1942: Anton Schmid

On this day in 1942, Sergeant Anton Schmid was executed for high treason. His crime: saving the lives of Jews in Nazi-occupied Vilna, Poland (now part of Lithuania and called Vilnius).

Schmid was born in Vienna and owned a radio shop there before he was drafted into the German Army following the Anschluss in 1938.

After Germany’s invasion of Russia in mid-1941, Schmid was put in charge of a unit in Vilna, tasked with collecting and reassigning soldiers who had been separated from their units. He witnessed the sufferings of the Jewish population in the Vilna Ghetto and was so horrified, he decided to take action.

Schmid used his position in the military to help Jews by employing them as workers for his unit, forging papers to get them out of prison and out of the ghetto, and using Army trucks to escort them away from the city.

At great personal risk, he would go into the ghetto to hand out food and warn the inhabitants when the Germans were planning roundups. In dire situations he would even hide people in his own apartment to protect them from the Nazis. He maintained close contact with Jewish resistance organizations and assisted their activities in a variety of ways.....

Interesting,

People often forget (like I did until reminded by your post), or they never learned, that there were many that didn’t play along with the Nazis. The Nazis and Hilter were elected with 30 some percent of the vote, something possible in a parliamentary system. 1933 - 1945 is not a statement of German society which was actually very hospitable (by historical European standards) to the Jews and why so many settled there over the years.

Some planned assassinations: 20 July plot

Others were non-violent: white rose, Bonhoeffer

While others could be considered saboteurs and working against this regime passively.

And MANY helped Jews as well as communists or POW at great risk to themselves.

Sadly, the most important lessons that really should have been learned (by all- not just the Germans), were not. Instead of learning to fight evil, many learned that fighting is evil. Instead of seeing the evil in man, a fallen world, and where centralization of power and a cult of personality as a huge danger, people today blindly believe these are the solutions to all our problems.

Although the Jewish Underground warned Schmid that his activities had become too widely known and he was in great danger, he refused to put a stop to his effort to save the Vilna Jews. In response to their concerns he reportedly said that if given a choice between “living as a murderer and dying as a rescuer,” he would choose to die.
A very brave and righteous man.

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