Angelika Wendland grew up in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg with her parents and siblings. Her father Walter Wendland was the pastor of the Gethsemane congregation. Angelika Wendland joined the Confessional Church in 1936. The Wendland family had a number of Jewish friends and acquaintances. Agnes Wendland and her daughters Angelika and Ruth helped them wherever they could. Angelika’s brother Arndt Wendland was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1939 and died on the front in March 1942.
At the end of April 1943, Angelika Wendland married the pastor Günter Rutenborn. The couple moved to Senzke in the Havelland region in September 1943.
That year, Angelika Rutenborn and her husband learned that Agnes Wendland had taken in the Jewish siblings Rita and Ralph Neumann. In the summer of 1944, the Rutenborns hid the two of them in Senzke. They passed Ralph Neumann off as their gardener. On July 20, 1944, Angelika Rutenborn accompanied the siblings to Berlin by train. They managed to return to the pastor’s house without being checked.
Ralph and Rita Neumann were arrested in February 1945. Fortunately, Angelika and Günter Rutenborn’s involvement with them went undetected.
Agnes (left) and Angelika Wendland on the balcony of their apartment on Gethsemanestraße, Berlin, 1931. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, Sammlung Wendland
Angelika Wendland and Günther Rutenborn, Berlin, January 1943. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
The pastor’s house and church in Senzke, 1944. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Letter from Agnes Wendland to her daughter Angelika, reporting on her imprisonment, dated March 1945. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
Letter from Agnes Wendland to her daughter Angelika, reporting on her imprisonment, dated March 1945. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
Ralph Neumann’s birthday party, Berlin, May 22, 1946, from left: Lilo Pereles, Dr. Hans Brombach, Angelika Rutenborn, Ralph Neumann, Grete Kirch, Maria Groffick (kneeling), Ruth Wendland, and Elisabeth Abegg. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
