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Jacob Thalmay 1907 - 1945 Edit

Born 21.1.1907 in Warszawa
Died 9.3.1945 in Melk

Biography

Jacob Thalmay was on born 21 January 1904 in Warsaw, Poland. He and his four other siblings came to Denmark in 1905 with their parents Lipa and Hannah. He married Johanne Bornstein in 1934 and they had a son, Bent, who was born in 1935.

Jacob trained as an optician and had his own shop in the centre of Copenhagen. He had a great talent for music and was fluent in many languages, i.e. French and German, besides Yiddish, Polish and Danish.

At the beginning of the Second World War he got involved with the Danish resistance. Activities included sabotage against the Nazis as well as producing illegal publications, hiding refugees and bringing people to safety to Sweden.

In 1943 he sent his wife and son on a fishing boat to neutral Sweden, like most of the Danish Jews. Jacob decided to stay in Denmark to continue the work of rescuing others.

He realised that a part of the family had been captured and sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. He dressed up as a Nazi officer, went to the Gestapo headquarters and tried to have them sent back to Denmark. Unfortunately he was recognised by a Danish/Icelandic Nazi collaborator who used to be a neighbour of his.

Jacob was arrested by the Nazis and went through several prisons in Denmark before being sent to Sachsenhausen. In August 1944 he was transferred to Auschwitz and participated in the death march to Mauthausen (Melk), where he collapsed and died on 9 March 1945.

 

Charlotte Thalmay

Translation into English: Joanna White

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