Gedenkstätte Stille Helden

The businessman Leopold “Leo” Fraines performed forced labor at the Osram light bulb factory in Berlin. He met Gertrud Neumann and her son Ralph in the “Jews’ department” there. When Jewish forced laborers were arrested during “Operation Factory” in February 1943, Fraines went into hiding. He turned for help to Hedwig Höppner, whom he knew through his former girlfriend. Although she was a single working-class woman living in a one-room apartment, she agreed to take him in. Fraines paid the rent out of his savings and also shared some other expenses.
Shortly after moving in, Fraines encountered the Jewish informer and “catcher” Rolf Isaaksohn, but managed to evade him. As a result, he no longer dared to leave the apartment, even for the basement air-raid shelter. When the Neumann family went into hiding, Fraines found them a vacant apartment. He later let the homeless Ralph Neumann rest in Höppner’s apartment during the day and provided him with money and food ration coupons.
Fraines was able to hide in Höppner’s home for two years. During the last air raids on Berlin in the spring of 1945, the building burned down. Leopold Fraines was taken in by friends. He survived.