Sokoup Marie (Michalek)

Beran, Therese Sokoup, Marie Berta Spinrad (née Peringer, b. 1890) lived in Vienna with her son and daughter. Her husband, from whom she had separated, had immigrated to Chile in the mid-1930s. After the Anschluss—the Annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938—Berta’s daughter and her husband managed to join her father in Chile, and Berta was able to send her son, Aharon, to Palestine. Left alone in Vienna, Berta suffered from the persecution and the anti-Jewish decrees, and in 1942 she received notification to report for deportation. Berta decided not to report and was hidden by her former maid, Therese (called Resi) Beran. Beran’s husband was a Nazi and served at the front. When he returned home on furlough and discovered that his wife was hiding a Jewish woman, he threatened to denounce Therese to the authorities. Marie Sokoup, the janitor of the building where Beran lived, helped out by hiding Berta Spinrad for a long period of time. Hiding a Jewish woman was both dangerous and economically challenging. With no ration cards, the two women had to share their rations with their ward. Berta Spinrad stayed hidden until the end of the war, and after the liberation, she left Austria and went to live in Brazil, where she remarried. On November 17, 2015, Yad Vashem recognized Therese Beran and Marie Sokoup as Righteous Among the Nations.