Mohammed Helmy was born in British-occupied Sudan on July 25, 1901 to an Egyptian father and German mother. As a young man he traveled to Germany to study medicine and became a doctor working in the Robert Koch Hospital in Berlin, becoming head of the department of urology. In 1938, he was fired along with all other non-Aryans. Increasingly vocal in his criticism of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, Helmly was imprisoned twice, and following his release was under an effective house arrest.
Helmy was conscripted for service in the local health corps, and used his position to provide medical excuses for foreign laborers to leave Germany and for Germans to avoid military service. He worked to secretly treat Jewish citizens and help hide them from persecution., including Anna Boris, a patient whom he successfully hid from the authorities until the end of the war. At one point, when Helmy's activities were close to discovery, he and Boros concocted a scheme to make it appear that she had duped him - a ruse that played on the Gestapo's belief that Helmy, as a "Hamite" was innately unintelligent.
Helmy died in 1982 in Berlin. He was subsequently named as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, the roll of honor for non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to protect Jews from the Nazis.
Helmy was conscripted for service in the local health corps, and used his position to provide medical excuses for foreign laborers to leave Germany and for Germans to avoid military service. He worked to secretly treat Jewish citizens and help hide them from persecution., including Anna Boris, a patient whom he successfully hid from the authorities until the end of the war. At one point, when Helmy's activities were close to discovery, he and Boros concocted a scheme to make it appear that she had duped him - a ruse that played on the Gestapo's belief that Helmy, as a "Hamite" was innately unintelligent.
Helmy died in 1982 in Berlin. He was subsequently named as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, the roll of honor for non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to protect Jews from the Nazis.
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