No sooner does one think one knows about the Holocaust, then one learns something new.
The story of two families, one Jewish, the other Christian published by the London “Daily Telegraph” is one of these surprising stories,
The justice system quickly was seized after 1933 as a weapon to stifle opposition. In April 1933 Jewish and Social Democrat judges, officers of the court and lawyers were removed from their posts. The Justice system lost its independence. Political courts were established and “Special Courts” with wide powers were set up, which intimidated the public. Local and district courts were diluted. Arbitrary arrests and concentration camp imprisonment became everyday events. Under the Nuremberg trials after the war, “Special Courts” sentences were considered “judicial murder”.
T4 – short for the address Tiergarten 4, Berlin – was the address of the administration of a euthanasia programme carried out by medical staff in Germany, Austria and occupied territories, murdering between 250 000 – 300 000 persons with physical and mental disabilities. Few voices were raised against this. The most famous was that of the Bishop of Munster, Clemens August Count of Galen. Another less well known was Judge Lothar Kreyssig.
Which brings me to Gertrud Prochownik, whose story was told to the “ Daily Telegraph” by her granddaughter.
Gertrud Prochownik was born in Berlin, where she worked as a social worker for the Jewish community. A Shoah survivor, she never spoke of her experience. Her now 62-year-old granddaughter Jenny Krausz, who lives with her family in Brittany, lovingly remembered her granny, who read the „Spiegel“, spoiled her grandchildren and was friendly with a German family headed by one Lothar Kreyssig. It was only after the death of her mother in 2016 that Jenny and her sister found the correspondence between their granny and mother Marianne, which told them what had happened.
In 1939 Gertrud, then a widow aged 55, sent her daughter to London after the 1938 pogrom named „The Night of Broken Glass“. In 1942 Gertrud’s sister and brother-in-law were deported to Auschwitz. She received her deportation order in 1943. Instead of doing what she was told, she contacted Lothar Kreyssig, who must have been known in anti-Nazi circles. He arranged for her to work on a farm. She assumed another name and travelled to this destination, where she worked an 18 hour day under horrific conditions. This and the constant danger posed by several virulent Nazi workers threatened Gertrud’s safety. Eventually she again begged Kreyssig for help. This time he employed her on his own farm, taking her into his family. She remained there till the end of the war, sharing the family rations, as she had none of her own and was treated with kindness and sympathy. One other Jewish woman was also saved by Kreyssig.
After the war, when she first lived in Australia, then with her daughter’s family in the UK until her death aged 97, she remained in touch with the Kreyssigs, never forgetting her gratitude and the risks they had taken. Her granddaughter met the family when she stayed with them to learn German as a student and remained a good friend of Lothar’s grandson Martin.
So I googled to find Lothar Ernst Paul Kreyssig (1898-1986) born in Flöha, Saxonia, who was a judge during the Weimar and Nazi era. He refused to join the Nazi party in 1933 and a year later joined the Confessing Church of Saxony, of which he was elected head a year later. In 1937 he was transferred to a lower district court in Brandenburg and also acquired an estate near Havelsee, where he practised biodynamic farming. As a mental health judge, he was responsible for several hundred individuals. When he began receiving death certificates of his charges, he suspected “mercy killings”. In 1940 he reported his suspicion to the Justice Minister. He followed it up by attacking T4, as well as on the disenfranchisement of concentration camp prisoners, all argued on legal grounds.
After this Kreyssig sued the Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler for murder. He also issued an injunction against institutions in which his wards were placed, prohibiting them from being moved without his permission. Thereupon Justice Minister Franz Gürtner summoned him and showed him Hitler’s letter, the only source of the euthanasia order. The judge refused to acknowledge this as law, whereupon he was told he cannot remain a judge. In 1942 Hitler forced him to resign so that he devoted himself to biodynamic farming and his Church work. It was then that he saved two Jewish women from death.
Yad Vashem listed Lothar Kreyssig as among the Righteous among Nations.