NEW YORK - World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder today praised German industrialist Berthold Beitz, who died Tuesday at the age of 99, as “one of the great Germans of the past century” who had “earned the everlasting love and gratitude of the Jewish people” for saving hundreds of Jews in the Boryslav region, nowadays part of Ukraine, between 1941 and 1944. “For many Jews he was a beacon of hope in a sea of despair. He not only risked his own life by providing false papers to several hundred Jewish workers in the oil refinery he ran in Boryslav. Like Raoul Wallenberg, Chiune Sugihara, Oskar Schindler, Nicholas Winton, Irena Sendler and others, Berthold Beitz was a true mensch. He was a hero of the Holocaust at a time when it was a crime to be a humane person. He will never be forgotten for his tremendous acts of kindness,” Lauder declared.
In July 1941, then 27-year-old Berthold Beitz, along his wife Else, came to the city of Boryslav, in what is today Ukraine, to work as the manager of an oil refinery. There, Beitz witnessed at close hand the ongoing destruction of the Jews. Unhesitatingly, he opposed the Nazis’ plan of extermination and succeeded in rescuing several hundred Jews from the death trains bound for the Bełżec extermination camp. He did this by requesting from the SS that the Jews be handed over to him as indispensable skilled workers and issued false work certificates. At a great personal risk, Berthold and Else Beitz secretly provided the Jews with food and hid others in their own home. One of Beitz’ staff members was Hilde Berger who later served as secretary to industrialist Oskar Schindler, who also saved Jews from the Holocaust.
In 1973, in recognition of his courageous stance, the couple was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. One of Beitz’ staff members then was Hilde Berger, who later served as secretary to industrialist Oskar Schindler, also a savior of Jews.
Berthold Beitz was one of post-war Germany’s outstanding industrialists who until his death served as an influential member of the Supervisory Board of the Thyssen-Krupp Group.
