Sylvin Rubinstein - Entry Into The Resistance

Entry Into The Resistance

Rubinstein's biography, 'Dolores & Imperio: Die drei Leben des Sylvin Rubinstein' ('Dolores and Imperio: the Three Lives of Sylvin Rubenstein') contains an account of his work in the Polish resistance. He claims that he was recruited into the resistance by an anti-Nazi German officer, Major Kurt Werner.

"One day a big, tall German army officer spotted me and kept staring at me...He followed me and then walked up to me and I thought, well, this is it."

It turned out the officer, Wehrmacht Major Kurt Werner, was a fan of Imperio y Dolores and remembered Rubinstein from an appearance in Berlin before the war.

Werner arranged for fake ID papers for Rubinstein and his sister and urged them to head for Switzerland. But his sister insisted on trying to fetch their mother, still back in Brodi.

"I saw her board the train heading east and I knew as we waved to each other that that was the last time I’d ever see her...I could have insisted she stay with me. But I didn't. That is one of two things I’ve always regretted."

Both his mother and sister died in Treblinka. Rubenstein remained in Warsaw, and was recruited into the Polish resistance by Major Werner. He became an accomplished assassin and saboteur.

Rubinstein used his ability to pass as a woman in these missions. For example he recalled that a Gestapo officer "was a particularly nasty Nazi who took positive delight in finding Jews who were hidden in people’s homes...he would have the Jews dragged off and also the German families who had sheltered them. Very nasty, indeed. Everybody in Berlin feared and hated him, Jews and Goyim alike...well, one fine day it was his birthday and a very elegant-looking lady (if I do say so myself) showed up at his office with a bunch of red roses, asking to see him alone."