Hartford, Ct — October 29, 2013 … Rein’s is a well known restaurant. If you are driving between New York and Boston, it is the place to stop for breakfast, lunch or dinner. This New York style deli features mouth watering Hebrew National pastrami and corn beef. And a wide variety of delicious foods that try to compete with New York’s Carnegie Deli. But on this Tuesday morning, it was not the eggs and salami being served in the closed, back room.

Sonja Tomczak, a tall, attractive, blond middle aged woman was receiving flowers.

This Christian woman was breaking bread with a small group of Jews, also living in the Greater Hartford area. The Jews came to say thanks. They came to Rein’s Deli to see her uncle Joe Luft, recount how he saved the lives of three girls during the Holocaust. They came to hear how Joe’s mother, Maria, hid a Jew on her farm for two weeks at great risk to her entire family.

Discussing the Holocaust, where over 12 million people were murdered, over 6 million Jews were exterminated has it’s challenges. First, it was an event that happened over 60 years ago. Many who were involved have either died or are too old to remember. And for those who do remember, who do they speak with?

What person who was born in the 1950's or the 1980's can relate to the sheer horrors?
Who would want to dive into one of the darkest periods of history ever known to mankind?

But there are still many Jews who have sworn: “Never forget, never again.”
Many of these Jews established the modern state of Israel to assure that the systematic murder of Jews is never repeated. And they and many others from a wide variety of faiths have created Holocaust museums to honor the memory of their relatives who were shot, hung or gassed by the Nazis.

“I was pushed into it,” says Joe Luft. The 86-year-old Christian German speaks slowly, articulate from St. Louis over a SKYPE Internet video conference.

“I was standing outside a restaurant in Birnau, Germany with two other friends when this Gestapo commander walked over to me. With a black, leather whip in his hand, he ordered me to find three girls who had just escaped from a convoy of 800 women who were marching on foot to the Flossenbürg concentration camp. I had nothing to say. Could not respond. You don’t respond unless you want to be beaten or killed,” said Luft.

“The Gestapo commander pointed in the direction of where the girls had run. We walked through knee deep snow on this cold, cloudy day to find these Jewish girls and bring them back. Most of the women in this forced march in February 1942 had no shoes, no coats – they were cold. Very cold. They had placed rags over their feet.”

Luft, who was only 10 years-old at the time, said that as he and his friends spotted the girls standing on the top of a steep hill.

“They were crying. They were praying. They begged us not to return them to the Nazis.”
Luft said that he grew up in a religious home. His mother Maria was a devout Catholic. They believed in Christ and all that was good. That the Nazis tried their best to brainwash them. To take away their ability to think for themselves.

“When they first came to our town to organize the Hitler Youth, we greet them with snowballs,” said Luft. “We are farmers. We are independent people. We think for ourselves. We wanted nothing to do with these goof heads. Our little guerrilla war worked. They were never able to organize in our town. We wanted nothing to do with saying Heil Hitler.”

Luft described the three Jewish girls as being pretty. Their ages were 19, 20 and 21. Brown hair with beautiful complexions. They spoke German though they might have been from the East – perhaps Poland.

“I was the first to speak. I said to them tell me your story. And so they did. And begged again not to be returned to the Nazis. I turned around and looked at my friends. One was from Berlin. He was younger than me. His home had been bombed by the allies and was sent to find housing in my village. He wanted to return the girls to the masses who awaited death. The other boy was older, about 15. He came from my village. I said let’s do this democratically, let’s vote. The boy from my village and I voted to help the girls. The boy from Berlin was outvoted.”

Luft said that he turned to the girls and told them that they would help them.

“If I was older I probably would have asked one of them on a date,” said Luft.
“I told the Jewish girls about a farmer who lived about a mile away. That he hated Hitler and hated the Nazis and that he should be able to help them. We gave them instructions on how to get there. We told them that we had to disappear or we would be hunted just like them. We wished them luck and reassured them that they would be safe with the farmer who hated Nazis.”

Luft said that they were in an area by the Vinder Mill. And that the farm house that they sent the girls to is today a fish pond. Luft had revisited his home town in 1993 and said that much had changed.

“We don’t know if they ever made it to the farm. Or what happened to them after they left this snowy, cold hill. I only pray that they made it safely and were provided with shelter.”

Towards the end of the war, Luft said that a man appeared at the door of his farmhouse.

“He was a tall man wearing a German uniform with civilian clothes over it,” Luft said.
“He spoke with my mother Maria. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I did hear him say that he was Jewish.”
Thousands of German Jews proudly served in the German army during the first world war. But Jews were not allowed to be part of any organization, let alone the German army during World War Two.

The Jews gathered at Rein’s guessed that this man may have been a deserter or even better a Jew who stole a German uniform to escape from one of the many concentration camps. Why would he ever had said that he was Jewish?

“He said he was Jewish and he looked Jewish,” said Luft. “We hid him in a small room for two weeks. He would talk and counsel me like a father.”

“One day, an American patrol walked over to our farm. They may have seen the white flag we placed on the roof. The Nazis came to our farm a few times and ordered us to remove the white flag. So we did, but after a few hours we would put it back up. We wanted to make sure that the Americans knew we meant them no harm.”

“They spoke only English and began to imitate chickens,” said Luft.”They were asking us if we had eggs. Though we had about 8 chickens, I shrugged no as we had very little food to feed ourselves. They were polite, smiled and went off. Shortly after the Americans left the Jewish man we hid burned his German uniform. He left our farm a few days later. The sounds of artillery and machine guns fell silent. We only heard birds. The war was over.”

There were only 525 people in Germany credited with saving the lives of Jews during the Holocaust. The numbers of Righteous are not necessarily an indication of the actual number of rescuers in each country, but reflect the cases that were made available to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.

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