Hedwig Jahnow

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Hedwig Jahnow (born March 21, 1879 in Rawitsch ; † March 22, 1944 in Theresienstadt ) was a German teacher and Old Testament scholar . She was the first woman in the Magistrate of Marburg and deputy headmistress at the Marburg Elisabeth School as well as a victim of National Socialism .

Life

Hedwig Jahnow was born as Hedwig Inowraclawer. Her father Alfred was a teacher at the Oelser Gymnasium in Oels, Silesia . In order to have a chance of becoming a civil servant , Hedwig Jahnow's father abandoned the Jewish surname as well as his original first name Aaron and converted from the Jewish to the Protestant faith. Her brother, Reinhold Jahnow , was a German aviation pioneer, an old eagle who passed the pilot's test in 1911 and died in August 1914 as the first member of the air force (first lieutenant of the Landwehr).

The young Hedwig Jahnow

Hedwig Jahnow already passed the teacher examination for higher and middle girls' schools in November 1898, at the age of 19. Before that, she was a student at the private higher girls' schools in Breslau and Strehlen and from 1895 to 1898 she attended a private teacher training college in Berlin for three years . Jahnow had her first two teaching positions in the period from autumn 1899 to spring 1900 and from spring 1900 to summer 1903 at two Berlin girls' schools. From 1903 to 1906 she completed a six-semester course as a guest student at Berlin University before she passed the senior teacher examination for history and religion in November 1906. At that time, it was not yet possible for women to complete a regular course of study at the Berlin University. After successfully completing her exam, she applied for the position of an academically trained senior teacher at the Elisabeth School in Marburg, where she worked from 1907.

Jahnow joined the newly founded German Democratic Party (DDP) after the First World War . In the local elections on March 3, 1919, she was elected to the city ​​council of Marburg, a year later the party sent her to the city's magistrate. She was the first woman ever to belong to this institution. During her time on the city council, Jahnow was a member of various committees, including the poor committee and the cemetery committee. With the local elections in 1924, in which the German Democratic Party dramatically lost votes and only received two seats on the city council, Jahnow's political activity came to an end.

In 1925 Jahnow was promoted to senior teacher and appointed deputy headmistress of the Elisabeth School. A year later she was honored by the University of Gießen (then still Ludwig University) with an honorary doctorate (Licentiate) from the Theological Faculty for her academic work, especially in the field of the Old Testament, which she performed in collaboration with Hermann Gunkel from 1909 onwards . In 1935 she was pushed out of her position as deputy headmistress by the National Socialists, then retired due to her Jewish ancestors at the end of 1935 and dismissed from school with a monthly salary of 234 RM because in Section 4, Paragraph 2 of the First Ordinance on Reich Citizenship Act of November 14, 1935: "Jewish civil servants will retire on December 31, 1935."

After the pressure of persecution on Jews and people of Jewish origin in Germany increased more and more, Jahnow tried to emigrate to England at the end of 1938 . However, the then 59-year-old was rejected by the local authorities because of her old age. At that time England only accepted young emigrants. In June 1942 Jahnow was sentenced by a court to a prison term of five years for listening to foreign broadcasters, i.e. radio broadcasts from abroad. A tenant had betrayed her and her roommate and testified against them in court. Jahnow was then placed in the prison in Ziegenhain . On September 7, 1942, she and other Jews and people of Jewish origin were deported from Marburg to Theresienstadt, where she died of malnutrition on March 22, 1944, one day after reaching the age of 65. She was buried in an urn with the number 22710.

Appreciation

A street in a new development area in Marburg is named after Hedwig Jahnow. A research project also bears her name. Various articles have also been published about her.

On the pavement of Wilhelmstrasse in Marburg's southern district (across from house number 4), a stumbling block was placed by the artist Gunter Demnig on March 1, 2007 in memory of this woman and her fate . At the end of 2014, a memorial plaque was placed on the house where her home used to be with the text:

Hedwig Jahnow, Wilhelmstrasse 3, 1879 - 1944.
Teacher, came to Marburg in 1907 as the city's first scientifically trained senior teacher. Works at the Elisabeth School, from 1925 deputy director. 1920 to 1924 first woman in the Marburg magistrate. Forced retirement in 1935 because of her Jewish origins. 1942 prison sentence for "wiretapping enemy broadcasters". Starved to death in Theresienstadt in 1944. Here was the house in which she lived for most of her time in Marburg.

Publications

  • The Hebrew funeral song as part of folk poetry. Giessen 1923.

literature

  • Tina Hülsebus: Hedwig Jahnow . In: Esther Röhr (Ed.): I am what I am. Women alongside great theologians and religious philosophers of the 20th century (= Gütersloher Taschenbuch 549), Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2001, pp. 136–162.
  • Lic. Theol. hc Hedwig Jahnow . In: Hannelore Erhart (ed.): Lexicon of early Protestant theologians. Biographical sketches . Neukirchener, Neukirchen-Vluyn 2005, p. 191.
  • Hartmut Ludwig, Eberhard Röhm . Baptized Evangelical - persecuted as "Jews" . Calver Verlag Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-7668-4299-2 , pp. 168-169.
  • Regina Neumann and Rüdiger Weyer:  JAHNOW, Hedwig. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 37, Bautz, Nordhausen 2016, ISBN 978-3-95948-142-7 , Sp. 535-543.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  • Regina Neumann and Rüdiger Weyer: Hedwig Jahnow. The first deputy headmistress of the Elisabethschule and Marburg's first city councilor, in: Elisabeth 2.7. Elisabeth School magazine for 2016. Marburg 2017, 84–86.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Jahnow, Hedwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Old Testament scholar, first woman in the magistrate of Marburg, victim of National Socialism
DATE OF BIRTH March 21, 1879
PLACE OF BIRTH Rawitsch
DATE OF DEATH March 22, 1944
Place of death Terezín