Eleonore Astfalck

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Eleonore Astfalck (born November 13, 1900 in Nuremberg ; † June 12, 1991 in Nienhagen (district of Celle) ) was a pioneer of curative and social education in the period before 1933. After emigrating, she continued her work in England, from where from she returned to Germany in 1946, first to the Odenwald School , and from 1950 as director of the social and therapeutic educational facility Immenhof in the Lüneburg Heath . She is one of the reformers of home education and curative education in Germany.

Life before emigration

Eleonore (also called Nora) Astfalck was one of four children of the engineer Wiland Astfalck and his wife Auguste. After several professional moves, the family moved to Berlin in 1920. Eleonore was trained as a daycare worker at the Jugendheim association and then worked from 1923 to 1927, initially as an educator in the Wickersdorf Free School Community , in a home for difficult-to- educate children in Rodaun near Vienna and in a convalescent home for children at risk of tuberculosis in the Harz Mountains. At some point during this time she was also a member of one of the first Wandervogel groups for girls.

Based on her practical experience, Eleonore Astfalck was able to start training as a youth leader at the youth home association . In this context, she also got to know Hilde Lion , who worked here as a course instructor in the youth leader training. Lion made Astfalck the offer to switch to the social pedagogical seminar as a teacher in the kindergarten teacher training of the youth home association . She accepted and from 1928 to 1933 taught prospective kindergarten teachers in pedagogical, socio-pedagogical and practical professional subjects. She got to know the handicrafts teacher Johanna Nacken, which was the beginning of a life and work community of over forty years, which led the two women to emigrate together with Hilde Lion.

In addition to her teaching activities, Eleonore Astfalck was involved in one of the association's youth parlors, the “Charlottenburg Youth Home”, where she worked for Anna von Gierke . Here she took care - from 1932 to 1933 full-time - mainly to unemployed young people, who mainly came from communist or social democratic families. This activity led to Astfalck's name being on a Nazi blacklist after the seizure of power and she left Germany.

Exile in England

In 1933 Eleonore Astfalck went to Switzerland with a Jewish family. There she received a letter from Hilde Lion on March 1, 1934, in which she asked her to set up a school for German refugee children in England with her. On March 19, 1934 Astfalck arrived in Stoatley Rough and took over the position of a "housemother" and as a housekeeping teacher.

On the website “The Five Principal Teachers at Stoatley Rough” (which includes Hilde Lion , Emmy Wolff , Luise Leven and Johanna Nacken ), it says that many former students “fondly remember her” later on. In retrospect, Eleonore Astflack describes why this may have been in a letter of August 27, 1983 to Hildegard Feidel-Mertz :

“Ms. Nacken and I lived completely among the children - students, in the house, we were there from morning to evening and formed the simple, everyday life in a very narrow house, raised this life to a special level by taking each individual involved, very practically, you 'did' something. For me it had an essential educational-psychological meaning, especially for these young people. Displaced, stateless, without relatives, no money. Unfortunate ?? But no!! You were worth a lot, you were needed, you achieved something, you couldn't do without “me”. You were much more important than before! Strong, secure and in bond with peers.
I have never seen older students look down on younger students like that. - A piece of self-confidence grew in every child that was not related to itself, but always felt that its roots lay in this community. "

Return to Germany

In 1946 Eleonore Astfalck returned to Germany to work with Minna Specht at the Odenwald School . She worked as a teacher and educator, and it was precisely this dual function that caused her problems, as it was difficult for her to keep the balance between teaching and teaching. She reports that she received support from the female teachers in this regard, but apparently she suffered from the neglect of the educational aspect of her work.

