by Cindy K. Stewart
During the early years of WWII, the Soviets occupied Lithuania in the Baltics. In June of 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, including the Baltics and captured Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Vilnius was twenty-five percent Jewish and was an "important center of Jewish cultural life in Eastern Europe."
By late summer of 1941, the SS Einsatzgruppen, Hitler's elite killing squads, began taking Jewish men, women, and children to large pits in the Ponary Forest outside Vilnius to shoot them. Tens of thousands of Jews as well as Poles and Russians were murdered there.
When WWII began, 39-year old German shopkeeper Toni Schmid from Vienna, Austria was drafted into the German army. "He had no love for the Nazis or for Hitler" but was a deeply committed Christian. Schmid held the rank of sergeant and ran a post in the rear-echelon of the army "for stragglers and other troops separated from their units." In 1941 he was sent to Vilnius where he witnessed SS troops murdering Jewish children. Horrified, he wanted to help the Jews but didn't know how.
One night Sergeant Schmid walked down a dark street in Vilnius, and a desperate, young Jewish woman stepped out of the shadows and pleaded with Schmid to protect her from the SS death squads. He took her to his apartment for the night and the following day to a Catholic priest he knew. The priest issued the woman a certificate of membership from his church. Schmid helped her obtain an official identity card and an apartment to rent by telling the German officials that she was a civilian employee from his military unit, and the Soviets had taken her documents when they retreated.
Next, Sergeant Schmid had the opportunity to help a young Jewish man also hiding from the death squads. Schmid gave the young man a German army uniform and the military identity papers of a German soldier who'd died but his death had not been reported. Then Schmid installed the young man as a military aide in his office.
One of Schmid's duties was to oversee workshops manned by convalescing German soldiers, Russian POW's, and Jews with skills needed for the war effort. Although he was only allowed to employ fifteen Jews, Schmid "issued enough documents to bring in dozens of Jewish workers."
Under the cover of darkness, Schmid visited the Vilnius ghetto and supplied the Jews with "food, medicine and milk-filled baby bottles he had kept warm in his pockets." He warned the ghetto residents when Nazi raids were about to take place. Some of Schmid's Jewish workers were caught in roundups, and he went to the local prison and obtained their release. He hid Jews "in the covered rear of trucks bound for German-occupied areas of the the Soviet Union," hoping they would be safer than they were in Lithuania."
A Jewish resistance movement formed in the Vilnius ghetto, and Sergeant Schmid secretly advised its leaders. He "helped transport Jewish resistance fighters out of Vilnius," told them "of pending German operations," and even supplied them with stolen German weapons. He also "allowed resistance members to meet in his apartment."
Schmid's good deeds did not escape the notice of the Gestapo, and agents began following him. They raided his apartment, but he was visiting the ghetto at the time. Some of the soldiers who worked under Schmid located him before he arrived home and warned him that Gestapo agents were waiting at his apartment. He fled but after several weeks was caught and sentenced to death.
On April 13, 1942, Sergeant Schmid was executed by a Nazi firing squad. His "last words were the Lord's Prayer." Before his death, he "had enabled almost 300 Jews to escape capture or murder by the Nazis in Lithuania."
The night before his execution, Sergeant Schmid wrote a letter to his wife and daughter in Austria.
"'I am informing you, my dearest that I must depart from this world,
I am sentenced to death. Please remain strong and trust in our dear
God, who decides the destiny of each of us....Now I close my last lines,
the last I can write to you, and send my love.'"
Sergeant Schmid took to heart Christ's teaching that "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Only Sergeant Schmid gave his life for strangers.
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| Vilnius, Lithuania Old Town Skyline. Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0. Courtesy of Wikipedia |
During the early years of WWII, the Soviets occupied Lithuania in the Baltics. In June of 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, including the Baltics and captured Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. Vilnius was twenty-five percent Jewish and was an "important center of Jewish cultural life in Eastern Europe."
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| Public Domain. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. |
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| Site of the Ponary massacre, where the German Nazis and their collaborators executed up to 100,000 people of various nationalities. About 70,000 of them were Jews. Photo by Avi1111 DR. AVISHAI TEICHER. License: CC BY-SA 3.0. Courtesy of Wikipedia. |
One night Sergeant Schmid walked down a dark street in Vilnius, and a desperate, young Jewish woman stepped out of the shadows and pleaded with Schmid to protect her from the SS death squads. He took her to his apartment for the night and the following day to a Catholic priest he knew. The priest issued the woman a certificate of membership from his church. Schmid helped her obtain an official identity card and an apartment to rent by telling the German officials that she was a civilian employee from his military unit, and the Soviets had taken her documents when they retreated.
Next, Sergeant Schmid had the opportunity to help a young Jewish man also hiding from the death squads. Schmid gave the young man a German army uniform and the military identity papers of a German soldier who'd died but his death had not been reported. Then Schmid installed the young man as a military aide in his office.
One of Schmid's duties was to oversee workshops manned by convalescing German soldiers, Russian POW's, and Jews with skills needed for the war effort. Although he was only allowed to employ fifteen Jews, Schmid "issued enough documents to bring in dozens of Jewish workers."
Under the cover of darkness, Schmid visited the Vilnius ghetto and supplied the Jews with "food, medicine and milk-filled baby bottles he had kept warm in his pockets." He warned the ghetto residents when Nazi raids were about to take place. Some of Schmid's Jewish workers were caught in roundups, and he went to the local prison and obtained their release. He hid Jews "in the covered rear of trucks bound for German-occupied areas of the the Soviet Union," hoping they would be safer than they were in Lithuania."
A Jewish resistance movement formed in the Vilnius ghetto, and Sergeant Schmid secretly advised its leaders. He "helped transport Jewish resistance fighters out of Vilnius," told them "of pending German operations," and even supplied them with stolen German weapons. He also "allowed resistance members to meet in his apartment."
Schmid's good deeds did not escape the notice of the Gestapo, and agents began following him. They raided his apartment, but he was visiting the ghetto at the time. Some of the soldiers who worked under Schmid located him before he arrived home and warned him that Gestapo agents were waiting at his apartment. He fled but after several weeks was caught and sentenced to death.
On April 13, 1942, Sergeant Schmid was executed by a Nazi firing squad. His "last words were the Lord's Prayer." Before his death, he "had enabled almost 300 Jews to escape capture or murder by the Nazis in Lithuania."
The night before his execution, Sergeant Schmid wrote a letter to his wife and daughter in Austria.
"'I am informing you, my dearest that I must depart from this world,
I am sentenced to death. Please remain strong and trust in our dear
God, who decides the destiny of each of us....Now I close my last lines,
the last I can write to you, and send my love.'"
Sergeant Schmid took to heart Christ's teaching that "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Only Sergeant Schmid gave his life for strangers.
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Source (including quotes):
Gragg, Rod. My Brother's Keeper. Center Street, 2016.
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Cindy Stewart, a high school social studies teacher, church pianist, and inspirational historical fiction author, placed second in the 2019 North Texas Romance Writers Great Expectations contest, semi-finaled in the American Christian Fiction Writer’s Genesis contest, and won ACFW’s First Impressions contest in the historical category. Cindy is passionate about revealing God’s handiwork in history. She resides in North Georgia with her college sweetheart and husband of thirty-eight years and near her married daughter, son-in-law, and four adorable grandchildren. She’s currently writing a fiction series set in WWII Europe.
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