Hutsch Erika

Hutsch, Erika Erika Hutsch was a German journalist. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, Hutsch was among the German civilians who arrived in Lwow, where she wrote articles about agriculture. She was allocated rooms in a large apartment that had previously housed Soviet families. Prior to the occupation, as the German military had approached the city, the apartment’s occupants had been evacuated into the Soviet Union, with the exception of one Jewish woman, Golda (Olga) Stavskaya, and her son Michail (b. 1934). Golda and her husband Akim Vul, an officer in the Red Army, had first lived in Zhitomir. In the fall of 1939, the family had moved to Lwow. When Germany attacked the Soviet Union, Vul's division left Lwow, and Golda and Michail were left behind. When Erika Hutsch moved into the apartment, the two women became friends. Soon after, in November 1941, the ghetto was established. Hutsch convinced her friend not to move into the ghetto, but instead to move into another apartment with her. The Jewish refugees had no identity papers, and did not don the ribbon identifying them as Jews. Golda cleaned the house and also did a neighbor's washing to earn some money, and Hutsch supplied them with food. Some of the neighbors knew that Golda and her son were Jewish, but did not denounce them. Erika taught Michail German and helped him with his homework, and he taught her Polish. Thus they managed to survive the war undetected. In the summer of 1944, the Red Army neared Lwow and the German retreat began. Hutsch offered Golda to join her in her return to Germany, but Golda chose to stay behind in the hope of finding her husband. After liberation, however, they discovered that Akim Vul had been declared missing in Aktion (mass execution). Golda and Michail continued to live in Lwow, and contact with Hutsch was broken. More than sixty years later, Michail Vul began to search for his rescuer. A friend in Germany was able toestablish that Erika Hutsch had died in Stuttgart. After he wrote to Yad Vashem with his and his mother's wartime rescue story, Hutsch's heirs were finally located. On August 7, 2012, Yad Vashem recognized Erika Hutsch as Righteous Among the Nations.