(English Version)
Another short but moving story related to the Holocaust. This time its protagonist is Josef "Jupp" Weiss born on May 16, 1893 in Flamersheim, Germany
He was born into a Jewish family from Holland (Province of Limburg and North Brabant), who migrated to Germany at the beginning of the 18th century. His nickname was „Jupp“ and that is how he was known throughout his life. He was the second youngest of the nine children that their parents brought into the world. After completing his basic studies (primary and secondary education), he studied commerce at the university level.
He was a faithful German citizen and as such served in the German army for six years and four years during the First World War, advancing to the rank of sergeant and earning the Iron Cross. A successful businessman, he was keenly interested in German-Jewish literature and strongly identified with Zionist ideology. He was also a member of the Bna'i Brith of the city of Cologne. In 1922 he married Erna Falk, a famous German singer (Opera).
In 1933 he was arrested by the Nazis but managed to flee to Holland and join his wife and two children who had previously managed to migrate. In this space, he was active in the Zionist Federation of Haarlem and Hilversum and after Kristallnacht he remained on the border with Germany, providing invaluable help to Jews and Gentiles fleeing Nazi barbarism. His home in Holland was a space of refuge for Jews and Gentiles, seeking help for these groups from the Dutch authorities even though he did not hold Dutch citizenship.
On January 27, 1942, when Holland had fallen into the hands of the Nazis, his situation worsened and he was sent to Westerbork Camp. In this space he was entrusted to take care of about 150 young people from Germany who lacked parents, erecting a school in the field itself to educate and train this group. In July 1942 he was appointed head of the department of material aid to all the new prisoners who were expelled to Eastern Europe. At the same time, he took care of falsifying documentation, establishing contact with the Vatican, seeking the rescue of at least part of the detainees.
Constantly risking his life to save others
In January 1944, Josef Weiss was sent with the first transport to the Bergen-Belsen extermination camp, where he was appointed vice director of the Jewish Council of said camp and in December of that same year he was appointed the veteran of the Jews of the eleven Bergen-Belsen camps and responsible for their internal records.
Appealing to your imagination, courage and assuming an enormous risk, she deployed multiple actions that aimed to save human lives, namely:
- Erection of teams with more accessible tasks, thus saving the lives of elderly and sick people.
- Violation of administrative regulations to facilitate, as far as was feasible, the oppressive living conditions prevailing in that space.
- Modification in the list of the deceased, thus obtaining more food rations for the camp prisoners.
- Giving glasses of water to prisoners without the knowledge of the guards, when they they had closed down the relevant sources.
- Modifying the number of prisoners who attended their daily appearance to improve their situation and not expose themselves to extermination, and even on some occasions for this reason, was sanctioned by the Nazis.
In April 1945, together with his wife and 2.400 prisoners, Josef Weiss was sent to the Theresienstadt extermination camp. After two weeks, this entire group is liberated by the Red Army. Unfortunately, once they were freed, a typhus epidemic broke out that cost the lives of 300 freed people, including that of his wife Erna. After the war, Josef Weiss continued his efforts to rescue and save lives until he finally ascended and settled in the Land of Israel.
Josef Weiss died in Jerusalem on September 12, 1976 at the age of 83.
Main recognitions
His memorable work appears among others, in the volume “We the Children of Bergen Belsen“, by Hetty E. Verlome, Belgian-Australian writer, herself a survivor of Bergen Belsen and published in Basel in 2005. In turn, the German historian Hans Dieter Arntz wrote his biography in 2012 titled “The Last Jewish Elder of Bergen-Belsen“ and on his initiative, since May 16, 2013, a street in the city of Flamersheim, Germany has been named after Jupp Josef Weiss, in a ceremony attended by various personalities and their families from Israel.
In turn and justly, Josef Weiss was awarded the Order of Salvation of the Jew, in merit of the valuable undertaking that the Bna'i Brith, the Agrarian Fund of Israel, has been promoting in Israel for years around those Jews who, risking their lives, saved those of their brothers during the Holocaust. The ceremony was held several months ago in the Martyrs' Forest near Jerusalem. On this occasion, her granddaughter Atará Zachor Dayán received the aforementioned distinction.
Weiterführende Links:
Israelischer Zeitungsartikel über die Würdigung der Lebensleistung von Josef ("Jupp") Weiss, "Letzter Judenältester von Bergen-Belsen" 
(German Version)