The designer Hedwig Koslowski lived in Berlin. She and the Jewish painter Gertrude Sandmann were a couple. In November 1942, Sandmann was at acute risk of deportation. Koslowski arranged for her to stay with Charlotte and Reinhold Großmann. Sandmann left a farewell letter in her apartment to feign suicide. The Gestapo found the letter and called Hedwig Koslowski in for interrogation. Koslowski pretended to know nothing, and was released.
Hedwig Koslowski provided her partner with food and ration stamps until the end of the war, finding new hiding places for her. Other helpers supported her. When the situation at the Großmanns’ home became too dangerous due to air raids in June 1944, a friend provided her parents’ garden shed as a shelter. In October 1944, however, the unheated structure became too cold. Hedwig Koslowski took her partner into her own home until the end of the war.
In 1959 the West Berlin senate honored Hedwig Koslowski as an Unsung Heroine. In 2015 the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem recognized her posthumously as Righteous Among the Nations.
Written confirmation by Hedwig Koslowski, Susy Hermans, and Gerd zu Klampen on Gertrude Sandmann’s “illegality,” Berlin, February 13, 1949. Source: Landesarchiv Berlin, B Rep. 078, BEG Nr. 22917
Hedwig Koslowski (right) with her partner Gertrude Sandmann, Berlin, around 1952. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
