Rescue mode: Hiding, other
Michael Jovy was born
in Gladbeck/Westphalia, in 1920. During World War II, Jovy, Jülich, and Schink
were all connected to the Köln-Ehrenfeld group of the Edelweisspiraten, an
underground organization of mainly working-class youths of both sexes. They
were primarily characterized by their emotional opposition to National
Socialism. As they were opposed, too, to the racial doctrines of the regime and
its antisemitic obsessions, the Köln-based Edelweisspiraten admitted two Jewish
youngsters – the Schwarz brothers – into their clandestine organization,
thus allowing them to escape deportation to Auschwitz. In the latter part of
the war, they sheltered a Jewish woman and her daughter – Friedel and Ruth
Krämer – and a youngster of mixed Jewish origin, Paul Urbat, from
Köln-Bickendorf, in a cellar in the Schönsteinstrasse. There they also
assembled ammunition and foodstuffs. They declined to receive any material
remuneration for hiding the Jews. Jovy, the son of a former Center Party mayor
of Gladbeck, had already been arrested by the Gestapo in November 1939, and was
convicted two years later by the Berlin People’s Court for “preparation of high
treason.” Consigned to the Siegburg prison, he met there the 15-year-old son of
a Communist inmate who put him into contact with the Edelweisspiraten. In 1944,
he succeeded against all odds in escaping from the notorious 999 probation
battalion and joined the Edelweisspiraten in Köln. Bartholomäus Schink and Jean
Jülich were among those in the group who were most actively involved in aiding
Jews. As a child Schink had witnessed the maltreatment of a Jewish barber at
the hands of the SA and was roused to indignation against the persecution of
the Jews. In October 1944, the Gestapo succeeded in breaking up the illegal
organization and arrested most of its members, including Schink and Jülich. The
16-year-old Schink was among 13 persons who were publicly hanged on November
10, 1944, without even a trial. Jülich was imprisoned and survived until the
end of the war. Jovy managed to escape by joining a reconnaissance troop and
then crossing over to the Allied lines.
On November 18, 1982, Yad Vashem recognized Michael Jovy, Jean Jülich, and Bartholomäus Schink as Righteous Among the Nations.
On November 18, 1982, Yad Vashem recognized Michael Jovy, Jean Jülich, and Bartholomäus Schink as Righteous Among the Nations.
