Valentiner Gerda

Valentiner, Gerda Gerda Valentiner, a member of the Resistance helped to rescue Danish Jews from the claws of the Nazis in 1943. She collected Jewish children from their parents and took them to her home, waiting for the right moment to transfer them to Sweden. She risked her life many times for the sake of those children. Her genuine sensitivity was manifested when she realized that some of the children were religiously observant and therefore they ate nothing else but bread, so she brought them new dishes and food that they could eat. Moritz Scheftelowitz was one of the witnesses to Valentiner’s role in the rescue operation. He testified that one night in late September 1943, Gerda Valentiner, his sister’s teacher, came to his parents, Ester and Reuben Scheftelowitz, to warn them of the impending danger. A few days later, he and his sisters, Dora (later Diamant) and Rita (later Felbest), moved to Gerda’s home and stayed with her until she managed to arrange their transfer to Sweden. There were two attempts to leave the country that failed, and only the third one succeeded. They left by fishing boat from a location 10 km. north of Copenhagen and arrived after a troubled night’s journey to Landskrona in Sweden. It was the eve of Yom Kippur 1943. Their parents had reached Sweden ten days before them. Valentiner modestly said: “ I only did what many Danes did, nothing special. We thought it perfectly natural to help people in mortal trouble.” After the war, she took a leave of absence from her job and for two years volunteered to do social work in the Jewish refugee camps in Germany and Austria. In 1971, when she was 68, and a retired teacher, she came to Israel for one year, in order to see the country and learn to speak Hebrew. On July 28, 1968, Yad Vashem recognized Gerda Valentiner as Righteous Among the Nations.