During the war, Viktoria Kolzer lived in Berlin with her husband Jean. She worked as a cashier at a small movie theater. Their son was a soldier on the front. At the home of acquaintances, the sisters Elfriede and Grete Most, the Kolzers met the Jewish woman Hanni Weissenberg, who was living there in hiding in 1943. When Weissenberg needed somewhere else to stay, the Kolzers were prepared to take the 19-year-old into their home and provide her with food.
Hanni Weissenberg helped Viktoria Kolzer to care for her sick husband, who died in 1944. The two women survived the severe air raids on Berlin together. After their liberation, Hanni Weissenberg stayed on with Viktoria Kolzer until she emigrated to Paris in 1946.
In 1960 Viktoria Kolzer was honored in Berlin as an Unsung Heroine, and in 1978 the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem acknowledged her and Grete and Elfriede Most as Righteous Among the Nations. In 2018 a memorial plaque was installed on Viktoria and Jean Kolzer’s former building at Nollendorfstraße 28 in the Schöneberg district.
Viktoria Kolzer and Gerhard Most during Hanni Lévy’s visit, 1968. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Hanni Lévy née Weissenberg visiting her rescuers: left Gerd Most, standing at the back Grete Most, in front of her the Lévys, Elfriede Most, 4th from right Viktoria Kolzer, around 1968. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Plaque for Viktoria Kolzer by the tree planted in her honor at Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, after 1980. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Ambassador Yohanan Meroz (center) with Viktoria Kolzer’s son Oskar Kolzer (left) and Gerhard Most (right) at the Yad Vashem ceremony in the Jewish Community Hall on Fasanenstraße, 1980. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
