May 12, 1945, four days after the German Wehrmacht had unconditionally surrendered, "a fascist execution squad shot and killed Kurt Fuchs and the Jewish refugee Szwajcer". Sztaier managed to escape.

Herta Fuchs buried her husband in her own garden. Nobody in the village helped her, she couldn't get a cart to transport him to the cemetery. She remained an outsider and lived in poor conditions. After the reunification of Germany, she was able to locate Roman Halter, who had settled in England.

On April 2, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Kurt and Herta Fuchs as “Righteous Among the Nations”.

literature

  • Daniel Fraenkel, Jacob Borut: Lexicon of the Righteous Among the Nations: Germans and Austrians. Wallstein Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-89244-900-7 , p. 117 ( limited preview in the Google book search).

proof

  1. ↑ Kurt Fuchs' professions are not guaranteed. One source calls him a locksmith (SWR), the other a medic (Fraenkel / Borut).
  2. ↑ a b Maximum commitment for three strangers: The tragic story of the Fuchs couple. SWR , 2006, archived from the original on September 11, 2012 ; Retrieved February 4, 2015 .
  3. ^ A b Daniel Fraenkel, Jacob Borut: Lexicon of the Righteous Among the Nations: Germans and Austrians. Wallstein Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-89244-900-7 , p. 117.
  4. ↑ YAD VASHEM Award “Righteous Among the Nations”. In: medienservice.sachsen.de. Saxon State Government, February 26, 1996, accessed June 2, 2008 .