AMSTERDAM (JTA)—In his native Germany and beyond, Hans Calmeyer is celebrated as a hero who saved more Jews from the Holocaust than Oskar Schindler.

As a jurist for the Nazi German forces in the Netherlands, Calmeyer was put in charge of a small team that evaluated pleas by people who tried to save themselves by disputing their classification as Jews. According to Israel’s national Holocaust museum, Yad Vashem, Calmeyer’s actions in his post, which involved accepting many of these pleas—some were quite flimsy—saved at least 3,000 people.

In 1992, Yad Vashem posthumously recognized...