Wertz Rudolf

Wertz, Rudolf Dr. Rudolf Wertz worked as a doctor in Vienna. In 1941, when thousands of Viennese Jews were being expelled to Poland, a number of Jewish women slated for deportation turned to him for help. Wertz gave the women sick notes stating that they were under medical orders to stay in bed, and they were not deported. One of the women saved by Wertz was Vienna-born Gertrude Fritz (later Frankenstein). Fritz received orders of deportation to Poland in September 1941, and, because she had heard about Dr. Wertz helping many other women, went to him for help. She showed Wertz her deportation notice, and he wrote out a sick note describing an illness she didn’t have. Thanks to this certificate, stating that she was unable to leave her bed for six weeks, Fritz was saved from the transport. Fritz was deported later to Theresienstadt and not to the camps in Poland, where she survived until the end of the war. Dr. Wertz endangered himself by helping Jewish women who were slated for deportation. He received no compensation for this, other than the regular fee for sick notes that he took from his clients. Toward the end of the war, the Germans discovered his illegal activities, and, as punishment, he was put into a military penal brigade that was given particularly dangerous tasks, but he survived. After the war, Wertz continued to work as a doctor in Vienna. Fritz also lived in Vienna and married. She visited Dr. Wertz in order to thank him, and brought him a gold watch as a present. Wertz refused to take the gift, declaring that he did what he did as a man, as a Christian, and as a doctor, and not in order to get a reward. On May 31, 1966, Yad Vashem recognized Rudolf Wertz as Righteous Among the Nations.