Kihlgren Elow

Kihlgren, Elow Among the few thousand Jews who fled from the German occupation of the Italian zone in France in September 1943, were Mr. and Mrs. Engelman, parents of Bela Clara, 19, Leiser, 23, Mina, 27, and her husband, Max Stempel, with their two daughters, four-year-old Clara and two-year-old Jenny. They fled to Italy and after wandering through several Italian villages, the family arrived to Therme de Valdieri. There, local priests helped out and then arranged to move them to Genoa. In Genoa, the secretary of the Archbishopric, Don Repetto, sheltered them in a monastery. After twenty days, during which the Germans suspected that he was hiding Jews, he suggested that they contact the Swedish Consulate. In the meantime, they stayed in the convent. The Swedish Consul, Elow Kihlgren, came to meet them at the convent and immediately found them alternative places to stay, with his friends. One of them was Gyda Boesgaard, the daughter of the Finnish Consul, who arranged for Mina Stempel and her two daughters to stay with her and her family in their villa outside the city. After a few weeks, in April 1944, as a consequence of betrayal, Elow was arrested and interrogated by the Germans about his connections with hidden Jews. Elow Kihlgren denied all accusations but this experience made him conscious of the danger that awaited the Jews. The persecuted Jews had to move several times under most dangerous conditions and Elow began making the necessary arrangements to smuggle the Engelman family to Switzerland. However, they could not take the two small girls along the dangerous route, so they were hidden in a Christian boarding school. The adults, the Engelmans, their children, Bela Clara, Leiser and Mina and her husband Max, proceeded to the Swiss border and crossed it safely with the help of paid border smugglers. Ten months later, the two Stempel daughters were also taken across the border and reunited with their parents. Elow Kihlgren arranged all the financing andnetworking necessary in order to save the Engelman and the Stempel families. He passed away in 1974. On July 19, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Elow Kihlgren as Righteous Among the Nations.