Fullmann Elli

Fullmann, Elli Elli Fullmann, a young war widow and mother of four, resided in the last months of the war at Zschopau in Saxony, a small town some 17 kilometers from Chemnitz. A native of Hamburg, she was taking refuge in Saxony with her children from the massive aerial bombardments of her home city. For three weeks, between April 16 and May 8, 1945, Fullmann concealed in her apartment a young Jewish woman prisoner who had jumped off the evacuation train heading to the concentration camp at Flossenbürg. The woman prisoner, Odette Spingarn, had worked at the nearby airplane-engine production plant. Fullmann, who had never met the prisoner before, was asked to hide her by an acquaintance, a non-Jewish forced-laborer. She accommodated her in one of the children’s rooms, sharing with her the meager food rations of the family. On seeing how emaciated the Jewish girl was, Fullmann began to cry, saying only “I am so ashamed of all that they did to you.” She was adamant in her refusal to accept any form of remuneration, whether before or after the liberation, arguing that what she had done was “ordinary.” On July 6, 1981, Yad Vashem recognized Elli Fullmann as Righteous Among the Nations.