Haas Anna (Francl)

Haas, Anna Maria Anna Maria Haas (née Francl) was born in 1909 in Vienna. In 1930, she married Benno Haas, the son of a family of Jewish industrialists who had converted to Catholicism. After the Germans annexed Austria in 1938, Haas left Vienna and volunteered for the British army. The fact that her husband was of Jewish descent and a British soldier made Haas suspect in the eyes of the Nazi authorities. Despite the danger, she dedicated herself to helping Jews. In 1938/39 Haas hid Robert Beer, a Jewish man, and his family in her apartment for a number of months. Afterwards, she provided food for two of her Jewish friends, Josef Rubin-Bittmann and his wife Sidonie, who had gone underground in 1939 in order to avoid deportation. Although the police were actively searching for the Rubin-Bittmanns, and twice sent detectives to Haas’s house to ask about their whereabouts, Haas stood firm and didn’t reveal anything. In 1944, the Rubin-Bittmanns, still in hiding, gave birth to a son, who they named Fritz. Haas took it upon herself to find milk for the baby. Toward the end of the war, when the bombing raids on Vienna were growing more frequent, Haas used to take advantage of the fact that most of the people of Vienna were sitting in the bomb shelters, and would rush to meet the Rubin-Bittmanns in their hiding place. Haas put herself in grave danger by helping Jews in hiding, a crime that could have led to deportation to a concentration camp, and eventually to death. She was not paid anything for her activities, and in fact, spent a lot of her own money to provide food for the adults and milk for the baby. Her family repeatedly asked her to refrain from her clandestine activities, but she refused to abandon her friends. After the war, the Rubin-Bittmanns and their son continued to live in Vienna. Robert Beer moved to Caracas, Venezuela. On May 3, 1982, Yad Vashem recognized Anna Maria Haas as Righteous Among the Nations.