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Anglo-German Jewish Businessman Wilfrid Israel Saved Thousands from Nazi Persecution
(Jewish News-UK) Roxzann Baker - Wilfrid Israel was an Anglo-German Jewish businessman and philanthropist. Born in London, his father owned and directed the N. Israel department store in Berlin, where Wilfred became personnel manager of 2,000 staff. On 10 November 1938 - Kristallnacht, the store was ransacked. SS guards rounded up the Jewish employees as other Nazis shattered display cases, slashed paintings and threw typewriters out of the windows. Wilfred contacted the Nazi commander of Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Hermann Baranowski, and negotiate his employees' release in return for a promise of unlimited credit at the store. Wilfred then helped the store's remaining 200 Jewish employees to emigrate, giving them two years' salary in cash and securing many of them jobs abroad. This undoubtedly saved their lives. Before he left Berlin on 15 May 1939 for London, he played a central role in organizing the Kindertransport and other rescue schemes for those already in the camps. He died on 1 June 1943 when his flight was shot down by a Luftwaffe fighter while he was returning from Lisbon, where he had been on a mission for the Jewish Agency arranging entry certificates to Palestine for refugees.