Arno Bach lived in Niederschmiedeberg in the Ore Mountains region with his wife Margarete and worked as a stoker in a paper factory, which was classed as essential for the war. He was opposed to the Nazi regime. On April 16, 1945, he met two men in prisoners’ clothing in the forest. Michał and Jurek Rozenek, Jewish brothers from Poland, had escaped two days previously from a death transport to Theresienstadt from Rehmsdorf, a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp.
Bach gave them food and promised to return that evening. At home, he talked to his wife, who was also willing to help. The risk was high, since staunch National Socialists lived in the neighborhood. The couple hid the Rozenek brothers in a shed behind their house for around three weeks. Arno Bach’s sister, who lived in the same building, and another resident helped obtain food for the men. The brothers were liberated by the Soviet army on May 8, 1945. They went on to emigrate to Argentina.
In the 1980s, Miguel (Michał) Rozenek visited his helpers in Niederschmiedeberg and initiated their 1987 recognition as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem.