patrick.net

#barsinghausenGood Morning Everyone:

There are numerous stories about heroic people in Nazi Germany and elsewhere who sheltered Jewish people from the Gestapo and the Nazi death machine?

My answer is a qualified yes. If I lived in an urban area I would not have attempted it. There were too many informers around. My family and I would have died. The people who I was giving shelter to would have died.

In a rural area of Germany, there would be some possibility for this. From 2000-2002 I worked on and off in Hanover, Germany. I lived outside of town in a small farming village named Barsinghausen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barsinghausen

I lived in a home built in 1898. It had originally been a mansion. It was converted into a guest hotel.

In some parts of Germany there has been such an American and British influence that you could survive speaking English. Hanover and this village never saw any American or British soldiers. You had to speak German to live there.

I talked to the older people about what it was like in World War II. The town was never bombed by planes. It was never hit with artillery shells. The only foreign army that they ever saw was American and British supply officers coming to buy farm goods after the war ended. If the small town had not had radio and newspapers, they would not have known that a war was going on. Despite food shortages and food rationing, the farmers held back food. Everyone had sufficient food and the necesities of life.

The people were warm,friendly and down-to-earth. There was an easy-going feeling about the town. After a while I came to the conclusion that I could have given some Jewish people shelter on my farm from the Nazis and lived to talk about it.