Heinrich Selver

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Heinrich Selver (born December 14, 1901 in Błaszki , Russian Empire ; † September 21, 1957 in Paris ) was originally called Hersch Laib Zelwer, later latinized his name to Heinrich Selver and called himself Henry Selver since he emigrated to the USA. He was the nephew of the Darmstadt rabbi David Selver and between 1932 and 1938 the headmaster of the private forest school Kaliski (PriWaKi). After emigrating, he trained as a social worker in New York and became a pioneer of Jewish social work. In 1949 he returned to Europe and was involved in setting up the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work founded by the Joint Distribution Committee in Versailles , which was continued at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1958 .

Family origin

Heinrich Selver came from the Zelwer family in what was then Congress Poland . “Seen from the southern part of the Prussian province of Posen , Kalisch came first just across the border ; Biaszki was about 30 km southeast of Kalisch ; from there it was another 90 km in an east-northeast direction to Lodsch . The family was probably already resident in this region when the first ancestor took a Polish surname. Linguistically, it could be derived from a town called Zeléw, which was about 25 km southwest of Lodsch, according to the well-known pattern of Jewish name formation (Hamburger, Krakauer, etc.). The name was not uncommon in the region. "

At the end of 1906, the Jewish merchant Abraham Chaim Selver (July 8, 1859 in Błaszki - September 18, 1920 in Chemnitz) moved from Błaszki (Biaszki) to Chemnitz with his family, into which a tenth child was soon born . Busemann suspects that the move was a consequence of the Jewish pogroms that broke out in Russian Poland in June 1906 , which led to massacres and raised fears of further anti-Jewish economic boycotts.

At the beginning of January 1907, Abraham Selver had his family registered with the Chemnitz police authority and gave the wrong year of birth for his son Hersch Laib: 1899. This year was entered there when the boy entered grammar school in 1911. “Then at some point it will be corrected in the population register, but again not applicable. Only after the establishment of the Polish state was a birth certificate issued in Biaszki in 1921, which was Hersch Laib's date of birth 14/27. December 1901 (the double dating according to the Gregorian and Julian calendar). “His first name is also subject to frequent changes. His first nickname is Henrik, which becomes Heinrich at grammar school. In Leipzig he studies as Henrik, the first name under which he also received his doctorate, in Berlin Heinrich comes into play again, and since his time in the USA his name has been Henry.

education

Abraham Selver was able to establish himself in Chemnitz relatively quickly and gain modest prosperity as a merchant and glove dealer. This made it possible for him to send his son Heinrich to the city's humanistic grammar school in 1911, even though his older sons had failed at school and professionally. His training there ended with the outbreak of the First World War. The family had Russian citizenship and not German citizenship, and immediately after the start of the war, the Saxon Ministry of Education issued a decree that all pupils whose dependent relatives were citizens of a country with which the German Reich was at war had to attend school should be referred. From then on Heinrich Selver was tutored by a private tutor.

However, the war also accelerated Abraham Selver's business decline. In 1916 he was no longer able to meet his payment obligations, his company was placed under compulsory administration and he had to work as a migrant worker. A tutor for son Heinrich could no longer be financed. At the same time, however, an older brother, Moses Selver (later Max Selver), arrived from Poland in Chemnitz and was able to set up his own business. Heinrich Selver joined the company in 1916 and took over accounting work. The turmoil of the post-war period helped him, who previously had no recognized educational qualification, to obtain secondary school leaving certificate .

“Extremely realistically and purposefully, he used the survival of a residual element of the old order in the turmoil of that time. In the German Empire, higher education was rewarded by shortening compulsory military service. Anyone who provided evidence of secondary school leaving certificate or an examination, and at the same time submitted the written declaration of their father or guardian that they would dress, equip and cater for the conscript during active service, only needed to serve one year (» Annual Volunteer «). The commissions for the acceptance of these examinations, which consisted of two senior officers, two representatives of the military and civil administration and teachers from the higher educational institutions, existed in Saxony until the end of 1919, apparently in accordance with the inertia law of the bureaucracy - an anachronism because as a result of the At the end of the war and the Versailles Peace Treaty, general conscription was abolished. Heinrich Selver reported to the Chemnitz Commission for examination in autumn 1919. The commission no longer took the matter seriously when it accepted him as a candidate - the paradox of a transitional period, because under the previously valid conditions, registration would not have been possible , because Selver, as a Russian citizen, was not subject to military service. The written part of the exam consisted of a German essay, two translations into foreign languages ​​(optionally Latin, Greek, French, English) and the solution of an arithmetic problem. The oral examination took place in groups of a maximum of ten candidates. In this way, Selver got the proof of secondary school leaving certificate without having attended school again. In 1914, German militarism had blocked Selver's school career. In the meantime they had lost the world war, and now they were ready to give the former "enemy alien" access to higher education. "

