After liberation: Bergen-Belsen
צילום: איי פי
Nazi resister Freya von Moltke dies in Vermont
Deceased chronicled resistance during war; husband executed in 1945
Freya von Moltke, a prominent member of the anti-Nazi resistance in Germany during World War II, has died at the age of 98, her son said.
Helmuth von Moltke told the Lebanon Valley News that his German-born mother died Friday after suffering a viral infection last week. She had lived in Vermont since 1960.
Freya von Moltke and her husband were leading members of the German resistance during World War II, and she chronicled the work of the resistance after his death.
Born into a banking family in 1911, Freya Deichmann met her future husband, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, when she was 18. They were married in 1931 and both received law degrees. Helmuth von Moltke set up a law practice in Berlin as Adolf Hitler rose to power in the 1930s.
Helmuth von Moltke was drafted into the German army as an international law expert, but he used his influence to help would-be victims of the regime escape and demand that Germany adhere to the Geneva Conventions in territories under its control. He was convicted of treason and executed in January 1945.
Freya von Moltke and her two sons emigrated to Poland and later South Africa where she began to chronicle the work of the German resistance through a series of lectures and books. She came to Vermont in 1960 to live with Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, a Dartmouth College professor and social philosopher who had fled Germany after the rise of the Nazis.
After Rosenstock-Huessy died in 1973, she dedicated herself to promoting his works, in addition to those of her late husband.
After the fall of communism in 1989, the von Moltkes' estate in Kreisau was chosen by the German and Polish governments as the site of a reconciliation Mass between the two nations.
A memorial service is scheduled for Friday at the Norwich Congregational Church, the Rev. Mary R. Brownlow, the associate pastor, said Sunday.
