Israel honours German soldier from "The Pianist"

By Jacob Comenetz

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German army officer who helped Jews during World War Two and was featured in the Oscar-winning film "The Pianist" was posthumously honoured by Israel at a ceremony in Berlin on Friday.

The story of how Captain Wilhelm Hosenfeld saved the life of Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman received worldwide attention through Roman Polanski's 2002 film, which won three Academy Awards and many other prizes worldwide.

Hosenfeld is one of the few German World War Two soldiers to receive the title "Righteous among the Nations", an honour given by Israel's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial to people who helped Jews avoid death in the Nazi genocide that killed 6 million.

Yad Vashem announced in February that Hosenfeld would receive the honour, which has been given to over 22,000 people. The sons of both Hosenfeld and Szpilman attended the ceremony in Berlin.

Hosenfeld, one of 460 Germans honoured by Yad Vashem, was in the Nazi-occupied Polish capital from 1940 to 1944. He served as a sports and culture officer in Warsaw but was also involved in some interrogations.

"The rescuer of Jewish life who we honour today through his courageous act showed that there were people in uniform, even under a dictatorship and under terror, who stood up for humanity and compassion," said Ilan Mor, Israel's deputy ambassador.

Born in 1895 and raised in a pious Catholic family, Hosenfeld joined the Nazi party in 1935 and was drafted into the armed forces shortly before Germany invaded Poland in 1939.

In Warsaw he recorded the brutality of the German occupiers against the Polish and Jewish local population in his diaries and letters. They showed he had expressed his "horror at the extermination of the Jewish people" by the country that he served, Yad Vashem said.