Berthold Beitz worked as a commercial employee for an oil company. In July of 1941, German troops occupied the oil-bearing region in Poland’s Eastern Galicia, and German companies set up subsidiaries there. Beitz switched to the company later known as Karpathen-Öl AG, becoming the commercial head of its operations in Borysław. He was in charge of around 13,000 workers, many of them Jewish forced laborers.
Mass shootings by the SS and Ukrainian collaborators became increasingly frequent in the city. In November 1942, Karpathen-Öl AG set up a camp for the company’s forced laborers. Beitz worked to improve their food and conditions.
Deportations to Belzec extermination camp began in 1942. The Jews working for Karpathen-Öl AG were also at risk. Beitz obtained forged work papers for many Jews, to prevent their deportation. He repeatedly went to the station to remove Jews from trains bound for Belzec, not only specialized workers for his own company. He and his wife Else also hid persecuted people in their home for a time.
Berthold Beitz was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem in 1973.