Clara Samuel

Clara Samuel (* 1878 in Bonn ; † 1962 in Dortmund ) was a German social worker .

Life

From 1905 Clara Samuel was active in the women's movement . During the First World War she founded the local branch of the National Women's Service and was the founder of the Elberfeld branch of the Jewish Women's Association , of which she was a member. In 1926 she founded the Central Office for Jewish Foster Care and Adoption Placement in Elberfeld (now Wuppertal ), which placed Jewish children abroad for adoption. She emigrated to England in 1939, where her son, the Germanist Richard Herbert Samuel , had already emigrated in 1934. In 1945 she moved to Palestine . In 1947 she returned to Germany. She was married to the tobacco merchant Ernst Samuel (1871-1932).

Central for Jewish foster homes and adoption agencies

The Central Office for Jewish Foster Care and Adoption Agencies (Elberfelder Zentrale for short), which she founded and managed, ensured that, initially, girls born out of wedlock could remain in Judaism and received a Jewish education. Later on, Clara Samuel and her headquarters also got involved in the emigration of Jewish children to Palestine and other countries.

literature

• Yvonne Weissberg: The Jewish Women's Association in Germany 1904–1939: On the construction of a female Jewish collective identity . Zurich 2016
• Samuel, Clara , in: Joseph Walk : Short biographies on the history of the Jews: 1918–1945 , ed. from Leo Baeck Institute (1988), Reprint, De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-205420-8 , p. 326
• Gudrun Maierhof: Assertiveness in chaos. Women in Jewish Self-Help 1933-1943 , Campus Verlag, Frankfurt / Main, New York 2002, ISBN 978-3-593-37042-2 , short biography p. 343

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Maierhof, Wenzel: Protagonists of the 'old' Jewish Women's Association, page 93
2. ^ Weissberg, Yvonne: Der Jüdische Frauenbund in Deutschland 1904-1939: for the construction of a female Jewish collective identity . Dissertation, University of Zurich 2016, page 426