Wife waited 50 years after escaping Nazi camp to reveal husband's hidden truth about Schindler’s List
'When my diaries are found, people will know who saved my Uzu...'
The Nazi concentration camps witnessed the cruel, systematic persecution of humanity during one of the darkest chapters in history. However, it also saw the greatest love story of Joseph and Rebecca Bau, reminding us of the power of love and companionship. The duo met as inmates in the Kraków–Płaszów concentration camp during the Holocaust, where they fell in love and even married each other secretly in the women's barracks, according to the Joseph Bau House. However, there was one act of love kept secret for 50 years — and it was life-changing.
Joseph was given the responsibility to build a construction blueprint for Amon Goeth, the camp's commandant. However, he was struggling to do so because blueprints in those days required sunlight exposure to develop, and it was an extraordinarily gloomy day. Joseph waited outside, hoping for sunlight, but nothing worked in his favor until Rebecca, a trained nurse, stepped in to help. She asked him if he needed any help, and in response, Joseph said, "I'm waiting for the reluctant sun to come out. Could you perhaps take its place?" Surprisingly, soon after the flirtatious interaction, the blueprints developed, and Joseph saw it as a hint to their etheral connection.
With time, Joseph and Rebecca grew closer to each other and eventually decided to get married while in the concentration camp. Their secret wedding was organized inside a women's barracks in a Nazi labor camp. Hundreds of fellow prisoners arrived to witness the unimaginable reunion of the lovebirds. Interestingly, Joseph, the groom, had to enter his own wedding venue disguised as a woman. The wedding had barely ended when guards entered to look for men who might have sneaked inside the women's barracks. Luckily, Joseph wasn't caught, but two other young men were beaten to death. Rebecca had helped many people inside the camp, and one of those was Mietek Pemper, Goeth's secretary's mother. As a gift of gratitude, he added Rebecca's name to Schindler's List — a document with the names of over 1,200 Jews saved by German industrialist Oskar Schindler from the Holocaust.
Rebecca had a strong hope that she would eventually survive the camp and that her husband, Joseph, needed to be on Schindler's List more than she. So, Rebecca replaced her name with Joseph, while she herself went to Auschwitz. Joseph entered Schindler's List but had no idea how. In fact, for 50 years, he didn't know about his wife's sacrifice until Rebecca revealed it to him herself. "Why did you switch your name with mine, and why didn’t you tell me?" Joseph asked her, and she replied, "I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to feel like you owed me anything, and I did it out of love."
Rebecca, in her diaries, "In the name of God," also mentioned the incident. She wrote, "When my diaries are found, people will know who saved my Uzu," recalling her sacrifice for love. While in Auschwitz, Rebecca continued saving many lives while risking her own multiple times. Later, she was shifted to the Lichtewarden concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Joseph and Rebecca's love overcame every obstacle, as after the war they found each other, and began their life in Kraków. Love stories like them stand as a testimony to love, courage, devotion, and an unshakable human spirit.
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