22 Facts About Anton Schmid

Anton Schmid was an Austrian Wehrmacht recruit who saved Jews during the Holocaust in Lithuania.

Anton Schmid hid Jews in his apartment, obtained work permits to save Jews from the Ponary massacre, transferred Jews in Wehrmacht trucks to safer locations, and aided the Vilna Ghetto underground.

Anton Schmid was court-martialed for actively protecting Jews, sentenced to death, and shot on 13 April 1942.

Anton Schmid's reception was more conflicted in Germany and Austria, where he was still viewed as a traitor for decades.

Anton Schmid was born in Vienna, then Austria-Hungary, on 9 January 1900.

Anton Schmid's father was a baker, and both of his parents were devout Roman Catholics from Nikolsburg, Moravia.

Anton Schmid, who was married and had one daughter, did not belong to any organizations besides the Catholic Church.

Anton Schmid was reassigned to an office called Feldkommandantur 814, whose personnel were charged with collecting German soldiers who had been separated from their units and reassigning them.

Anton Schmid gave Salinger the paybook of Private Max Huppert, a Wehrmacht soldier who had been killed, and employed him as a typist in the office.

The second Jew whom Anton Schmid rescued was a 23-year-old Lithuanian Jewish woman named Luisa Emaitisaite.

Anton Schmid hid her in his apartment temporarily and later hired her for the office, where her knowledge of several languages and stenography was helpful.

The other 90 Jews begged Anton Schmid to drive them in Wehrmacht trucks to the nearby town of Lida, Belarus, where they believed that they would be safer.

Anton Schmid did so, temporarily saving them from death at Ponary, and made several trips to Lida with other Jews.

Later, Anton Schmid managed to obtain more of these life-saving permits and eventually employed 103 Jews in various jobs.

From November 1941 until his arrest in January, Anton Schmid hid Hermann Adler, a Bratislava-born Jewish resistance member, and his wife Anita under false papers in Anton Schmid's apartment in Vilnius.

Anton Schmid's apartment was used as a meeting place for Jewish partisans; during a meeting on New Year's Eve 1941, Tenenbaum made Anton Schmid an honorary member of the Vilna Zionist Organization.

The first published account of Anton Schmid's rescue was in the prose poem Gesange aus der Stadt des Todes, published in 1945 in Switzerland by Hermann Adler, who dedicated chapter eight to Anton Schmid.

Kovner emphasized that Anton Schmid had offered his help selflessly, without accepting any payment.

Anton Schmid's widow traveled to Jerusalem for the ceremony and planted a tree in the Garden of the Righteous.

Anton Schmid was one of the first Germans or Austrians to be bestowed with this honor.

Scharping praised Anton Schmid's "bravery and courage" and stated that he is a new example for the German soldier of today.

American historian Fritz Stern wrote that honoring Anton Schmid "strengthens our democratic spirit" and is a repudiation of postwar attitudes in which German resistance was taboo.