Margarete Sommer

Margarete (Grete) Sommer (July 21, 1893 – June 30, 1965) was a Catholic social worker. During the Holocaust, she helped persecuted Jewish citizens, keeping many of them from deportation to death camps. She was the assistant of Bishop Konrad von Preysing. In 1943 she and the Bishop drafted a statement for the German Bishops which would have actually rebuked Hitler for human rights abuses and mass murder. The draft began, "With deepest sorrow--yes even with holy indignation--have we German bishops learned of the deportation of non-Aryans in a manner that is scornful of all human rights. It is our holy duty to defend the unalienable rights of all men guaranteed by natural law." The end of the draft chided Hitler on the very issue of genocide: "We would not want to omit to say that meeting these previously mentioned stipulations would be the most certain way to deflate the crescendo of rumors regarding the mass death of the deported non-Aryans." The statement was not issued on the basis that it had already been asserted in 1942. After Fr. Bernhard Lichtenberg died while under arrest, the Bishop appointed her to head his diocesan office for assisting Jews. In 2003 she was posthumously awarded the honorary title of Righteous Among the Nations.

Persondata
Name	Sommer, Margarete
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Date of birth	July 21, 1893
Place of birth	Berlin
Date of death	June 30, 1965
Place of death	Berlin