Hedwig Burgheim

Hedwig Burgheim (born August 28, 1887 in Alsleben (Saale) ; † February 27, 1943 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a German educator of Jewish origin who was committed to the work of Pestalozzi and Froebel . Since 1981, the city of Giessen has awarded the Hedwig Burgheim Medal every two years in recognition and appreciation of outstanding services to understanding and understanding between people .

Live and act

Hedwig Burgheim was born as the second of three daughters of the Jewish businessman Martin Burgheim and his wife Carolina, née Bucky, in Alsleben (Saale). She was Rolf Kralovitz's aunt . Since Carolina's parents ran a textile business in Leipzig, the family moved to the trade fair city in 1889.

Martin Burgheim, who was a liberal and progressive-minded man, made it possible for his three daughters to get an education. The eldest daughter Dorothea (* 1885) studied music at the Leipzig Conservatory with Arthur Nikisch and later became a concert pianist. The youngest daughter Martha (* 1889) received an education in the silk house of her uncle Theodor Bucky.

Hedwig learned French and Italian and studied education and philosophy. She received several years of training as a kindergarten teacher and gave students tutoring. In 1908 she graduated as a kindergarten teacher, after which she worked as a governess for the family of the publisher Bernhard Meyer. In 1911 she was enrolled at the first German university for women founded by Henriette Goldschmidt , where she passed her exams in 1915 with very good grades in front of Professors Johann Volkelt and Eduard Spranger .

Hedwig Burgheim then worked as a teacher in Grünheide in the Mark Brandenburg region, before she got a position at the Froebel seminar in Gießen in April 1918, where she taught civics, philosophy and education. From 1920 to 1933 she headed the Froebel seminar, which she expanded and expanded considerably. It was thanks to their initiatives that the Froebel seminar comprised a household school, a teacher seminar for kindergarten teachers, three kindergartens and two daycare centers. With her commitment, Burgheim won high esteem among her employees and students.

The National Socialists removed Hedwig Burgheim from the leadership of the Froebel seminar in 1933 because of her Jewish origin. As an unemployed, she then had to live on 45% of her previous monthly earnings before she received an offer from the Israelite Religious Community in Leipzig in 1935 to set up a Jewish home and kindergarten school for women. Hedwig Burgheim then returned to Leipzig, where she ran the school that opened at Easter 1936 and moved into an apartment at Wettiner Strasse 9.

The Leipzig mob incited by the Nazi state demolished in the pogrom night from November 9th to 10th, 1938 next to the community synagogue at Gottschedstrasse 3, the New Israelite Cemetery on Delitzscher Landstrasse, the Bamberger & Hertz department store on Augustusplatz and numerous other buildings owned by Jews also the household and kindergarten teachers' school, where pupils from all parts of Germany were taught. Hedwig Burgheim then tried to get an entry visa to the USA, which she did not receive. In February 1939, however, she found work as a teacher at the Jewish Carlebach School, which continued to run the school for the Jewish students who remained in Leipzig until it closed on June 30, 1942.

Hedwig Burgheim took over the management of a Jewish old people's home at Nordstrasse 15 in January 1942, as the previous director was one of the first Leipzig deportees to an extermination camp. She was arrested by the Gestapo in February 1943 , then deported to a Berlin assembly camp and from there on February 26, 1943 with the “30. Osttransport ” to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where she was murdered the next day - immediately after her arrival.

The Hedwig-Burgheim-Ring and the Hedwig-Burgheim School in Gießen, the Hedwig-Burgheim-Strasse in Leipzig and the Hedwig-Burgheim-Haus of the Protestant training centers for socio-educational professions in Darmstadt remind us today of the deserving teacher. The Stolpersteine in Gießen and Leipzig also commemorate Hedwig Burgheim's life.

literature

Manfred Berger : From the life and work of Hedwig Burgheim , in: Women in history. Journal of the Association "Women in History" eV (1996), Issue 1/2, pp. 19-25.
Andrea Dilsner-Herfurth: Hedwig Burgheim. Live and act. Edited by Rolf and Brigitte Kralovitz. Passage-Verlag, Leipzig 2008, ISBN 978-3-938543-45-0 .
Rolf Kralovitz : Biogram Hedwig Burgheim (1887–1943) . In: Ephraim Carlebach Foundation (ed.): Judaica Lipsiensia - On the history of the Jews in Leipzig . Edition Leipzig, 1994, ISBN 3-361-00423-3 .

Web links

Remarks

^ The National Socialists prepared the deportation of the Leipzig Jews in the long term by billeting them in so-called "Jewish houses" near the main train station. Hedwig Burgheim not only worked in the old people's home, in 1942 she had to give up her apartment at Wettiner Strasse 9 and move into a room at Nordstrasse 15.

personal data
SURNAME	Burgheim, Hedwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German educator, head of the Froebel seminar in Giessen
DATE OF BIRTH	August 28, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH	Alsleben (Saale)
DATE OF DEATH	February 27, 1943
Place of death	Auschwitz concentration camp

[1] The National Socialists prepared the deportation of the Leipzig Jews in the long term by billeting them in so-called "Jewish houses" near the main train station. Hedwig Burgheim not only worked in the old people's home, in 1942 she had to give up her apartment at Wettiner Strasse 9 and move into a room at Nordstrasse 15.