The Most Important Story I Will Ever Tell My Grandchildren

You know I’ve told you many stories before, and read lots of books snuggled up with you at bedtime when you were little. But I had to wait until you were older to tell you what is probably the most important story I will ever share with you.

This is the story of how your Papa Fred was given the chance to be born.

Dr. Fred Wagshul at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin with images of Dr. Mohammed Helmy (L) and Fred’s biological mother, Anna Boros Gutman.

As you already know, Papa Fred was adopted by a loving Jewish family in 1949, when he was just a baby. (For more on Papa Fred’s adoption, watch the 10-minute video, “Anna’s Story” with your parents.) It wasn’t until 2013, after searching for his biological family for several years, that we finally learned that he had a brother and sister. From them, we soon learned the unbelievable story of how he came to be born.

Anna (L) with her grandmother Cecily in 1940 Berlin

Papa Fred’s biological mother, Anna Boros Gutman, was a teenage Jewish girl living in Berlin, Germany, in the early 1940s with her mother and stepfather. The Nazis, a very large military force commanded by the ruthless German dictator Adolph Hitler, had come to power a few years earlier. By then, World War II was already underway, with Hitler invading nearby nations primarily to rid Eastern Europe (and beyond) of all Jewish life. Hitler successfully convinced millions of Germans that their economic, political, and social woes following World War I were all the fault of the Jews. He told the German people that they would have more money, more food on the table, and better jobs if they were able to solve the “Jewish problem.”

But Hitler didn’t stop with just his hatred of all Jews. The racist policies of the Nazis even extended beyond the Jews to include homosexuals, Roma (sometimes referred to by the derogatory term “gypsies”), Jehovah’s Witnesses, dissidents, brown and black people, and more. In other words, people who were “other” than white Aryans or those who defied Nazi edicts were targeted for extermination (death) by the Nazis.

Anna — like other Jewish children in Berlin — was expelled from German public school in 1938 just for being Jewish. Her family doctor, Mohammed Helmy, was an Arab Muslim Egyptian national who despised Hitler—and he made little secret of it. Dr. Helmy was fired from his job as the Director of Urology at the Robert Koch Hospital in Berlin because he was considered a “Hamite” (another demeaning term used to describe a member of an ancient Egyptian group believed to be descended from Ham, the son of Noah) In other words, Dr. Helmy may have been a brilliant doctor, but he had to be fired because he was not white and because he spoke openly of his deep contempt for Hitler and the Nazis.

I wonder what you think of that. Let me know.

By the early 1940s, in Germany and in other Nazi-occupied countries, the Nazis began rounding up the Jews— placing them in ghettoes or in concentration camps. Keeping the Jews contained and confined was part of Hitler’s “Final Solution” — the Nazis’ code name for the carefully planned destruction of all Jewish life across Europe.

In 1942, Anna—unable to attend school—began working part-time as a medical assistant for Dr. Helmy at his Berlin medical office, where he had opened a private practice after being fired from the hospital. Anna and her family were happy to have found Dr. Helmy after they were dismissed from their German doctor’s practice for being Jewish.

One day, Anna, her mother, stepfather, and grandparents received a notification to report to the train station for deportation. They fled to Dr. Helmy’s office to beg him for help. Dr. Helmy knew that if he did not step in immediately to assist them, they would certainly be deported to a concentration camp— likely the largest and most notorious killing center during the Holocaust, Auschwitz. Auschwitz was only one of over 44,000 concentration camps, labor camps, and ghettoes that opened all across the European continent.

Dr. Helmy acted quickly to devise a bold and brave plan.

First, Dr. Helmy contacted Frieda Szturmann, a non-Jewish patient of his, who immediately agreed to hide Anna’s parents and grandparents in her home, where she had already been hiding other Jews. Then, he whisked Anna to a cabin that he and his German-born fiancée, Emmy Ernst, owned in Buch, a suburb of Berlin. (Dr. Helmy was not allowed to marry Emmy under Nazi rule because a non-white like Dr. Helmy was not permitted to marry a white German.) For much of the time, Dr. Helmy needed to hide Anna in the home’s backyard “laube”— a small garden shed.

But the plan was fraught with danger. The Nazis began to question Dr. Helmy, believing he was hiding Jews. They knew he had a cabin outside of Berlin, and Dr. Helmy feared that if the Nazis went to Buch to search the home and yard, they would discover Anna in the laube. Dr. Helmy had to think quickly. He devised another scheme.

