Maria and Josef Otten
The Düsseldorf couple Maria Otten , née Belgo (1904–1959), and Josef Otten (1903–1979) saved Jews during the Nazi era and are honored as “ Righteous Among the Nations ” at the Israeli Yad Vashem memorial .
Life and family
Maria Otten , nee Belgo, was the daughter of Peter and Gertrud Belgo, who had been running a market shop on the market square in front of Düsseldorf City Hall since the beginning of 1920 . Maria was a housewife and worked in her parents' market business. Josef Otten was a trained mechanic, worked as a private chauffeur for Siegfried J. Thannhauser in Freiburg im Breisgau from 1928 to 1931 and worked for Mercedes-Benz in Düsseldorf during the war. In 1941 he received the operating license certificate for wood gas generator vehicles in order to be able to maintain and drive them. For the home flak he was posted as a flak helper and was exposed to enemy fire for 33 days in 1944. The son Günter, born in 1924, was drafted into the Reich Labor Service in 1942 and into the Wehrmacht at the beginning of 1943 , completed basic training in Denmark at the beginning of 1943 and was posted to France as an occupation soldier before he was transferred to the Eastern Front in spring 1944. Günter was wounded on June 20, 1944. He was missing and his fate was uncertain. The parents could hardly bear this uncertainty. Their willingness to do something positive also encouraged their willingness to help. On September 5, 1946, her son Günter was released from captivity .
Rescue for the Nooitrust family
From autumn 1944, Maria and Josef Otten hid the 59-year-old Jew Emanuel Nooitrust, who lived in Essen, in their cellar in Düsseldorf for nine months and provided him with food. A little later his 68-year-old brother Salomon (Sally) Nooitrust from Düsseldorf, father-in-law of Peter Belgo junior (a brother of Maria Otten), was accepted there. This enabled both of them to survive the Holocaust .
Emanuel (1885–1947) and Sally Nooitrust (1876–1960), who had served as combatants with distinction in the First World War , lived with their non-Jewish wives and children in what was known as “ privileged mixed marriage ” and were initially protected from persecution. In the autumn of 1944, Emanuel Nooitrust was initially asked to be deported . He was supposed to be at the Derendorfer freight yard in Düsseldorf for removal. In his need he turned to his niece Bertchen (Berta) Belgo, née. Nooitrust, daughter of his brother Sally Nooitrust from Düsseldorf, who was married to Maria Otten's eldest brother (Peter Belgo jun.). Bertchen Belgo contacted her sister-in-law Maria and her brother-in-law Josef and informed them that no one saw themselves in a position to hide their uncle immediately. She had the great hope that Mary and Joseph would offer him help. They were ready for this. In her role as air raid warden, Maria Otten was able to protect the basement from outside controls. Josef and Maria Otten were neither politically active nor religiously motivated to rebel against the Nazi regime. They followed the voice of their conscience: It was not hidden from them that Jews were disappearing from their immediate environment.
Late honor
The son Günter (died 2005) contacted the Dusseldorf memorial site in 2003 in order to publicize his parents' help in the spirit of a culture of remembrance. For the archive he handed over a written acknowledgment from Emanuel Nooitrust, which he had issued for Josef Otten shortly after the end of the war. In spring 2014, the grandson Günther Otten applied to Yad Vashem for recognition of the title “Righteous Among the Nations” for his grandparents after he had been able to find a contemporary witness. The contemporary witness Karl-Heinz Spanke from Düsseldorf had accompanied his Jewish grandfather Sally Nooitrust several times in the dark to the hiding place of his brother Emanuel Nooitrust in the autumn of 1944 and was able to help the "Commission for the Appointment of the Righteous", Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, 2014 notarize. When his grandfather Sally was also hidden in the basement, Karl-Heinz Spanke was on the labor service. He was spared a war mission. In addition, Karl-Heinz Spanke informed Dir. Irena Steinfeldt in writing that he could also testify to the help given to his grandfather Sally based on his conversations with him. In a letter dated September 7, 2015, the Yad Vashem memorial announced that the State of Israel had awarded Joseph and Maria Otten (Belgo) the honorary title of “Righteous Among the Nations”. Their names are listed in the Statistics of the Righteous from Germany, January 1, 2016. As part of the celebratory event on the 70th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel on Monday, May 14, 2018 in the plenary hall of the Düsseldorf State Parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Ambassador of the State of Israel, Jeremy Issacharoff , gave the posthumous honor and the certificate and medal to the grandson Günther Otten handed over.
swell
- Archival collection of the Düsseldorf Memorial
- Yad Vashem databases