Friedlander Maria (Bruhn)

Friedlander, Maria Helena (Bruhn) Paul Citroen (1896--1983), the well-known artist, popular painter, art teacher, and a Jew, was friendly with Henri Friedlander. Henri, also Jewish, born in France and working in Holland as a typographer and graphic designer, was married to Maria Helena Bruhn, a German woman. When Paul was warned by a policeman that he was due to be arrested on August 28, 1942 he fled to Maria and she hid him in the attic of her house in Wassenaar, South Holland, for at least six months. (A self-portrait of Paul Citroen, dated November 1943, has the attic where he was hidden in the background.) Maria, a gymnastics teacher, had been living in Holland since 1931. She had married Henri in a civil marriage in 1940 (which was not recognized according to the Nuremberg Laws). Henri had himself gone into hiding early on in the war but after only two months, he returned to his wife and was hidden by her in the yard of their home until the end of the war. To avoid drawing the attention of the German authorities to her home, Maria pretended to be a Nazi sympathizer and gave gymnastic lessons to German women in her house. Maria earned a living teaching gymnastics at schools in Wassenaar and Bloemendaal. With her income she managed to provide for her husband and other fugitives hidden in her home, among them the Resistance worker Paul Guermonprez and his Jewish wife, Trude Jalowetz. On the day of liberation, 5 May 1945, using his typography skills, Henri Friedlander prepared poscards, which he sent to all his friends to inform them of his survival. This was the first new they had received from him after he had disappeared from sight. After the war, the Friedlanders immigrated to Israel. On July 7, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Maria Helena Friedlander-Bruhn as Righteous Among the Nations.