The architect and Luftwaffe sergeant Karl Laabs was conscripted in 1941 in occupied Poland to work as head of the construction office in the Chrzanów district, near the small town of Oświęcim (Auschwitz). There, Laabs witnessed the violence against the Jewish population. He bought a large plot of land for farming, requested Jewish laborers, and had them issued with papers that provided them with temporary protection. When transports to extermination camps were due, he offered refuge to other Jews and provided them with food, money, and clothing.
In February 1943 Laabs claimed to be accompanying around 100 Jews to Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. He wore his air force uniform to do so. However, he instead sent the two trucks to Myslovice (Mislowitz, now in Czechia). The drivers had been bribed and an officer was informed of the plan.
On January 15, 1945, Laabs and his family fled the Red Army and experienced the end of the war in northern Hesse. Following a long denazification process, he was classified as “exonerated” in 1949. In 1972 Karl Laabs received the Federal Cross of Merit, and in 1980 he was honored by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center as Righteous Among the Nations.