Tumpej Andrej

Tumpej, Andrej Andrej Tumpej was born in 1886 in Sveti Lorenc, Dravsko Polje District, Slovenia, that was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He completed his Catholic theological studies in Gratz, Austria, and joined the monastic order of Lazaritans. He later served as a Catholic spiritual leader in Istanbul, and as priest in Monastir (today, Bitola). In 1929, he moved to Serbia where he served as priest for the Slovenian faithful at the Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church in Čukarica, a neighborhood of Belgrade. He was there when the Germans invaded Yugoslavia in April 1941. Among the Jews being persecuted by the Germans was the extensive Kalef family. More than 20 members of this family were murdered, except for Antonia Kalef, who was born in Slovenia, and her two daughters, Lidija and Rahela. Before the war, they lived with husband and father who was a merchant in Dorćol, a neighborhood of Belgrade, where most of the Jews of the city resided. At the time of the German conquest, the father was in a Dorćol hospital and within a few months, in the spring of 1942, the Germans took him from there and murdered him in a gas truck with other Jews. The mother and daughters understood that they would have to hide in order to survive. They made an underground hideout with their own hands and survived the winter by wandering the streets of Belgrade and stealing food. Equally critical was the need to change their names, which prompted them to turn to Priest Andrej Tumpej. He gave them forged IDs with the Slovenian names, Breda and Matilda Okrajšek. This allowed them to survive by moving about more freely. Andrej Tumpej gave similar papers to two Jewish sisters allowing them to join a forced labor group for work in Germany under assumed names. Unfortunately, someone identified them at the train station, as they were about to leave Belgrade and handed them over to the Germans. As a result of the sister’s interrogation, the Germans arrested Andrej Tumpej. WhenAntonia and her two daughters learned about the priest’s arrest they feared that he might reveal their names and false identity under torture. Despite his frail physique, Andrej Tumpej did not break and did not disclose to the Germans any information about the Kalef women. He succeeded in surviving through the war. Immediately after the liberation of Belgrade at the end of 1944, Breda returned to using her real name. Rahela, however, continued to use her assumed name as a reminder of the man who had saved the three of them. Under this name she became famous as the foremost opera singer in Belgrade. After the war, Andrej Tumpej served as a priest in Skopje for a period of time and then returned to Belgrade. He passed away there in 1973. On January 18, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Andrej Tumpej as Righteous Among the Nations.