Melania Reifler, known as Mela, grew up in the Polish town of Drohobycz. When the Wehrmacht invaded in the summer of 1941, the 15-year-old had to perform forced labor in the Hyrawka camp outside the town, where vegetables were grown to feed the local SS men. The German camp manager, Eberhard Helmrich, rejected the regime and tried to relieve the suffering of the camp’s 200 Jewish men and women wherever he could.
In the fall of 1942, Helmrich smuggled several Jewish women out of Drohobycz, having obtained forged papers for them as allegedly Christian Ukrainians, and sent them to his wife Donata in Berlin-Charlottenburg. One of those women was Mela Reifler. When her neighbors grew suspicious, Donata Helmrich placed her with a family in Hamburg, who did not know that their new nanny was Jewish. In Hamburg, Mela Reifler was liberated in May 1945. She later emigrated to Israel.
Anita Brunnengraber (left), Melania Reifler, and the children of the Hamburg family for whom Melania Reifler worked during the war, 1945. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Melania Reifler (right) and Anita Brunnengraber, around 1946/47. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Melania Reifler (left) and Anita Brunnengraber (right) with Eberhard Helmrich at an airport in Israel (for his Yad Vashem ceremony), 1968. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Eberhard Helmrich (front, center) at his Yad Vashem ceremony. 2nd row, 5th from right: Anita Brunnengraber, front right: Melania Reifler, with other people from Drohobycz rescued by Helmrich, 1968. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
