Nanette Blitz Konig (l) was mentioned in Anne Frank's (r) diary.
Posted on 01/05/2014 3:43:39 PM PST by afraidfortherepublic
The daughter of a Jewish classmate of Anne Frank rescued from the horrors of Bergen Belsen concentration camp has met the British officer who saved her mother's life.
Grateful Elizabeth Kahn, 59, flew to Israel to meet Major Leonard Berney, 93, from Plymouth, Devon, and present him with a special silver platter paid for by the family in recognition of his heroics.
Jewish Leonard, of the British 11th Armoured division, was one of the first army officers through the gates of Belsen when the camp was liberated on April 15, 1945.
It is estimated that 50,000 inmates died in the notorious northwest German camp between 1941 and 1945. Elizabeth's mother, Nanette Blitz Konig, 84, from Holland and who was mentioned in Anne Frank's world-famous diary, was in the horror camp and acted as translator for Leonard.
At the then 16-year-old's request, the Major sent a letter to her relatives in north London to tell them she was alive before helping her get flown to safety.
The war hero visited Mrs Blitz Konig in London in 1949 to make sure she was safe and that was the last time they had any contact.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Original title: After 68 years, daughter of Anne Frank's classmate finally gets her chance to thank the British officer who saved her mother from Nazi concentration camp
'Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world'
Nanette Blitz Konig (l) was mentioned in Anne Frank's (r) diary.
Moral of the story....thank those who helped before they pass from this world if you can. Be they in uniform or not... Thank them.
Thank you for finding this story. It truly brought a tear to my eye. There is STILL good in this world, and people don’t forget.
Amen.
We knew a retired attorney here several years ago (now deceased). He came forward and gave an impassioned speech at city council one night when my husband was on the Plan Commission. My husband thanked him for taking an interest in the topic and expressed surprise. The elderly man shared that at the end of WWII, he led his unit into one of the German death camps to free the prisoners. He said he would never forget the experience and he vowed to take an active part in our government for as long as he lived. And he did.
I’m sure that none of the allied soldiers liberating those camps had any idea of what they would find there. God bless them all.
I've heard several soldiers talk about the fact they went through some of the bloodiest battles of the war, saw their friends' guts blown out.....and while that didn't faze them, when they got to those camps, they couldn't handle it.
That’s true. They thought they were just going in to release prisoners. They had no idea what they would find — stacks of bodies and walking skeletons.
A few weeks ago, somebody on FR told me about his father who landed with a force to release prisoners that the Japanese had held. Even though the war was over, the last Japanese forces beheaded all of them before the Americans could release them.
And we talk about humanity ...
I believe it is a verse from the Talmud.
Well, it is most appropriate.
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