How Did a Bavarian Nanny Help the Moritz Family?

Michael Moritz says the Roman Catholic nanny from his grandfather's house in Munich later opened her own house in rural Bavaria to his grandparents, his father, and his uncle when letting Jews stay for holidays had become very unpopular.

His father and uncle grew up in Munich in the 1920s and the early 1930s, when middle class and lower middle class households had a family servant. Before washing machines and vacuum cleaners, the person already in the house became the nanny once children were born. She left his grandparents' employment, married a railway worker in Bavaria who was also Roman Catholic, and she and her husband built their own house with their own hands. In the 1930s they never forgot the Moritz family. They had no children, were horrified by the Nazis, and did everything possible to help, keeping the house open for as long as they could. After the war his father and uncle went back to Bavaria very soon and kept a strong connection with her until she died. He remembers staying in her house, and the story of the house is in the book.

Yad Vashem bestows acknowledgements on people who helped Jews and others during World War II. She was one of the righteous and kept an ethical compass she would not allow anyone else to alter.