German War Graves Vilnius

The Antakalnis cemetery in Vilnius contains a plot with the graves of about 700 German soldiers and officers who fell in the First World War.

ANTON SCHMID
The same cemetery also contains the grave of Anton Schmid (born in Vienna in 1900). Schmid was a WW I veteran of the Austro-Hungarian army who was recruited into the Wehrmacht in 1939 after the anschluss. In 1941 he ended up in Vilnius where he had an office job for the army. In Vilnius, after some Jews begged him for help, he started helping Jews. This varied from providing work, transporting Jews to safer areas by army trucks, to even offering people a place to hide in his own apartment. He also had contacts with and helped the Jewish resistance in Vilnius. Until his arrest in January 1942, he is estimated to have saved 250 to 300 Jews. A military court sentenced him to death, that sentence was carried out on April 13, 1942.

After the war, his efforts were recognized, among others by Yad Vashem.

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Source

• Text: TracesOfWar & Jörgen Brouwer
• Photos: Jörgen Brouwer (1, 2, 3, 5), Ivan Bai (4)