GARIWO HONORS ROSENSTRASSE
The recognition of the Rosenstrasse Protest on The European Day of the Righteous is a primary milestone. It lays a foundation for giving their due to the brave German women who risked their lives on the street by publicly uniting themselves with the fate of Jews who were marked for death by the yellow star. March 6, The European Day of the Righteous - thanks to the Garden of the Righteous Worldwide (Gariwo) - marks the death of a great Good Samaritan Moshe Bejski. And by a fine historical congruence, it also marks the triumph of the Rosenstrasse Protest. It was March 6, 1943, following a week of protest, that the Gestapo released the vast majority of the ca. 2000 Jews imprisoned at Rosenstrasse, sending them home to their non-Jewish partners.
Photos from the Rosenstrasse Foundation 80th Anniversary Commemoration Event in Berlin (2023)
Photo Credits: Myriam von Skramlik
In the spring of 2020, The Garden of the Righteous Worldwide (GARIWO) dedicated the annual celebration of Europe’s “Day of the Righteous” to the women of the Rosenstrasse, in concert with the city of Milan and the Union of Italian Jewish Communities. On Rosenstrasse in February and March of 1943, these noisy protesters rescued their husbands from Gestapo procedures to murder them. The Nazi practice was to deport any Jewish marriage partner whose non-Jewish mate agreed to divorce.
The Rosenstrasse Protest was one of a long succession of acts of defiance against threats and seductions of the Nazi state and German society. For the entire duration of Hitler’s rule, the overwhelming majority of these non-Jews refused to separate themselves from their Jewish family members and the fate of the Jews. As a result, 11,150 of the 11,359 Germans the Nazis defined as “full Jews” who survived without being deported or going into hiding were married to non-Jews.
RESISTANCE OF THE HEART
On February 14th, 2021, Dr. Nathan Stoltzfus, Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, and Ruth Wiseman spoke at a special event, “Resistance of the Heart,” a special program on the Rosenstrasse Protest, hosted by the Sousa Mendes Foundation. Check out the recorded event here!
