Niermann Fritz

Marquart, Gerhard Niermann, Fritz Gerhard Marquart and Fritz Niermann, both residents of Essen in the Ruhr district, were instrumental in the rescue of six young Jewish women who were inmates at the small concentration camp in the Humboldtstrasse.The Jewish women had reached Essen late in the summer of 1944, at the last stage of a crucifying journey, which included a selection in Auschwitz. They were assigned as forced laborers to the Krupps works there. Marquart, a Krupps employee, befriended one of the Jewish girls, Rosa Katz. He smuggled her out of the factory on several occasions to enable her to pray at the desolate Jewish cemetery. Marquart promised to help her when the time came. In February 1945, rumors spread in the factory that the American army was very near. When they returned to the camp, there was a big air raid. All the SS guards were running to the air-raid shelters, and there were none to watch over the girls. They decided that this was their chance to escape, and six of them – Rosa Katz, Gisella Israel, Elisabeth and Erna Roth, René and Agnes Königsberg – took off. Rosa led them to the Jewish cemetery, where they hid in a cellar of the destroyed mortuary. The following afternoon Rosa and another girl went to Marquart, who lived near the cemetery, to ask for help. He did not turn them down. He took it upon himself to come each day to the Jewish cemetery and supply them with water and bread. After a few days in the cemetery, the Jewish girls were discovered by a passer-by and had to move elsewhere. At first they went to sleep at Marquart’s house, but this was too risky as they could be spotted by the neighbors. In any case there was not enough food to feed all six. The girls then remembered another German in the factory who had promised to help them. This German took in one of the girls and directed the others to Fritz Niermann. Four found shelter at Niermann’s house in Essen, while the fifth received help from someone else. Niermann had awholesale food business and lived alone in a house cared for by a young German housekeeper named Gertrud. His wife and two daughters were taking refuge from the bombing in southern Germany. Niermann put up the Jewish girls in one of the vacant rooms and even invited them to make use of his daughters’ clothes. The housekeeper cooked for them, too. Every once in a while Niermann would tell them how the war was going and boost their morale. They stayed in his house until after the liberation and the DP camps were set up. Even after the liberation, the four girls frequently visited the Niermanns in Essen and were treated by them as family. On March 19, 1985, Yad Vashem recognized Gerhard Marquart and Fritz Niermann as Righteous Among the Nations.