Burde

Marie Burde She earns her living by selling newspapers and as a pickpocket. In 1943, a friend asks her for help for an „underground“ Jew. The single woman, who lives in the most impoverished circumstances, spontaneously agrees to let Rolf Joseph stay in her basement apartment in Berlin-Wedding.

One day, the 23-year-old gets caught up in a Wehrmacht control and is arrested. He manages to escape from the train to Auschwitz and Marie Burde return, during which time he also takes in his brother Alfred and his peer Arthur Fordanski.

Burde shares her meager food rations with them and collects discarded vegetables at weekly markets to be able to feed her protégés. After her cellar apartment was bombed in late 1943, Burde takes the three men under her protection on her property in Schönow, north of Berlin, in the spring of 1944. There, Rolf Joseph remains until the Red Army invades at the end of April 1945. After the war ends, Rolf and Alfred Joseph remain in contact with their life-saver and Marie Burde now support them in turn.

© Memorial to the Silent Heroes

Rolf Joseph also spoke at schools about his survival story and about Mieze, with whom he was closely connected long after her death. For his commitment, he was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit in 2002.