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The Goering Brother Who Saved Jews

(Ha'aretz) David B. Green - Albert Goering, the younger brother of Hitler's second-in-command, Hermann Goering, risked his life and livelihood countless times during the Holocaust to save the lives of Jews. In 1939, Albert became export manager of the giant Skoda automotive works in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, where he helped individual employees who were dissidents to escape by forging his brother Hermann's name on documents. He also requisitioned slave laborers from concentration camps, and then released them into the forests. Albert also turned a blind eye to episodes of sabotage at the plant, which had major military contracts from the German occupiers. In Vienna Albert joined a group of Jewish women who had been forced to scrub a street clean, giving the SS officer in charge no alternative but to release the entire group so as not to be accused of humiliating Hermann Goering's brother. He helped friends who were Jews or married to Jews to escape occupied Europe or to go into hiding. With the war's end, Albert was arrested by American troops and held until he could document that he had directly rescued 34 Jews from concentration camps. He was rearrested by Czech authorities, but former Skoda workers and resistance fighters testified on his behalf, saying he had saved the lives of hundreds, and he was acquitted in 1947. Brother Hermann was convicted of crimes against humanity. Several hours before he was to be hanged, he killed himself by swallowing a cyanide pill smuggled into his cell.
2015-03-13 00:00:00
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