Frieda Szturmann lived in Berlin with her husband Anton and son Günter. She was a patient of Dr. Mohamed (Mod) Helmy. She could talk to him about her aversion to the Nazi regime. Anton Szturmann was a soldier in the war.
In March 1942, Dr. Helmy gave the Jewish Anna Boros a place to hide in his home. When other members of Boros’s family had to escape imminent deportation around the same time, Helmy asked Frieda Szturmann to help them.
This meant Anna Boros’s grandmother was able to hide for a year with Frieda Szturmann. In November 1944 the neighbors became suspicious. Frieda Szturmann therefore housed Cecilie Rudnik in her sister’s vacant apartment in Berlin-Tempelhof for a time.
Szturmann also let Anna Boros stay with her for a while in 1944. She helped Dr. Helmy obtain food for the others living in hiding. All Anna Boros’s relatives survived the Nazi era.
The West Berlin senate honored Frieda Szturmann as an Unsung Heroine in 1962. In 2013 the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem posthumously honored her as Righteous Among the Nations.
Frieda Szturmann in her garden, Berlin, around 1940. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
Frieda Szturmann, Berlin, 1941. Source: Privatbesitz/Private
