The journalist and author Ruth Andreas-Friedrich lived in Berlin with her daughter Karin. She was in a relationship with the musician and conductor Leo Borchard, who had an apartment in the same building.
The couple followed the Nazi regime’s increasingly harsh antisemitic measures with growing concern. After the 1938 November pogroms, they began meeting likeminded friends in secret. They planned resistance activities and discussed how to help persecuted Jews. The group later called itself “Uncle Emil.”
The “Uncle Emil” group supported Jews living in hiding from 1942. They gave them places to stay or found accommodation, provided them with food, and arranged forged identity papers. They also worked to support political prisoners and helped look after their families. In the fall of 1942, Ruth Andreas-Friedrich came into contact with members of the Kreisau Circle.
After the Second World War, Ruth Andreas-Friedrich moved to Munich. The Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem honored her posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations in 2002. A park in Berlin-Steglitz was named after her in 2021.
Ruth Andreas Friedrich (front left) with her partner Leo Borchard, his mother Eugenia Borchard (front right), and his sister Margarita von Kudriavtzeff (back left), Alt Schadow, 1944. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Activity report by the “Uncle Emil” group, Berlin, May 14, 1945. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
