Max Windmüller

Max Windmüller was a German member of the Dutch resistance. He was forced to flee from the National Socialists to the Netherlands with his parents because of their Jewish faith. He joined the Westerweel Group there and saved the lives of many Jewish children and young people. The members of the Westerweel group organized identification papers, hiding places and escape opportunities, especially for German-Jewish children and young people who had fled from Germany. In this group, Jews and members of other faiths worked together to save the Jews from persecution. Such cooperation was not a matter of course in the Netherlands. Windmüller personally saved around 100 young Jews, and the entire Westerweel group saved 393 Jews. In July 1944, the Gestapo stormed a secret meeting of the Resistance group in Paris in which Windmüller and other members of the Jewish resistance were arrested. They were then taken to Gestapo headquarters where they were interrogated and tortured. When the liberation of the camp by Allied troops was imminent, Windmüller was deported from occupied France with the last transport. On 21 April 1945, he was shot by a Schutzstaffel member.