Elisabeth Forck

Elisabeth Wilhelmine Forck (born January 18, 1900 in Bremen - Seehausen ; † September 7, 1988 in Bremen) was a German educator .

biography

Forck was the seventh child of ten children, the daughter of pastor Daniel Benjamin Forck (1861-1918) in Seehausen, who in 1902 became pastor of the municipal hospitals in Bremen. Her older sister Tusnelde Forck (1897–1972) was a home economics teacher.
Forck attended Hedwig Kriebisch's high school for girls and graduated from high school. From 1918 to 1923 she studied classical philology and theology at the University of Göttingen and the University of Marburg . She completed her teacher training in Göttingen and Hanover . In 1926 she was appointed to the public girls' secondary school Kleine Helle in Bremen-Mitte , which had also opened a humanistic branch in 1925. At that time she was the youngest student councilor in the German Reich.

Forck had been a member of the parish of St. Stephani (temporarily Confessing Parish Alt-Stephani-Süd ) in Bremen around Pastor Gustav Greiffenhagen since 1933 , who was in conflict with the official church and the Bremen regional bishop during the Nazi era . Elisabeth Forck, Tusnelde Forck, Maria Schröder, Hedwig Baudert, Anna Dittrich and Magdalene Thimme supported the beleaguered theologian. Her commitment to the Jewish Christians of the community became known. This was not without consequences; the Gestapo and other authorities harassed them.

In 1949, as the successor to Mathilde Plate, she became the director of the rebuilt Kleine Helle grammar school , which from 1950 to 1954 had also led the B-branch for the middle school leaving certificate. In 1963, co-education , the joint education of boys and girls, was introduced at the girls' school . She retired in 1963 as Head of Studies Forck; she was followed in 1964 by Erika Opelt-Stoevesandt as headmistress. The grammar school existed until 1986.

Forck had been a member of the Bremen Society for Brotherhood since 1950 - Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation , from 1968 to 1976 she was its Protestant chairwoman. In 1966, at the request of the Bremen Senate, this society took care of the 350 witnesses from Israel and the USA who testified in Bremen in two Holocaust trials. The concert by a Jewish orchestra in the Bremen Cathedral received special attention.

In 1972 she campaigned for the re-election of Willy Brandt as Federal Chancellor.

Honors

• In 1965 she refused to be awarded the Federal Cross of Merit for her commitment to the Jewish Christians, as she had seen this action "as a natural Christian duty".
• The Elizabeth Forck Street in Bremen- Obervieland was named in 1996 after her.

Literature, sources

• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Marion Reich: Forck, Elisabeth Wilhelmine . In: Frauen Geschichte (n) , Bremer Frauenmuseum (ed.). Edition Falkenberg, Bremen 2016, ISBN 978-3-95494-095-0 .
• Marion Reich: I was only doing my Christian duty . Schardt-Verlag, Oldenburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-89841-760-0 .
• Erika Thies: She did her Christian duty . In: Weser-Kurier of March 22, 2015, p. 10.
• Rüdiger Weyer:  FORCK, Elisabeth. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 32, Bautz, Nordhausen 2011, ISBN 978-3-88309-615-5 , Sp. 473-477.