Fritz Charlotte (Becher)

Becher, Charlotte Charlotte Becher (later Fritz) and her sister Edeltrud (later Posiles*) were natives of Vienna. When the German army swept into Austria in March of 1938. Charlotte was engaged to Friedrich Kunz, a soldier in the Austrian army. Edeltrud was in love with Walter Posiles, a Czech citizen who was a Jew according to the Nuremberg laws. With the strengthening of Nazism, Posiles was forced to flee Vienna and found refuge in Prague. Although marriage was impossible under the laws that outlawed relations between Aryans and Jews, Edeltrud went to great lengths to stay in contact. With the help of her sister, Charlotte, the two even managed to visit each other a number of times. During the expulsion of the Jews of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia to the camps in 1942, Walter Posiles, together with his two brothers Hans and Ludwig, fled to Vienna, where the Becher sisters took them in. With the help of Charlotte and Edeltrud Becher, the Posiles brothers found refuge in an attic apartment that belonged to Charlotte’s fiancé, Friedrich Kunz. The apartment was available for most of the year because Kunz himself was in the army. When Kunz came home for vacations, the sisters were forced to smuggle the brothers to alternate hiding places. Walter was moved into a locked room within Kunz’s apartment, which Charlotte had rented out to Edeltrud previously. Hans and Ludwig were transferred to the homes of friends of Walter. Charlotte never told Kunz that his apartment was being used as a haven for fugitive Jews, because she was afraid that he might turn them in to the authorities. Sheltering the Posiles was not only dangerous, but was also physically difficult. Charlotte and Edeltrud bought supplies and carried them up the 183 steps to the attic apartment, and cared for Walter when he developed a life-threatening case of pneumonia. When Edeltrud herself fell ill and was hospitalized, Charlotte was forced to shoulder the burden entirely on her own. Becherendangered herself by hiding Jews, a crime that could have led to expulsion to a concentration camp, and eventually, to death. She received no compensation for her actions. After the war, Walter was finally able to marry his beloved Edeltrud. The couple divorced in 1962. Both of them continued to live in Austria. On October 26, 1978, Yad Vashem recognized Charlotte Becher as Righteous Among the Nations.