Karl Schörghofer worked since 1923 as administrator at the new Jewish cemetery in Munich and lived with his family in its land. Since 1935 the Schörghofer family had permanent problems with the national-socialist administration, because the Nuremberg race laws prohibited ”Aryans” to work for Jews. Nevertheless, Karl Schörghofer hid valuable items which belonged to emigrated Jews in the land of the cemetery. When in 1944 he was asked to help an orphan Jewish girl, he went for support at his daughter’s Martha Schleipfer. She took the girl at her house at a little town from Baviera.
In spite of the Gestapo frequent raids, the Schörghofer hid from January of the year 1944 a Jewish refugee at the basement of their house. In February of the year 1945 took other five underground Jews.
By the end of February, 1945, the Schörghofer and the Jews who were hiding at his house were reported to the police. Kurt Kahn and Klara Schwalb were arrested during a raid, but shortly after they managed to escape from the Gestapo and return the land of the cemetery. There they lived the end of the war together with the rest of the people who were hiding.
After the war, Karl Schörghofer helped the Jews who survived the holocaust and were staying at a close camp for ”displaced persons”. When smuggled items were found in the land of the cemetery and when it was discovered that Karl Schrörghofer had allowed the illegal sacrifice of animals, he and his son Karl were accused and sentenced to many months in prison.
Bibliography
- Kurt R. Grossmann, Die unbesungenen Helden, Berlin 1957, S. 132f.
- Anton Maria Keim (Hrsg.), Yad Vashem, Die Judenretter aus Deutschland, Mainz/München 1983, S.130.
