Fritz Wolzenburg worked as a technical inspector for the Reichsbahn railway company in Berlin from 1937. He was deployed in occupied Poland from 1939 to 1941. After returning home in April 1942, he took over Construction Troop 7, which mainly performed track repairs around Berlin.
Wolzenburg was a foreman for Jewish forced laborers. One of these was Werner Rewald. Wolzenburg reclaimed him for Reichsbahn work “important for the war,” to protect him from imminent deportation. At the beginning of 1943, Rewald went into hiding with his wife Ilse. They asked Wolzenburg for help. He obtained blank Reichsbahn identity papers for the couple, which they filled in using false names.
Fritz Wolzenburg also helped other Jewish forced laborers. He warned them of upcoming arrests and let them sleep in a construction trailer at night. He and his wife Irma also took people in hiding into their apartment temporarily.
In 1971 Fritz Wolzenburg was awarded the Federal Republic of Germany’s order of merit, on the Rewalds’ initiative.
Certification issued by Fritz Wolzenburg attesting that Werner Rewald was to be deferred from deportation, Berlin, October 15, 1942. Source: Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand, Nachlass Ilse Rewald
