Emma Ott

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Camp de Rivesaltes (2013)

Emma Ott (born November 20, 1907 in Winterthur ; † May 15, 2011 in Bern ) was a Swiss nurse .

Life

After attending secondary school in Winterthur, Emma Ott worked from 1921 to 1927 as a domestic help in Winterthur, Schönenwerd and Lucerne . In 1928 she worked for several weeks in the International Civil Service (SCI) in the Principality of Liechtenstein .

After training as a nurse (1932–1936) at the Engeried nursing school in Bern, she worked as a nurse for Albert Schweitzer in the Lambaréné hospital until 1939 , where she met Rösli Näf . After her return, she worked at the Tiefenauspital in Bern and did active service as a medical nurse for the women's welfare service (FHD) .

From May 1942 she worked for the children's aid of the Swiss Red Cross in the southern French internment camps Camp de Gurs and Camp de Rivesaltes , where Friedel Bohny-Reiter and Elsa Lüthi-Ruth also worked as nurses. She wrote the first report on the deportations from the Gurs camp in August 1942, when she represented Elsbeth Kasser there .

In October 1943 Emma Ott took over the management of the children's colony Château de la Hille in Montégut-Plantaurel ( Département Ariège ) from Rösli Näf, who had to return to Switzerland in May 1943. Like her colleague Anne-Marie Im Hof-Piguet , she helped to flee Jewish youth. However, she was not honored because she had always remained in the background.

In March 1945 she was asked by the Children's Aid Center in Toulouse to take over the management of Maternité Suisse in Montagnac ( Aveyron department ) from an employee of Elisabeth Eidenbenz, who had returned to Switzerland in October 1944 . There the mothers and children had found a new refuge after the closure of the Maternité suisse d'Elne . After moving again from Montagnac to Pau , she managed the children's home (the births now took place in the hospital) from January to May 1946, now for the Swiss donation and then returned to Switzerland. The original six months vacation at Tiefenau Hospital had turned into four years.

After her return to Switzerland she worked again at the Bern Tiefenauspital until her retirement in 1972, where she became head nurse. She lived alone in Bern until she was 98, went to the market in the city, made regular visits and corresponded with people from all over the world.

The estate is in the Archives for Contemporary History in Zurich.

Movies

  • Anne-Marie Im Hof-Piguet: Juste parmis les nations. Switzerland 2009, 50 min.
  • La filière. Switzerland 1987, 37 min., Directed by Jacqueline Veuve .

literature

  • Anne-Marie Im Hof-Piguet : La filière en France occupée, 1942–1944 . Editions de la Thièle, Yverdon-les-Bains 1985, ISBN 2-8283-0019-6 .
    • German: escape route through the back door. A Red Cross helper in occupied France 1942–1944 . Verlag im Waldgut, Frauenfeld 1985, ISBN 3-7294-0045-2 .
  • Sebastian Steiger: The children of La Hille Castle . Brunnen-Verlag, Basel 1992, ISBN 978-3-7655-1540-8 .
  • Helena Kanyar Becker (ed.): Forgotten women. Humanitarian aid to children and official refugee policy 1917–1948. Schwabe Verlag, Basel 2010, ISBN 3-7965-2695-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Emma Ott's estate in the ETH Archives for Contemporary History
  2. ^ Anne-Marie Im Hof-Piguet: Juste parmis les nations at artfilm.ch .
personal data
SURNAME Ott, Emma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss nurse
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Winterthur
DATE OF DEATH May 15, 2011
Place of death Bern