Elisabeth Kitzinger

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Elisabeth Kitzinger (born April 2, 1881 in Munich , † July 2, 1966 in Washington, DC ) was a German welfare worker of Jewish descent.

Live and act

Elisabeth Rahel was the oldest of her parents' three children. Her father, Eugen Merzbacher was a coin dealer and numismatist , her mother, Rosa Merzbacher (née Jaffé), was responsible for bringing up the children and running the elegant household. After attending secondary school for girls , Elisabeth Merzbacher led the life of a “house daughter ”, she supported her mother and did voluntary social work. She collected the small unsupervised Jewish children who roamed the streets of the big city, and supervised and taught them in their parents' apartment. This resulted in the Merzbacher private kindergarten for Jewish children in 1904 , which quickly became very popular. The institution, which was taken over by the Israelitischer Frauenhilfe eV association , had to move into more spacious buildings again and again due to the constant expansion of the reception capacity, especially since a day care center for school children was attached to the kindergarten. A total of 150 children were accepted, with only two thirds of them being of Jewish faith - the city council only approved kindergarten and day care centers on the condition that children of all faiths would be accepted .

On August 22, 1905, Elisabeth Merzbacher married the lawyer Wilhelm Nathan Kitzinger, who supported his wife in her voluntary work and was banned from working in 1938 . The marriage had four children.

Elisabeth Kitzinger was of the opinion that the Jewish welfare work in Munich should be expanded much more extensively. That is why she got involved in the still young association Israelitische Jugendhilfe e. V. , of which she was the first chairman for many years, and advocated the establishment of a day care center, a girls' club and a children's home that accepted orphaned, illegitimate or endangered children . Under her leadership, a girls' home for working young girls and a home for boys who had left school were established .

In 1939 Elisabeth Kitzinger and her husband emigrated to what was then Palestine . Eight years later she moved to live with her son, the art historian Ernst Kitzinger , in the USA.

Fonts

  • Jewish child welfare in Munich. 1904-1943. In: Hans Lamm (Ed.): From Jews in Munich. A memorial book. Munich 1958, p. 75 ff.

literature

  • Manfred Berger : Elisabeth Kitzinger (1881–1966) and Jewish welfare work in Munich (1904–1943). In: Landeshauptstadt München (Hrsg.): Jewish life in Munich. Munich 1995, p. 57 ff.
  • Ina Kössel: Educational and social institutions for Jewish children and young people in Munich until 1943. In: Landeshauptstadt München (Hrsg.): Jüdisches Leben in München. Munich 1995, p. 64 ff.
  • Manfred Berger: Kitzinger, Elisabeth. In: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work. Freiburg / Brsg. 1998, p. 303.
  • Bertha-Susanne Oppenheimer: Research on Elisabeth Kitzinger (1881-1966) and her work for Jewish child and youth welfare in Munich (1904-1943). Unpublished thesis. Munich 2006.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kössel 1995, p. 65.
  2. ^ The professional ban for Jewish lawyers in Bavaria in December 1938. , accessed on December 23, 2013
  3. ↑ Israelite youth welfare
  4. ↑ https://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/dam/jcr:61ca7c8f-9988-4cf2-850b-8a3e9480e111/KGP12_booklet_2aufl_screen.pdf
personal data
SURNAME Kitzinger, Elisabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Merzbacher, Elisabeth (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German welfare worker
DATE OF BIRTH April 2, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH 2nd July 1966
Place of death Washington, DC