Cläre Barwitzky

Cläre Barwitzky, also known as Claire Barwitzky (19 June 1913 – 10 March 1989), was a German Catholic nun She received the posthumous title Righteous Among the Nations from Yad Vashem in 1991. The Barwitzky family lived a hand-to-mouth existence. After she graduated from high school in 1932, she went to work at Companions of the Holy Francis (Compagnons de Saint-François) in Lyon, France where she was the secretary for Father Remillieux.

She returned to Germany by 1933 when she studied in Freiburg im Breisgau to be a spiritual assistant (Seelsorgehelferin) She helped find Gentile families who would foster Jewish children.

The threat of getting caught, without proper identification, was a constant and escalating threat as the war proceeded. She also went to Lyons to rescue two infants while the city was being bombed. The area was liberated during the summer of 1944. At the end of the German occupation, the children returned to Saint-Étienne. Barwitzky was reported for taking care of Jewish children and was attacked.

After the war Barwitzky had participated again in the Companions of the Holy Francis events when she lived in Thuringia. Barwitzky returned to Germany after the war, where she provided pastoral care to German Catholics in Leipzig, Saalfeld, and Meiningen, chronologically. Due to poor health, Barwitzky retired in 1969. Robert Kümmert, director of Würzburg Caritas, encouraged her to write her memoirs. She died in Meiningen in 1989. In 1991, she posthumously received the title Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Holocaust Memorial Vashem.