Lotte Lemke , the managing director of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO), freed her from this dilemma, and offered her to take over the management of the Immenhof in the Lüneburg Heath . This facility, which was inaugurated in 1927 “as a home for difficult-to-educate girls”, plays an important role in the history of the AWO. It "was a model institution with a role model in which socialist welfare education found its fulfillment in contrast to civic welfare education". “In May 1933 the AWO was expropriated by the National Socialists. The Immenhof became the property of the ' NSDAP Office for People's Welfare'. In 1950 the AWO was allowed to operate the facilities again and a short time later the Immenhof returned to its ownership. "

This was the situation in which Eleonore Astfalck took over the management of the Immenhof and built it up - again together with Johanna Nacken. What they initiated, what became of it over the years, sounds impressive to Wesemann: “An administrative barrack was temporarily converted into a school, until 1962 a new school and administrative wing was built. In total there were around 200 children and young people in the boarding school in the 1960s. The 'Heimvolkschule Immenhof' was recognized nationwide in educational circles as a school reform project, but also as a reform project for home education. More new buildings followed in 1969 and the first indoor swimming pool was even built in 1970. A riding hall marked the end of the construction activities in 1981. “Astfalck sees it more soberly (and yet impressive) in its retrospective of 1960.

In the beginning there were still many airlift children to look after, but under Astfalck's direction, the curative educational work with children who came from difficult domestic circumstances gradually increased. Based on her own experiences at the Odenwald School , she tried a balancing act between a public school and her own home school, because in case of doubt, therapeutic work with the children in the “protected” home school had priority over the “finalized knowledge transfer” and public schools. Other starting points for innovations were the mother-child cures she initiated, the admission of mentally and physically handicapped children to the home with their mothers, or the admission of blind mothers with their children. It made it possible for GDR citizens who had been in prisons to go on holiday. "Altogether, Eleonore Astfalck managed the Immenhof , which under her leadership became a role model for many similar institutions and enjoyed a good reputation in the 'professional world' and beyond and many visitors, for two decades."

After her retirement, Eleonore Astfalck moved to Celle. She taught until 1977 at the "School for Women Professions", a 2-year vocational school for nanny. She also volunteered to help prison inmates, families, the elderly and help with homework as well as the work of the AWO. Shortly before her 90th birthday, Eleonore Astfalck traveled again to a meeting with former youth welfare workers in Israel, “where they of course do their social work in the youth home style. At almost 90 years of age, Nora Astfalck was still like the youngest of us, and at home in Germany she was still doing schoolwork with the Turkish children! "Despite this diverse commitment and despite the honors on her 90th birthday, she is a" forgotten pedagogue ”, whose life's work is still waiting“ for inclusion in the history of curative / social pedagogy. After all, she was one of the 'German educators who continued and lived reform pedagogy in exile after 1933'. "

Honors

On her 90th birthday, Eleonore Astfalck was awarded the Cross of Merit on the Ribbon of the Lower Saxony Order of Merit .

Also on her 90th birthday, she received the Marie Juchacz plaque from the Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO).

The AWO family center in Wiehl is named after Eleonore Astfalck.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Manfred Berger: Eleonore Astfalck - Your Life and Work ( Memento of the original from September 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , BHP-Info 17 2002/4, pp. 18-22. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.archiv-heilpaedagogik.de
  2. ↑ a b c Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (updated version: Hermann Schnorbach): The Pedagogy of the Landerziehungsheime im Exil , p. 193.
  3. ^ Biographical note in the Federal Archives
  4. ↑ a b c The Five Principal Teachers at Stoatley Rough ( Memento of the original from June 20, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.geo.brown.edu
  5. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: Pedagogy in Exile after 1933 , p. 148
  6. ↑ a b History of the AWO District Association Hanover from 1920 to 1999 ( Memento of the original from December 21, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / awo-bv-hannover.de
  7. ↑ a b Manfred Wesemann: Immenhof (Hützel). Children and youth home 1910 - 1990 ( Memento of the original from December 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.manfred-wesemann.de
  8. ^ Sophie Friedländer / Hilde Jarecki: Sophie & Hilde. A life together in friendship and work. A twin book , edited by Bruno Schonig, Edition Hentrich, Berlin, 1996, ISBN 978-3-89468-229-3 , p. 209. In her part of the book, Hilde Jarecki describes her training at the youth home association in great detail and vividly.
personal data
SURNAME Astfalck, Eleonore
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Astfalck, Nora
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German curative and social pedagogue
DATE OF BIRTH November 13, 1900
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 1991
Place of death Nienhagen (district of Celle)