Solidarity and Aid
Auguste and Karl Gehre Hide Their Jewish Family Doctor
Auguste Gehre (1898–1972) and Karl Gehre (1897–1968) were deeply grateful to their family doctor, Dr Arthur Arndt (1893–1974), who had saved the life of their daughter Ingeborg when she was extremely ill with diphtheria. In 1938, the KVD revoked Arndt’s medical licence because of his Jewish heritage and relegated him to the role of “Krankenbehandler” or “treater of the sick”. The Gehres helped the Arndt family go into hiding, thereby saving them from deportation to an extermination camp.
In January 1943, Arthur Arndt began living in the pantry of their apartment on Kottbusser Ufer (today Fraenkelufer) in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. The Gehres helped his wife Lina Arndt (1886–1980) as well as their two children Ruth and Erich with arranging other hiding spots and food supplies. The help of numerous supporters allowed the Arndts to survive in various hiding spots until the end of the war. They then emigrated to the United States and settled in New York City. The Gehres also emigrated to the United States in 1948, settling in Glens Falls, New York.
For their life-saving efforts, Auguste and Karl Gehre were post-humously named “Righteous Among the Nations” in 1988 by the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem.
Last Chance: Go Into Hiding
Before the Nazis came to power, the clientele of German Jewish doctors naturally included non-Jewish patients as well. Their reactions to the expulsion of Jews from the medical profession varied greatly. Only a few were as courageous as Auguste and Karl Gehre in helping the persecuted Jews.
Starting in 1941, nearly 15,000 Jewish people in Germany went into hiding to avoid deportation and extermination, with 6,500 of them in Berlin alone. Thanks to the help of people like Auguste and Karl Gehre, around 1,700 Jews survived in the Third Reich’s capital city by hiding illegally until the end of the war.