One of the false papers Dr. Helmy created to change Anna’s identity from Jewish to Muslim

By creating false papers and forging official-looking documents, Dr. Helmy produced a new Muslim identity for Anna. He gave her the name “Nadia” and printed a false certificate of marriage that showed she was married to an Arab Muslim man named “Mohammed.” The papers were very well crafted and looked authentic, though they were all fake.

Then he and Anna had to do something unimaginable — and extremely dangerous.

With her new identity, false identification papers, and wearing the clothing of a Muslim woman, including the hijab (head covering) and niqab (face veil), Anna began to accompany Dr. Helmy on his medical rounds in Nazi-occupied Berlin during the times when it was unsafe for her to remain in Buch. Dr. Helmy, who had been arrested three times, was ordered to provide medical treatment for the Nazis as a condition of his release. Wanting to protect Anna, Dr. Helmy took her with him into the SS headquarters — the elite Nazi officer squad responsible for enforcing Nazi policies, managing concentration camps, and committing numerous war crimes during World War II.

Can you imagine how frightened they both must have been walking into Nazi headquarters?

A young Dr. Mohammed Helmy

For two years, Dr. Helmy risked his life every day to keep Anna safe from the Nazis. Several times, he was interrogated by Nazi officers who became suspicious that Anna’s Muslim “marriage” was not valid. They also questioned him about Anna’s whereabouts when she did not accompany Dr. Helmy on his medical rounds. During those times, Dr. Helmy would tell them a story about where Anna was… like saying she was visiting her Egyptian relatives in southern Germany.

The war came to an end in 1945, and Anna was able to survive the war—but only due to the steadfast courage and heroism of Dr. Helmy. He risked his life every day for nearly three years to keep her safe — and her parents and grandparents well-hidden and protected by Frieda Szturmann.

Had Anna not survived, Papa Fred would have never been born. And had Papa Fred never been born, then it’s fairly certain that the thousands of people whose lives Papa Fred saved during his distinguished career as a pulmonologist may have had much sadder outcomes. This number includes the few thousand patients he treated via telehealth for two years during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fred with patients in his office.

But here is the point I want to be sure you understand. Dr. Helmy did not save Anna because he knew that if he did, her eldest son was going to be born and one day save thousands of others through his work as a doctor. How could he have known that? No, of course he couldn’t have. He did it because it was the moral and ethical thing to do. He had no expectation of profit or honor. His reward was simply the survival of those he tried to protect.

The universe’s reward for his saving of Anna was that Papa Fred WAS born.

Likewise, you will never know what the ripple effect of being an “Upstander” like Dr. Helmy will be if you perform just a simple act of kindness, mercy, generosity, empathy, or courage. Even something as small as sharing your food with someone who is hungry or checking on an elderly neighbor is likely to ignite a spark that will grow into a flame of even more goodness for humanity.

I tell you this story now because, as your Bubbie, I want you to see in the most powerful way possible how bigotry and racism can grow into something so evil and so destructive that it threatens the lives of good people — and humanity itself. That is why it’s important to be an Upstander in all aspects of your lives — even when it might not be the easiest or most popular thing to do.

Dr. Mohammed Helmy and Anna Boros Gutman

Remember that an Arab Muslim risked his life daily to save a Jew and her family when there was no expectation for him to do so, but that his conscience, his sense of justice, and reverence for all human life compelled him to act. If Hitler had deported Egyptian Arab Muslims, too, like Dr. Helmy, then Papa Fred would probably have never been born.

But perhaps most importantly, I want you to be aware that despite the lessons we should have learned about what happened in Nazi Germany, racist governments and regimes still rage throughout the world. Creating new generations of Upstanders—starting right now— can help to bring peace and freedom to millions of persecuted people around the world.

So live your lives morally. Everyday. Try to do the right thing in every situation. Believe in the values of justice, equality, right, and humanity, and continue to demonstrate what it means to be an Upstander.

I hope you are proud and honored to know that your Papa Fred came to be born because of a brave act of humanity by a beautiful human who stood up, frightened but determined to save a precious human life.

And, as Papa Fred always says, “Do the right thing. The right thing is everything.”

I love you more than you can ever imagine,

Bubbie