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Ruth Andreas-Friedrich

September 23, 1901 - September 17, 1977
Ruth Andreas-Friedrich Ruth Andreas-Friedrich 

The Berlin journalist Ruth Andreas-Friedrich and her partner, the conductor Leo Borchard, grew more and more concerned by the Nazi regime's increasingly harsh measures against Jews. They helped Jewish acquaintances escape from Germany and took friends into their home in Berlin during the anti-Jewish pogrom of November 1938. Soon after that, they began regularly meeting with like-minded friends to discuss help for victims of persecution. This group was later known as "Uncle Emil."

As more and more of Berlin's Jews went underground to escape deportation during 1942, Andreas-Friedrich and her friends supported a number of them. They obtained food ration stamps, food, and false papers, and organized accommodation. In 1943 the network of helpers distributed copies of the last leaflet by the Munich White Rose resistance group in Berlin. During the night of April 18, 1945, they painted a very visible "NO" on walls in the south of the city, and two nights later distributed numerous flyers calling for resistance against Hitler's commands to keep fighting.