Otto Weidt (1883-1947)
Otto Weidt was compelled by his growing blindness to abandon his work as a wallpaper hanger. He thereupon set up a workshop for the blind at 39, Rosenthalerstrasse in Berlin N., which manufactured brushes and brooms. Practically all of his employees were blind and/or deaf Jews. They were assigned to him from the Jewish Home for the Blind in Berlin-Stegliz.
When the deportations began, Weidt fought with Gestapo officials over the fate of every single Jewish worker. As means of persuasion he would use both bribery and the argument that his employees were essential for fulfilling orders commissioned by the army. Once, when the Gestapo had arrested several of his workers, the self-appointed guardian of the Jewish blind went in person to the assembly camp at the Grosse Hamburger-Strasse, where the Jews were incarcerated pending deportation, and succeeded in securing their release at the last minute.
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