Kurzbach Gerhard

Kurzbach, Gerhard Gerhard Kurzbach was born in Posen in 1915. In 1919, following World War I, when Poland was re-established, Posen became Polish and the Kurzbach family, along with other German inhabitants, left and settled in Bunzlau, Lower Silesia. Gerhard trained as a mechanic in his father’s car repair shop. In August 1939, a month before Germany attacked Poland, he was drafted to the Wehrmacht, the German army, and served in the artillery. In May 1941 he was transferred to Bochnia, 45 Km. east of Krakow, and was put in charge of a workshop for the repair of military vehicles (HKP). Before World War II there were around 3,500 Jews in Bochnia, constituting 20% of the town’s population. The persecution of the Jews began immediately after the German conquest of the town. A ghetto was established in July 1941 and Jews from the surrounding areas were brought into it so that the number of Jews rose to 5,000. The first deportation of Jews, to Belzec, took place between August 25 and 27, 1942. Only ghetto residents who had a special stamp identity card were permitted to stay. The second aktion in Bochnia took place on 10 November 1942, in the course of which 70 people were killed in the ghetto itself or in the cemetery, and others deported to Belzec. A large number of the ghetto Jews worked in the HKP. Some of the survivors testified that Gerhard Kurzbach helped and protected them by removing them from the deportation transports, hiding them in the factory during the roundups and by smuggling some out of the ghetto to safety. Zeev Jakubowicz, who survived the camps after having been deported from Bochnia, said in his testimony: “When we learned that a deportation was planned…we managed to go into hiding. The rest of the family were taken to the train… One of my uncles was in charge of the car repair, and he came with the commander of the factory to the railway station. The German [Kurzbach] took 200 Jews out of the train under the pretext that he neededthem for work. Among them were my parents… He brought us to the military camp… The 200 Jews were returned to the ghetto… and would come to work every day….” Greta Jonkler, born 1908, wrote about her survival in October 1945: “…In July 1942 the deportation began. We knew about the roundups of Krakow and Tarnow, and assumed the same would happen to us in Bochnia. My husband prepared a hideout in the building where we resided… On Saturday he went to work, but never returned… I remained in the hideout for five days with two children, one loaf of bread, one Kg. of sugar and a bucket of water. On Friday my uncle, the engineer Jakubowicz took us out together with the German corporal Kurzbach who was the commander of the HKP and who saved several hundred Jewish families together with the engineer Henryk Jakubowicz. A military ambulance arrived. Inside was my sister… In the ambulance were other people who had been hiding in the brick factory. They took us to the HKP where several hundred Jewish families were hiding. We stayed there for a week. The people in charge of the HKP hid us and fed us, and a week later I returned with my sister and the Jakubowicz’s to the ghetto. Six weeks later I learned that my husband had been taken to the camp in the Rakowice airport. Kurzbach went there and brought my husband back to the ghetto, where we stayed until August 1, 1943, when the ghetto liquidation began”. Dr. Stefan Kornhauser was born in Krakow in 1914, and was transferred from Krakow the Bochnia ghetto. In 1959 he submitted a testimony to Yad Vashem about his wartime experience: “The conduct of one of the Germans during the first roundup was commendable. His last name was Kurzbach. This German would remove Jews from the ghetto ‘on behalf of the Wehrmacht’ to work in the workshops and return them to the ghetto in the evenings. One day before the roundup he kept the workers in the workshop to protect them from the transport, and even brought their families from the ghetto tothe workshops and kept them there for the duration of the roundup”. Romek Marber, born 1924, also testified about Kurzbach’s help to the Jews: “In March 1943 Kurzbach was transferred to another position in the army. Some of the Jewish survivors said that he had been demoted.” Kurzbach’s last message to his family was sent from Romania in August 1944. He was reported missing and his fate remains unknown until this very day. On December 19, 2011 Yad Vashem recognized Gerhard Kurzbach as Righteous Among the Nations. The Department of the Righteous with the help of the German tracing service of the Church was able to find relatives of the late Kurzbach. After they were notified of his being honored, the family sent Yad Vashem the copy of a letter that several Jews had managed to send to his wife, shortly after he left Bochnia in 1943. Due to the strict censorship they had to chose their words well so as not to betray their benefactor: "Two hundred persons mourn his departure....we parted not only from our superior, whom we loved and respected, but also from a man who was like a father and friend to us". On November 27,2012 the medal and certificate of honor were presented by the Israeli Ambassador to Germany to the family of Gerhard Kurzbach. The ceremony was held in a Berlin school and the President of Germany attended. Romek Marber, who had not set foot in Germany since the Holocaust, decided to go to Berlin to honor his rescuer. Following his remarks, the students and the entire audience stood up in a standing ovation for several minutes.