Also in 1919, Max Moses and a partner founded a new company, which Heinrich Selver joined as a commercial employee - most recently in a managerial position. It was probably also Max Moses who was able to improve the financial circumstances of his parents, so that the administration of his father's company could be lifted and he could work as a businessman again. Abraham Selver only experienced this briefly before he died at the age of sixty-one in September 1920. Heinrich Selver left his brother's company in autumn 1922 and moved to Leipzig on October 20.

“In the summer semester of 1923 he enrolled at the university as a“ student of the second order ”. Secondary school-leaving qualifications entitle people to enroll (formerly only men, since the revolution of 1918 also women) who wanted to continue their academic education "without the intention of devoting themselves to civil service or a higher school subject or any other academic career." . The enrollment was valid for two years, in contrast to the five-year matriculation of students with a high school diploma. The second-rate students were allowed to take part in all lectures and events at the university, but were not admitted to the state examinations or to obtain a doctorate. "

Whether Heinrich Selver followed the example of his cousin Elisabeth Selver when choosing this course , as Busemann speculates, has to remain open, since nothing is known about contacts between Darmstadt and Chemnitz or Leipzig, but in fact Elisabeth Selver also initially took part in her studies a small matriculation , but was then successfully completed in 1923.

Heinrich Selver studied philosophy for the first four semesters in Leipzig before enrolling for the second time on May 13, 1925 as a second-degree student for history. But instead of continuing his studies, he decided to first take the Abitur at a secondary school in Leipzig as an external student. He passed the exam at the end of September 1926 and was now entitled to a full degree. His registration from March 1925 was extended from two to five years. For his studies, however, he could no longer count on domestic support, since Max Selver's business was now also bad and he had to give up his business for good in 1927. At that time he was already longer with the one from Ruhrort originating Charlotte Wittgenstein friends (1901-2003), whom he had met in the early 1920s by his sister Lotte in Freiburg, where they visited with Charlotte Wittgenstein a housekeeping school and in the same board lived. Charlotte's father was a wealthy manufacturer, and he and his wife appear to have been unhappy with their daughter's relationship. Stefan Laeng-Gilliatt, who knew Charlotte Selver personally and researched her biography in detail: “Interestingly, although Charlotte and Heinrich have been together since 1920, he had neither been to the Ruhrort nor had he met their parents. After all, it was only a few weeks after this postcard was sent [6. January 1925] happened. It was part of Heinrich's preparation for the visit. Why it took so long for this meeting to take place is not yet clear to me, but it may well have been a class problem. Charlotte, on the other hand, had got to know Heinrich's family in Chemnitz for a long time. ”Busemann also suspects that Charlotte's parents had reservations about Henrich Selver and that they rejected him“ because of his Polish origins and as 'have-nothing' ”.

The civil wedding took place on December 22, 1926. According to Busemann, there is no evidence that Charlotte's parents and sister attended the wedding. Through her marriage to Heinrich Selver, Charlotte Wittgenstein also lost her German citizenship: Heinrich Selver was Polish, which includes his birthplace in the former Russian Poland, and so his wife had to become Polish due to the legal situation at the time.

Although the two had known each other for many years, living together seems to have been difficult, and from November 1927 onwards the couple lived in separate apartments. Stefan Laeng-Gilliatt writes about the possible backgrounds:

“From an early age, work and private life were closely intertwined in Charlotte's life. Charlotte lived for her work, and she was very enthusiastic about her, be it in the 20s when she was a Bode gymnastics teacher , be it as a student of Elsa Gindler and Heinrich Jacoby or later, as many of us have experienced, when she lived in the USA. As I continue to examine Charlotte's early life, it became increasingly clear that her calling must have had a major impact on her relationship with her first husband, Heinrich Selver. The result is a picture of their relationship that shows two young people who are very independent but emotionally entangled in their everyday lives, two people who adored each other, but could never be satisfied with a 'normal' marriage. It seems that they loved each other most passionately when they dreamed of building a life together but struggled when they actually shared an apartment. That doesn't mean they didn't enjoy living together. I know from Charlotte how much she loved coming home after a day at work to meet Heinrich in her apartment when he was still a student at the University of Leipzig: 'I remember the evenings when I was late from came home from work. I entered the living room, cigarette smoke was in the air and Heinrich was sitting there, working very quietly and I came out of the very lively class into this silence. '"

