Wander Gerhard

Wander, Gerhard In 1941, Dr. Gerhard Wander (b. 1903), a Wehrmacht officer, was posted with the German administration in occupied Holland. He was attached to the Jewish Aryanization office in The Hague, which was in charge of examining doubtful cases of the Jewish status of individuals and companies. In this capacity, Dr. Wander, working in tandem with his departmental chief, Hans Calmeyer*, rescued many Jews from deportation. He helped them conceal their Jewish identity and accepted from them forged documents regarding the alleged Aryan descent of their ancestors. Some Jewish individuals whose names were added by Dr. Wander to the “Calmeyer List” were: Dr. Julius Neuberg; his second wife, Julia Henriques; their two sons; and the parents of his deceased first wife; Prof. Dr. J. J. Groen; three members of the Creveld family; the family of Arnold Veerman; Dr. Benno Stokvis; and many others. After a time, the Nazi authorities began to suspect Dr. Wander. He was removed from his post in The Hague and recalled to Germany. However, he continued to maintain contact with the Dutch underground organization, and, in September 1944, defected from the German army and returned to the Netherlands illegally. On January 22, 1945, his hideout was raided by the Gestapo, and he was shot to death while “trying to escape.” After the war the Dutch underground veterans paid homage to Wander by having his remains buried in the cemetery for Dutch resistance heroes at Loenen in Gelderland. On January 23, 1975, Yad Vashem recognized Dr. Gerhard Wander as Righteous Among the Nations