Huelle Paula (Katsch)

Hülle, Paula Paula Hülle (née Katsch), a well-to-do widow, owned and operated a tobacco store located at 103 Rigaer Str. in Berlin-Friedrichshain. During the Nazi regime, Hülle maintained several families who were related – both of Jewish and of mixed descent – by providing them with food, money, and tobacco wares, which could be exchanged for money. Her primary concern, however, was with two friends from her youth, Margot Schwersinski, who was Jewish, and Charlotte Schaefer and her daughter Jutta, who were of Jewish descent. One of Hülle's customers was Karl Bratzke, a local Nazi leader. After the November 1938 pogrom, she requested his help and undertook in return to provide him with weekly payments and other favors. Bratzke agreed and reciprocated (or, at least, claimed to) by suppressing various denunciations and providing prior warnings of intended roundups. In June 1942, the Schwersinski family was slated for "resettlement." Hülle implored Margot to disobey the summons from the Gestapo and offered to hide her in a specially prepared refuge. However, her Jewish friend refused, fearing that such a move could compromise the chances of her young niece, Jutta Schaefer. Margot and her family were deported to Theresienstadt, after which Hülle regularly sent her food parcels, until all contact was lost forever in September 1944. In the meantime, the Schaefer family's situation – even though the father was an Aryan, and, therefore, the family was only partly Jewish – also became increasingly untenable. Near the end of 1943, Hülle, at the advice of her Nazi customer – who, by then, was a Kreisleiter (district leader) – sent them away from Berlin for several months. They returned to Berlin only in April 1944, after Mr. Bratzke had given the all clear. In 1969, Jutta Schaefer, who had settled in the United States after the war, was able to reestablish contact with her rescuer, who was living in great poverty in the then German Democratic Republic. She invited Hülleto visit her in Chicago. As a token of gratitude, the Chicago Jewish Community undertook to provide for her upkeep for the rest of her life in a Lutheran old-age home. On January 5, 1971, Yad Vashem recognized Paula Hülle as Righteous Among the Nations.