15. Becoming a “Jew Catcher”
During WWII, Stella Kubler secured false identity papers that listed her as a German Aryan. She was blond and blue-eyed, so it worked for a while. However, Stella and her boyfriend were eventually denounced to the Gestapo by a “Jew Catcher” – a Jew working for the Gestapo to find other Jews in hiding. To save their necks, her boyfriend – and future husband – offered the Nazis their services.
The Gestapo put the couple to work as Catchers, paying them 300 Reichsmarks for every Jew they turned in, and promising to spare Stella’s parents so long as she kept producing. The duo had good instincts for hiding places, having lived in hiding themselves. Stella was particularly effective, because she knew many of Berlin’s Jews from her years in a segregated Jewish school.