The Teacher Who Saved His Students: The Story of Erich Klibansky
As children sharpen pencils and step into classrooms this fall, one man’s story reminds us that sometimes the greatest lessons come not from textbooks, but from courage.
Erich Klibansky was the beloved headmaster of the Yavne Jewish Gymnasium in Cologne, Germany. In the late 1930s, as antisemitism darkened Europe’s skies, he saw what many still could not imagine.
Klibansky prepared his students not only in Hebrew but also in English, quietly readying them for the possibility of exile. After the devastation of Kristallnacht in 1938, he took bold action. He arranged passage for dozens of his students and teachers to England—often paying the costs himself when families couldn’t.
Those children went on to live, to study, and to raise families. Their lives became his enduring legacy.
But Erich, his wife, and their three sons never escaped. In July 1942, they were deported and murdered in the forests near Minsk.
Still, more than 130 of his pupils survived because of him.
Every back-to-school morning, Erich Klibansky’s name deserves to be remembered—not just as a teacher, but as a man who gave his students the greatest gift of all: life.