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I have always tried to find my rescuer. I even wrote to the Embassy of Germany, but there were no results. I was trying to find Krull, Frioff and Shtoide but the officials replied that Germans had never rescued Jews, and our officials told me that it was 'politically incorrect' to be looking for a German friend.
In 1996 inmates from ghettos in Warsaw and Krakow invited Jewish ghetto and camp inmates from Kiev to visit their towns. This visit was sponsored by the Maximilian Kolbe Werk. [This is a German charity organization supporting former concentration camp prisoners and trying to bring about reconciliation.] I was in one of the groups. In Warsaw we were met by the representatives of the Polish ghetto inmates and Margaret and Werner Muller, a German couple from Cologne. I talked to the Mullers about my rescuer and asked them if they could help me find him or his relatives. I also told them that there were two more rescuers that had helped me. It was difficult to speak German. I hadn't spoken it for 54 years, and the German I spoke was closer to Yiddish.
On 14th November 1996 the Mullers called me from Cologne and said that they had received some information from the military archives. Krull died at the age of 62 in 1979. Shtoide was missing. Krull's wife Christine and their daughter Janine knew that Krull had rescued a certain Rabinov in the ghetto in Pinsk and wanted to meet with me. Margaret and Werner Muller sponsored my wife's and my trip to Germany. We stayed with the Mullers in Cologne, and they paid all our expenses. We visited the grave of Krull in Dusseldorf, and his wife Christine Krull. We met Krull's daughter Janine in Dusseldorf. I told her about the children of the ghetto who knew that they were going to die. We both cried. In 1997 my story was placed in the Yad Vashem museum [18] in Jerusalem. On 10th January 1999 my German rescuer, Gunter Krull, was awarded the title of the Righteous Among the Nations' [19] posthumously. On 3rd February 2002 Werner Muller found Hans-Joachim Shtoide, who had supported me in Kiev at the request of Gunter Krull. I talked with him on the phone. The first thing he said was how glad he was that I survived.
Muller wrote a book about my rescuers. It was published in German and Belarus. [The German version of the book was published by the Dittrich Verlag, Cologne, under the title Aus dem Feuer gerissen. Die Geschichte des Pjotr Ruwinowitsch Rabzewitsch aus Pinsk in 2001.] I think that this book is a monument to my family and to all Jews of Pinsk exterminated in the ghetto, a condemnation of fascism and a monument to Gunter Krull, Mr. Shtoide, corporal Frioff and to my dear friends Margaret and Werner Muller, who dedicated five years of their lives to find my rescuers.
In 1996 inmates from ghettos in Warsaw and Krakow invited Jewish ghetto and camp inmates from Kiev to visit their towns. This visit was sponsored by the Maximilian Kolbe Werk. [This is a German charity organization supporting former concentration camp prisoners and trying to bring about reconciliation.] I was in one of the groups. In Warsaw we were met by the representatives of the Polish ghetto inmates and Margaret and Werner Muller, a German couple from Cologne. I talked to the Mullers about my rescuer and asked them if they could help me find him or his relatives. I also told them that there were two more rescuers that had helped me. It was difficult to speak German. I hadn't spoken it for 54 years, and the German I spoke was closer to Yiddish.
On 14th November 1996 the Mullers called me from Cologne and said that they had received some information from the military archives. Krull died at the age of 62 in 1979. Shtoide was missing. Krull's wife Christine and their daughter Janine knew that Krull had rescued a certain Rabinov in the ghetto in Pinsk and wanted to meet with me. Margaret and Werner Muller sponsored my wife's and my trip to Germany. We stayed with the Mullers in Cologne, and they paid all our expenses. We visited the grave of Krull in Dusseldorf, and his wife Christine Krull. We met Krull's daughter Janine in Dusseldorf. I told her about the children of the ghetto who knew that they were going to die. We both cried. In 1997 my story was placed in the Yad Vashem museum [18] in Jerusalem. On 10th January 1999 my German rescuer, Gunter Krull, was awarded the title of the Righteous Among the Nations' [19] posthumously. On 3rd February 2002 Werner Muller found Hans-Joachim Shtoide, who had supported me in Kiev at the request of Gunter Krull. I talked with him on the phone. The first thing he said was how glad he was that I survived.
Muller wrote a book about my rescuers. It was published in German and Belarus. [The German version of the book was published by the Dittrich Verlag, Cologne, under the title Aus dem Feuer gerissen. Die Geschichte des Pjotr Ruwinowitsch Rabzewitsch aus Pinsk in 2001.] I think that this book is a monument to my family and to all Jews of Pinsk exterminated in the ghetto, a condemnation of fascism and a monument to Gunter Krull, Mr. Shtoide, corporal Frioff and to my dear friends Margaret and Werner Muller, who dedicated five years of their lives to find my rescuers.
Period
Interview
peter rabtsevich