The other Schindler couple who rescued Jews
You will certainly have seen the film Schindler’s List detailing how Oscar Schindler aided by his wife Emilie helped several hundred Polish Jews survive the Nazi Holocaust. Another couple called Malwine and Max Schindler were rescuers also but they are not so well known so this is part of their story. The two Schindler families are not related.
In 1933 Max Schindler lost his job at Neukölln district municipal hall in Berlin as a result of the Nazi law to restore a professional civil service. The idea was not to restore a professional civil service, the idea was to get rid of political opponents. Max had been a member of the Social Democratic party (SPD).
In WW1 Max had been injured by shrapnel and whilst recuperating he tried to learn English. After he lost his job he set up a language tutoring service and used this as a cover to visit opponents of the Nazi regime at home.
The Schindlers had a son, Rudolf, born in 1913, and he had corresponded with Evelyn Parker from Lancashire in the UK. In January 1934 Max requested her assistance as a teacher. When she got there she realised quite quickly that most of the students were prospective refugees, mainly Jews. At that moment emigration was still an option although the economic crisis was still hurting in many other countries. Therefore the refugees had to have financial resources or financial support in the country of destination. The ability to speak English allowed the prospective emigrants means of making contacts, this was aided by the Schindler’s former political contacts in the SPD which in turn had contacts within the Labour movement in the UK. Some people could therefore be placed with families in the UK. For example, Evelyn's parents provided refuge for a Viennese Jewish woman named Alice Friedjung and her infant son, Michael, by employing Alice as a housekeeper.
After the outbreak of war, emigration was forbidden. Furthermore, in 1941, the Nazis started deportations to either ghettos in occupied Poland, Latvia and the USSR. Then the Schindlers began to hide Jewish people in their large apartment on Pariser Strasse and to provide food for those they could not hide.
The couple survived the war but not their son Rudolf. He was probably murdered in the T4 killings, having been sterilised for being schitzophrenic and held in an institution.
The amount of people the couple helped is not known but seven names have been given. Also unknown for the moment is how they managed to finance this operation. Getting hands on food which was strictly rationed was difficult and neighbours must have seen food being brought into the home. However no-one betrayed the operation. One of the people saved, Ernst Lachmann, wrote to Malwine in 1948 “Your attitude towards the Nazi system and your convictions led you to courageously demonstrate willingness to help us when most other ‘friends’ failed to do so. Your apartment was a refuge for us; we were able to flee there and be saved. Malicious neighbours and housemates didn’t deter you from appearing with us in your air raid cellar.”
Shortly after the end of the war, Malwine Schindler was one of 760 former anti-Nazi activists who were invited to a public ceremony and given some financial support. A number of people wrote testimonies and the Berlin senate honoured the couple as being unsung heroes in 1963.
Max died in 1948 and Malwine in 1973.
In November 2021, a plaque was placed on the wall of their former apartment block at Pariser Strasse 54 in Berlin. To a large extent, this is thanks to the efforts of Frances Newell, the daughter of Evelyn Parker who had listened enthralled to her mother’s stories about Germany in the 1930s when she was there and found letters and photographs in a shed in Victoria, Australia in 2019. The story of the rescue was backed up by research in Germany.
Parisierstrasse is in the eastern part of the German capital and it is quite a way of the beaten track, but should you be in Berlin, do look by and think of the lives saved by this couple.
My history channel is based on my own research and generally comes from places I have visited and or original research. I live in a motorhome and as such spend most of my time travelling between Poland, Germany and Italy which is why there is a tendency to produce material from these countries, and sometimes material that is not available in English. My speciality is in World War Two, and in particular, the Holocaust although as you can see, I have opinions on a lot of other historical subjects too.
/ historysite
Production of independent researched history is time consuming and expensive. Please consider supporting me on Patreon. / alanheath
Смотрите видео The other Schindler couple who rescued Jews онлайн без регистрации, длительностью часов минут секунд в хорошем качестве. Это видео добавил пользователь History on YouTube 01 Январь 1970, не забудьте поделиться им ссылкой с друзьями и знакомыми, на нашем сайте его посмотрели 1,882 раз и оно понравилось 168 людям.