Paula Bierdel was a very successful coal merchant in Berlin-Schöneberg. Her husband was drafted as a soldier. In early 1943, she hid a young Jewish man in her apartment, Heinz Steinberg, with whom she was in a relationship.
At the end of September 1943, the Gestapo arrested Steinberg in Paula Bierdel’s home, after she was denounced. They also arrested his mother, who also happened to be present that day. Heinz and Rosa Steinberg were deported to Auschwitz shortly later and murdered there.
On October 1, 1943, Bierdel was arrested and interrogated in the assembly camp at Große Hamburger Straße 26 for “harboring escaped Jews.” She contracted blood poisoning due to mistreatment during the interrogations, and spent several months in hospitals. She was admitted to Ravensbrück concentration camp on September 6, 1944; the reason for her imprisonment was recorded as “Rassenschande,” the propaganda term for inter-racial sexual relations. She was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp at the end of September 1944. She survived with severe damage to her health.
Shortly before her death in 1963, Paula Bierdel was recognized by the West Berlin senate as an Unsung Heroine for the help she provided to endangered Jews.