Saturday, July 26, 2014

A Couple of Czech Heroes

There are 114 Czechs honored by Israel as Righteous Among the Nations.  While at Yad Vashem, I happened to notice trees honoring two of these heroes.

Karla Andělová-Weisová
Karla Andělová-Weisová was active in the anti-Nazi resistance and was apprehended.  She served time in multiple prisons in Bohemia and Germany.  She eventually ended up at the  Ravensbrück concentration camp.

While there, other prisoners nicknamed her "Andělka", angel for having helped people.  She took a Jewish boy under her wing after his parents died in the camp.  Karla even brought the boy home to Prague after the war ended.  A tree was planted in her honor in 1978. 

Přemysl Pitter
Přemysl Pitter was a teacher and pacifist.  At the end of WWII, he managed to provide sanctuary to almost a thousand children.  The children were Jewish orphans from the concentration camps and Czech orphans whose parents had died in the fighting.

He even took in German children whose parents had been killed following the liberation of Czechoslovakia.  Despite the personal consequences he always provided assistance to those who needed the most help.  In 1964 his deeds were honored at Yad Vashem.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Christopher!

    I ran across this blog post regarding Karla Andelova Weiss. She is my daughter Christiana's paternal great-grandmother. I read your blog post and I was glad to see that her name is being remembered.

    However, you brought up a point that we've never been able to figure out with our research. We had read before that she brought home a Jewish boy, but we have never been able to find more information; when she married Ferdinand Weiss, there is no mention of a boy, and Tiana's grandmother didn't have an adopted brother. Do you know *anything* more than that? We've been trying to find him for several years. Could you tell me where you found this information?

    Thanks!

    -Pepper

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