Thread by @RudiGeerts

Toni Rinde - Her family's brave decision
1/n
Rinde was born in 1940 as Toni Igel in Przemysl, in Poland, about 14 months after Germans invaded the country.
Her family was among thousands of Jews who were confined in the city’s Jewish ghetto when in 1942 her dad, Stanley,

2/n got word that the Gestapo was preparing an “aktion” to transport hundreds of residents to a death camp.
Though the Germans reviled her dad and called him “a dirty Jew,” they still relied upon him to help distribute food and supplies to the troops and the ghetto.

3/n In his food distribution work, Stanley Igel got to know Albert Battel, one of the few Germans who seemed friendly to him, so when Igel got word of the impending action against Jews in the ghetto, he was alarmed. “My dad mentioned that to Battel

Toni with her parents, 1945

4/n the next day when he was distributing food and Battel said ‘Don’t worry, let me see what I can do.’”
Battel sent a battalion of troops to stop the SS from crossing the river; to stop them from going to the ghetto. The SS, was at odds with the Wehrmacht,

Albert Battel

5/n Germany’s regular armed forces.
Battel also sent several trucks into the ghetto and pulled out about 100 Jews, including her family, to hide them in the basement of the Wehrmacht headquarters. Battel brought them food every day, including an orange for her because he knew

6/n babies needed vitamins. Rinde was about 16 months old then.
Battel was not the only one who saved the life of Rinde and her family. But the experience was chilling enough that her dad knew he wanted to get his family out.

7/n One day, while her parents were walking, pushing her in a baby carriage in an area outside the ghetto, a woman approached them. Rinde said her dad asked“‘Can you help me?’ The answer was ‘yes’ and arrangements were made to meet the next day and my parents were going to leave

8/n the carriage and she was going to walk by and pick up the carriage, and that was the beginning of my life as a hidden child.”
Until the war ended, Toni lived with the woman, whom she was taught to call Aunt Koniosna. The aunt obtained a fake

Aunt Koniosna with Toni

9/n birth certificate from the Catholic archdiocese for Toni and her first name was changed to Marisha.
Rinde was christened and went to a local Catholic church every Sunday. “I also went to catechism and there I learned Polish prayers which I recited every night

10/n before I went to bed.” She said her aunt taught her to pray for her parents every night.
To this day Rinde does not know the full name of the woman who took her in and protected her through the war.
After the war, once she and her parents were in the United States,

11/11 her parents tried to send the woman money and gifts as thanks for saving her. At the time, Poland was under Communist rule and it was years later before the family learned that none of the assistance they sent ever made it to the woman.

12/ Colorisation main photo: John Cocker @joecocker15