Marianne Tolska was already a famous and successful singer and dancer when she moved to Berlin in 1924. It was there she met Hans Golz, who became her husband five years later. Hans and Marianne Golz were a happy couple, living a successful life in Berlin, surrounded with influential friends and acquaintances. When the National Socialists came to power in the early 1930s, they decided to move to Prague because while Marianne was Catholic, Hans was Jewish, a dangerous thing to be in Nazi Germany.
As time passed and the Nazi specter grew, they decided that Hans should leave for the U.K. and planned that Marianne would follow with Hans’ mother and sister. This became impossible in 1939, and Marianne’s life in Prague took a dramatic turn. Unlike many, she had no doubt what she should do. She developed sources within the Gestapo and simultaneously held weekly meetings with anyone needing the false documents she obtained. She fearlessly and tirelessly helped countless Jews to escape to Italy. She ran her clandestine operation successfully until a cold Tuesday night in November of 1942 when the Gestapo raided her apartment.
At her trial the prosecutor said the following, “She has friendly ties to Jews, half-Jews and friends of Jews… it is clear that Golz would without inner or outer pressure assist other Jews she knows in avoiding state measures aimed at them by aiding their illegal emigration…She did not act under pressure but from an inner conviction…she is utterly mentally Jew-ridden.”
Marianne Golz was sentenced to death and spent several months in prison in Prague before her sentence was carried out. The prison record notes that Marianne Golz was beheaded on October 8, 1943 at 4:44PM.
In February of 1960, Hans Golz was informed that the Federal Republic of Germany was going to pay him DM 1.500 for imprisonment of his wife in Pancraz Prison from November 19th, 1942 until October 8th, 1943 at 4:43 p.m. No mention was made of what occurred one minute later.
Marianne Golz was recognized as Righteous Among Nations in 1988.
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