Blochwitz Else

Blochwitz, Else Else Blochwitz (b. 1899) was the air-raid warden of a large apartment block in Berlin, and, as such, had access to vacated apartments and cellars. She took advantage of this position to hide and maintain Jews “on the run” both in her own home and in other places. Black – as Blochwitz was known by her underground alias – also operated an informal network of volunteers who donated food and clothing and smuggled illegal parcels and letters to deported Jews. She was thus able to send occasional food parcels and toys to children in the Minsk ghetto. The Jewish children – who all perished in the Holocaust – responded by sending their benefactress pictures and letters of thanks. One of the doomed inmates in the Minsk ghetto was Blochwitz ‘s deported friend and former lodger, Herta Arndt, who was murdered in Lublin on October 10, 1943. However, the half-Jewish Rita Grabowski had better luck. She found shelter with Blochwitz from October 1944 until the end of the war. On May 18, 1965, Yad Vashem recognized Elsa Blochwitz as Righteous Among the Nations.