5. A Traitor Who Enthusiastically Helped the Nazis Exterminate Her People
Stella Kubler and her husband became highly effective Jew Catchers. They collected 300 Reichsmarks from the Gestapo for every Jew whom they turned in. The Gestapo also promised to spare Stella’s parents from deportation, so long as she continued to demonstrate her usefulness to the Nazis. Since they had themselves lived in hiding, the couple had an instinct for where to look. Stella in particular, because she knew many of Berlin’s Jews from her years in a Jewish school, was highly effective.
While the decision to become a Catcher might not have been of her own free will, how Stella exercised what freedom of choice she had in her work as a Catcher was entirely within her control. She pursued hidden Jews with tremendous zeal and inventiveness. After their arrest, when her job as a Catcher was presumably over, she enthusiastically participated in the horrific beatings, torture, and humiliation of Jewish prisoners. Despite her services, the Nazis broke their promises and sent Stella’s parents to their death in a camp.
