Elsa Lüthi-Ruth
Elsa Lüthi-Ruth (born March 20, 1909 in St. Gallen ; † August 17, 2005 in Worb ) was a Swiss nurse .
Life
Elsa Ruth was born the second oldest of four children and grew up bilingually in St. Gallen, Geneva , Bern and Lucerne . Her father ran a clothes shop. In Lucerne she attended secondary and commercial school, which she graduated with a diploma in 1927. 1927 to 1930 worked as a secretary and foreign language correspondent in Lucerne, Geneva, Paris and London .
From 1931 to 1934 she trained as a nurse in Lucerne, Zurich and Bern and trained as an operation and anesthesia nurse . From 1935 to 1937 she worked as head nurse, surgery and anesthesia nurse at the Swiss hospital Ospedale Internazionale in Naples , where she was entrusted with the intensive care of children who were given little chance of survival. In 1937 she traveled to Australia twice as a ship nurse.
During the mobilization of the Swiss Army in 1939, she was head nurse in Biel . Together with Elsbeth Kasser , she reported to the women's aid service (FHD) , where they accompanied trains with wounded Russian and Allied soldiers several times as part of the prisoner exchange.
From 1940 to 1944 she worked for the Swiss working group for war-damaged children (from 1942 child aid of the Swiss Red Cross ) in the Maternité suisse d'Elne and from 1940 to 1941 headed the canteen and infant department for malnourished children in Auch ( Département Gers ), where she Deputy director of the Swiss delegation of children's aid in the unoccupied southern zone ( Vichy regime ).
In 1941 and 1942 she worked with Friedel Bohny-Reiter in the French internment camp Rivesaltes , where she founded the "Swiss Barracks", where she was responsible for childcare, the distribution of additional food and the care of the sick. In 1942 she was commissioned to build an infirmary ( Station Médicale ) in the Château des Avenières in Cruseilles ( Département Haute-Savoie ) with houses for malnourished, weakened and ailing small children, school children and young people, which she managed until 1944.
After the war ended, she took over the management of the “Beau-Soleil” children's home in Gstaad for the Swiss donation , where war-damaged children from France, Croatia and Czechoslovakia were cared for.
From 1952 to 1959 she helped her husband in his carpentry business. After his death, she headed the Inselheim from 1960 to 1969 , a convalescent home on the area of the Inselspital in Bern. In 1999 she moved to the Vechigen- Worb retirement home .
The estate is in the Archives for Contemporary History in Zurich.
literature
- Paul Senn : «If you are human ... feel my need. Read in faces! " A photo report of the activities of the Swiss aid organization in children's homes and refugee camps in the south of France. In: Schweizer Illustrierte Zeitung , Zofingen, vol. 31 (No. 9/25 February 1942), pp. 261–265.
- Mathilde Paravicini : Children come to Switzerland. In: Eugen Theodor Rimli (ed.): The book from the Red Cross. The Red Cross from the beginning until today. Fraumünster-Verlag, Zurich 1944, pp. 336–367.
- Netti Sutro: Youth on the Run, 1933–1948. 15 years in the mirror of the Swiss Aid Organization for Emigrant Children . With a foreword by Albert Schweitzer . Europe publishing house. Zurich 1952.
- Antonia Schmidlin: Another Switzerland. Helpers, children of war and humanitarian policy 1933–1942 . Chronos-Verlag, Zurich 1999, ISBN 978-3-905313-04-8 .
- Helena Kanyar Becker (Ed.): Humanitarian Switzerland 1933–1945. Children on the run. Publications of the University Library of Basel No. 37.Bern 2004.
- August Bohny: Unforgotten Stories. Community service, Swiss Children's Aid and the Red Cross in southern France 1941–1945. Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Konstanz 2009, ISBN 3-86628278-8 .
- Margot Wicki-Schwarzschild : «I only did what I had to do», Elsie Ruth (1909–2005). In: Helena Kanyar Becker (ed.): Forgotten women. Humanitarian aid to children and official refugee policy 1917–1948. Schwabe Verlag, Basel 2010, ISBN 3-79652695-0 . Pp. 186-206. (= Basel Contributions to History, Volume 182.)
Web links
- Elsa Lüthi-Ruth's estate in the ETH Archives for Contemporary History
- Elsa Ruth at Righteous People who Care
- From rescuers and those rescued at the Swiss Red Cross
Individual evidence
- ↑ Who was who in nursing history: Elsa Lüthi-Ruth ( Memento of the original from September 24, 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.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lüthi-Ruth, Elsa |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Ruth, Elsa |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Swiss nurse |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 20, 1909 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | St. Gallen |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 17, 2005 |
| Place of death | Worb |