Maria von Maltzan

Maria Helene Françoise Izabel Gräfin von Maltzan, Freiin zu Wartenberg und Penzlin (March 25, 1909 – November 12, 1997) was an aristocrat who, as part of the German Resistance against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, saved the lives of many Jewish people in Berlin.

Countess Maria von Maltzan was born into an enormously wealthy family at Militsch Palace, Silesia, Germany (today Milicz, Poland) and was raised on the family's 18,000 acres (7,300 ha) estate, the youngest of eight children. After completing grade school in Berlin in 1927, she decided to undertake studies in zoology at the University of Breslau, quite unusual for a girl during this time. Her family was strictly against the idea, but her teachers supported her and she got permission. In 1928 she enrolled at the University of Munich where she received her doctorate in natural sciences five years later.

When the Nazis seized power in 1933, her sense of justice made her join different resistance movements against the Nazis almost immediately. For years she worked as an underground-fighter. Due to her status and relation to numerous Nazi officers, Von Maltzan was at first above suspicion. As the brutality of the Nazi Régime accelerated with murder, violence and terror, the seeds of their plan for the total extermination of the Jews dawned on Maria von Maltzan in all its horror - and she immediately decided to act. Back in Berlin since 1935, she always responded to calls for help and took the Jews into her own home, fed and protected them, right under the noses of the Gestapo. Due to her well-known political attitude she had to get by with numerous jobs before in 1940 she began studying veterinary medicine, graduating in 1943. Throughout the war the Countess von Maltzan in cooperation with the Swedish Church provided a safe haven for more than 60 Jews, deserters and forced labourers, arranging for them to escape to safety. She falsified official visas and other documents and helped many Jews escape from Berlin in trucks that she often drove herself.

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