The undeservedly forgotten feat of Gertrude Weissmuller (8 photos)

Millions of people were tortured in concentration camps. This tragedy showed the underside of human personality and the extent to which human cruelty can reach. But it also showed what kind of heroes ordinary people can become.





Albert Goering, Janusz Korczak, Jan and Antonina Zhabinski - these names are known throughout the world. Unfortunately, not all exploits became known to the public. This is unfair and we will talk about one such heroine today. Her name was Gertrude Weissmuller.



Gerhard Ulrich Herzberg

Amsterdam resident Miriam Keesing decided in 1997 to sort out unnecessary things in her aunt’s attic. Among the trash, she found a photo of an unknown boy, and when Miriam asked who it was, the relative replied that the boy’s name was Uli. Jewish refugee who lived with her during World War II. Miriam became interested in the fate of the boy: it turned out that his name was Gerhard Ulrich Herzberg - he was a German Jew and ended up in the Netherlands after the infamous Kristallnacht (1938). The boy's family fled to Cuba, he was unable to join them and was killed in 1943. A few days before my sixteenth birthday.





Kristallnacht

Miriam suddenly wondered what happened to those thousands of Jewish children fleeing the Holocaust in the Netherlands? Keesing began to study everything that was available at that time and at the very end of her research she learned a story that everyone had somehow forgotten about.

After Kristallnacht, when the Nazis destroyed thousands of Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses over the course of two days, beating their owners along the way, the English government officially signed permission for the entry of Jewish children.

From 1938 to 1940, almost ten thousand children were saved.



Adolf Eichmann at trial

On December 2, the transport with the first batch of children arrived in England. Gertrud Weissmuller was in charge of organizing the process and she decided to do something that not everyone would agree to - she negotiated with Adolf Eichmann himself. He was called the "architect of the Holocaust."



Gertrude Weissmuller

Weissmuller was born in the small town of Alkmaar, in the family of a seamstress and a pharmacist. Having grown up, she moved to Amsterdam and when the madness of the Third Reich began, she simply could not remain indifferent.

Her action is about the same as going into a tiger’s cage. Eichmann tormented Gertrude to his heart's content, including sexual harassment, but she did not break, steadfastly endured all the mockery, and they finally moved on to discussing the pressing issue. Eichmann realized that Gertrud could not be broken and he was surprised at her courage and firm conviction in her actions. They came to an agreement that if Weissmuller could persuade Jewish parents to put their children on the Sabbath train, then she could pick them up. The fact is that Jews are strictly prohibited from traveling on Saturday. But the train sent by Gertrude was filled to capacity with children.



Joop Weissmuller, Gertrude's husband, did not stand aside - he actively helped his wife in her difficult task. The woman took the Jews to Holland, where a temporary shelter was organized. Some were placed in orphanages, some were sent to families, and Gertrude settled others in her home.

On June 10, 1940, Germany attacked the Netherlands, Weissmuller returned as quickly as possible from Paris, where she was on a mission and was able to organize the departure of those Jewish children who remained. This was the 74th train.

Weissmuller was immediately captured by the Gestapo and interrogations began. But they were unable to prove anything illegal and released the woman. She again began her work to rescue Jewish children and by 1944 she was able to rescue fifty children - they had to go to Auschwitz.



Rescued children get off the train

When the war ended, Weissmuller met one of the rescued girls. She said that her mother and father died during the Holocaust and for Baytalmi-Shpiro, Gertrude became a second mother. Yes, she herself called her charges her children. Her regularlyChildren rescued from Germany and now grown up were invited to weddings.



Agree, the scale of her activities is impressive, but outside the borders of the Netherlands few people know about Gertrud Weissmuller, and yet she almost single-handedly committed an act that everyone should have done. But they didn't.

She never aspired to worldwide recognition, and those whom she saved were children, many very young, they could not even remember her name later.

But just before her death (1978), when Gertrude was 82 years old, she was nominated for awards. In 1966, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center inscribed her name on the list of Righteous Among the Nations. Red Cross Medal, Order of St. George of Antioch and more.

Gertrude will no longer see what was written about her at the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Shoah Foundation (University of Southern California). But this woman did not count on anything, she simply did what she wanted - saving human lives.