Clara Nef

Clara Nef (born on June 26, 1885 in Herisau ; died on August 19, 1983 there ) was a Swiss hotel specialist and women's rights activist.

Life

She was the daughter of Johannes Nef-Hohl and his wife Anna, née Hohl. Nef grew up in Bern until her father died young of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1892 and her mother moved back to her home town of Herisau, where Clara Nef's grandfather Johann Jakob Hohl was a well-known businessman and politician. In Neuchâtel , Nef received training at the commercial school and decided to become a hotel secretary, initially in Davos . In 1913 she became housekeeper of the stately Villa Cassel on Riederalp until the First World War broke out.

In 1914 Nef returned to Herisau and volunteered to help out in the community. In addition, she and her sister founded a second hand shop . In 1918 a cantonal commission for school child welfare was founded, chaired by Nef. So she became head of Pro Juventute for the canton of Appenzell Ausserrhoden . In addition, she began to be interested in the work of the Swiss women's movement and in 1929, the year after SAFFA , founded the Appenzell Ausserrhoden women's center , of which she remained president until 1963. As early as the year it was founded, the Appenzell women's center began to fight unemployment among women with the help of home-made jackets , which became the flagship of this women's center and made Nef known nationwide . In the Federation of Swiss Women's Associations , Nef was a member of the board from 1932, and was also president for three terms from 1935 to 1944. From 1944 to 1947 she remained Vice President of the BSF.

Despite her commitment to women's issues, she vehemently defended the lack of equal rights for women because she was of the opinion that women enjoyed a "privileged status" in Switzerland and had a duty to protect the country's democratic order. So she wrote in a newspaper article in 1936: "The deepest meaning of the women's movement is not in the demand for rights, but in the willingness to support the responsibility, in the knowledge of the duty to be the guardian of the weaker brother." ( Clara Nef : Education for peace)

During the Second World War , Nef was active in the civilian women's service . Together with Pastor Paul Vogt , she founded the Evangelical Social Home “Sonneblick” in Walzenhausen in 1938, where she was involved in charitable work until long after the war. From 1937 to 1948 she represented the BSF at the International Women's Federation; from 1945 to 1955 she was president of the Swiss Confederation of Abstinent Women.

In old age she was visually impaired, but at almost a hundred years of age she was in full possession of her spiritual powers. She died unmarried in her hometown in 1983.

literature

• Obituary by Joachim Auer: Clara Nef, honorary member of the Appenzell Charitable Society. Digitized
• Regula Ludi : Nef, Clara. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Joland Spirig: About jackets and education vouchers . The women's headquarters in Appenzell Ausserrhoden 1929-2004 (=  Das Land Appenzell . Band 33 ). Verlag Appenzeller Hefte, Herisau 2004, ISBN 3-85882-386-4 , p. 100 .