Since Heinrich Selver had become a full student, he was taking courses in German, geography and philosophy in addition to the subject of history, for which he had registered, and was aiming for the examination for a higher teaching post. However, he soon gave up this goal to do a doctorate in German. His doctoral supervisor was the Germanist Hermann August Korff , from whom Selver's dissertation was rated cum laude in 1930 . Georg Witkowski was the second reviewer of the work . The oral exams brought better grades, but, according to Busemann, because of the grading of the dissertation, "the hope of an academic career was dashed". Selver then decided again to pursue the examination for the higher teaching post. To do this, however, he had to continue his studies, as the examination regulations required a course of at least eight semesters and the semesters from the II. Degree course were not recognized for this. Selver re-enrolled in May 1930, but at the beginning of the winter semester 1930/31 declared to the university that he would not attend any further courses. The goal of a higher teaching post had thus become obsolete. Selver only took care of the printing of his dissertation and moved to Berlin in March 1931. Her marriage to Charlotte had previously been divorced, after which Charlotte regained her German citizenship.

In Berlin, Selver made two decisions: he decided to apply for German citizenship and take the secondary school teacher exam and was successful with both projects. He passed the high school teacher examination on October 23, 1931.

The Berlin years

Teacher at the Theodor Herzl School

Heinrich Selver's first job was at the private Jewish Theodor Herzl School . Why Selver chose this school is not known, but Busemann sees a contradiction between the Zionist-oriented curriculum of the school and Selver, who “increasingly defined himself as a German educated citizen, as his dissertation recently showed”. In an obituary under construction , however, it is attested to having a consistent Jewish identity. He is characterized there as “Dr. Henry Selver, the well-educated Leipzig philologist, the 'old blue and white', committed to his Judaism in all phases of life ”, and the reference to the“ old blue and white ”means that Selver was also active in the Jewish youth movement, a fact which is not mentioned by Busemann. Against this background, Selver's decision in favor of the Theodor Herzl School should not have been as absurd as Busemann suggests.

Beyond its Zionist orientation, the Theodor Herzl School was also committed to the principles of reform pedagogy and thus proved to be a good preparation for Selver's subsequent position.

Headmaster of the private forest school Kaliski (PriWaKi)

At the beginning of her remarks on Heinrich Selver's work at PriWaKi , Busemann summarizes the advantages that Selver's multi-faceted life has brought to his new role.

“At his new place of work, Selver soon developed the skills that he had acquired in his brother's company in Chemnitz. He did not excel as a pedagogue - he had become a teacher, as we have seen, rather reluctantly - but he developed into a director with strong leadership qualities. When the school got caught up in the bureaucracy under the Nazi regime, he proved to be a tough and extremely skilled negotiator who spied every position of defense. Perhaps not only his business experience had an impact here, but also his father's role model: just as Abraham Selver fought for his family, Heinrich Selver now fought for the large "family" of the school. "

The fact that Heinrich Selver became the headmaster of PriWaKi was due to the fact that the school's founder, Lotte Kaliski , was found by the authorities to be too young and inexperienced to run the facility. A mother from the parenting of the pupils, with whom Heinrich Selver had taken a psychology course, established contact between him and Kalsiki and Selver agreed to work. As a result, the authorities subsequently approved the school that had already opened and granted Selver the license - with close ties to his formal pedagogical qualifications: “It was stipulated by law that the applicant's qualifications and the type of approved private school had to match; Since Selver had passed a middle school teacher exam, he could only get the license for a middle school, i. H. the Kaliski forest school could only be expanded up to the 10th school year (Untersekunda). It took the completely new situation under the Nazi regime until Selver received approval to run a primary school at Easter 1936 and approval to build an upper school at Easter 1937. "

Heinrich Selver started working at PriWaKi shortly after the Easter break in 1932. One of his first acts was to hire his cousin, Elisabeth Selver, as a French teacher. However, she and her future husband, Heinrich Paul, stayed at PriWaKi only for a short time and then founded their own school with which they wanted to create a catchment basin for the Aryan PriWaKi students after 1933 . This became necessary after the Prussian minister of culture ruled on September 15, 1933 that the law to restore the civil service should also be applied to private schools by Easter 1934 at the latest . For the PriWaKi this meant that as a private school run by Jews, Aryan children were no longer allowed to be taught. The school was thus forced to transform itself from a previously purely secular and non-denominational school into a Jewish school, which it later had to express in its name under pressure from the authorities. On the basis of an order of November 19, 1936, the name was prescribed: Private Jewish School Kaliski, headed by Dr. Heinrich Selver .

