Rudi Bereit

born in Berlin on March 15, 1919 – died in Berlin on December 17, 1981
Helper
Rudi Bereit, 1957.

Rudi Bereit was drafted as a soldier and then wounded, staying in a military hospital in Berlin until early 1943. His mother Franziska Bereit had spent several decades working in the Jewish Silbermann family household in Berlin-Wedding. From February 1943, she hid their daughter Adelheid Silbermann, who had narrowly escaped arrest and subsequent deportation shortly before.
In January 1944 Franziska Bereit also took Adelheid’s sister Therese Ornstein and her husband Hermann into her one-room apartment in the Wedding district. Despite the crowded conditions, the three endangered Jews stayed there until the end of the war. Rudi Bereit and his two sisters supported them with food.
When West Berlin’s senate began honoring people as Unsung Heroes in 1958, Franziska Bereit was due to be officially recognized for her courageous help, but died shortly before the ceremony. The certificate was awarded to her son.

back