Dr. Helmut Sell (1898–1956) and his wife Annemarie (1896–1972) were German

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

rescuers living in Berlin during the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

. In 1981, they were posthumously honored as "

Righteous among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sa ...

" by

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

at a ceremony in Jerusalem. In October 2002, the medal was finally presented to the children of the Sells at a ceremony in

Schenectady, New York Schenectady () is a city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-largest city by population. The city is in eastern New Y ...

. Dr. Sell owned a small factory for fine mechanical parts at the Englische Strasse in

Berlin-Dahlem Dahlem ( or ) is a locality of the Steglitz-Zehlendorf borough in southwestern Berlin. Until Berlin's 2001 administrative reform it was a part of the former borough of Zehlendorf. It is located between the mansion settlements of Grunewald and ...

. In March 1943, he hired as a delivery boy a Jewish youth who had been living illegally on the streets of Berlin since May 1942. Dr. Sell did not realize at the time that the boy, who showed up dressed in a

Hitler Youth The Hitler Youth (german: Hitlerjugend , often abbreviated as HJ, ) was the youth organisation of the Nazi Party in Germany. Its origins date back to 1922 and it received the name ("Hitler Youth, League of German Worker Youth") in July 1926. ...

uniform, was a disguised Jew. When, three weeks later, the boy, Ezra Ben Gershom, confided his true identity, Sell responded by identifying himself as an old-time

Social Democrat Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soc ...

and a sworn enemy of the Nazi regime. Sell arranged forged travel documents for the boy, which purported to prove that he was going to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

at the behest of the German armaments industry. On the last nights before the journey, he sheltered Gershom in his own home in Potsdam, and provided him with food and counsel. Dr. Sell's wife Annemarie was also party to the secret. On May 28, 1981, Yad Vashem recognized Dr. Helmuth and Annemarie Sell as Righteous Among the Nations.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sell, Hellmuth and Annemarie German Righteous Among the Nations