The political changes were not only significant for the headmaster Heinrich Selver, they also affected him privately. As early as July 1933, the Nazi regime created the conditions for revoking naturalizations from the time of the Weimar Republic. As a result, Selver was also deprived of his German citizenship, and when he emigrated in 1938, he did so as a citizen. In July 1935, Selver's ex-wife Charlotte moved away from Leipzig and joined her ex-husband in Berlin. Instead of teaching in her own school, she soon also taught at PriWaKi , where she gave gymnastics and occasionally swimming lessons. After the school moved in 1936, Heinrich and Charlotte Selver lived together again in the summer house on the new school premises. Selver put it so “as if she were his wife, so he was hiding the divorce, presumably to prevent any talk. However, he made occasional remarks, also in front of students, who demeaned his relationship and indirectly also Charlotte as a person ”.

In 1936 it seems to have become clear to Heinrich Selver that there was no longer any future for Jews in Germany and he began to prepare the school for the preparation and qualification for emigration. An important step towards this was to enable the students to obtain the English university entrance qualification. He created the prerequisites for this together with Leonore Goldschmidt , and in the summer of 1937 he traveled to the USA in order to get permission to take the American university entrance qualification in Berlin. Selver received approval, but due to the two-year preparation time for this exam, no one could take it, as the school had to close in March 1939. Heinrich Selver was already living in the USA.

emigration

It is not known when Selver made the decision to leave Germany. It is obvious that he clarified the requirements for this during his stay in the USA in 1937. That he was leaving was announced at a parents' meeting on May 31, 1938, and his departure took place on June 24, 1938. For the student body held Peter Theodore Landsberg the farewell speech, stressing Selvers service to the emergence of a Jewish identity in students. But he also addressed Selver's often disciplined behavior, which Busemann interprets as an indirect consequence of the harassment and threats that Selver had to defend against the authorities:

“Wherever you appeared at school, be it with the familiar and feared smile, be it with the even more dreaded seriousness, in any case there was initially a respectful silence. Whatever the reason for this silence, it guaranteed that our school could never become, as it is so wrongly called, a "Jewish school." But if the silence was due to a guilty conscience, the incidents at hand were always treated in such a way that they were then always finally forgotten. "

In memory of Selver, a "Heinrich Selver Garden" was to be planted in Palestine, for which the students had collected 890 RM. Busemann writes that Selver left Germany forever on August 18, 1938, Charlotte Selver probably at the end of September. The Ellis Island database provides information on when they separately started their voyage to the USA: Heinrich Selver, without nationality and with a visa issued in Berlin on May 19, 1938, on the De Grasse ship , which passed on August 20 Left Southampton in 1938; the "housewife" Charlotte Selver left Rotterdam on October 8, 1938 with the ship Nieuw Amsterdam . Her visa was only issued in Berlin on September 2, 1938.

New start in the US

First job and renewed training

In the USA, Heinrich and Charlotte Selver seem to have finally parted ways. While she set up dance studios and turned to psychotherapeutic methods, Heinrich Selver turned to social work. He, who called himself Henry from then on, "got a job at the Pleasantville Cottage School of the Jewish Childcare Association in New York, where uprooted Jewish children were cared for". Before that, however, there was still a collaboration with Lotte Kaliski . As can be seen from a report under construction from November 1, 1938, it had opened a club for young people in New York on November 1 , in which toddlers from four years of age looked after all day and school children after school until the evening and on Saturday should be. “Based on many years of experience in the day boarding school of the Kaliski School, which is attended by several hundred children, the youth club is equipped according to modern pedagogical methods so that it becomes a place of self-education and supportive activity for children and young people. [..] Associated with the youth club is individual educational and school advice, in which the former director of the Kaliski School, Dr. Heinrich Selver, contributes. "

Whether Selver saw his collaboration on Kaliski's new project, which she carried out with the support of Ingrid Warburg Spinelli , only as an interim solution immediately after his arrival in the USA, or whether economic considerations were decisive: he decided on the aforementioned Pleasantville Cottage School and decided in addition to further training. In 1939 he enrolled at the New York School of Social Work (today's Columbia University School of Social Work ), where he completed a two-year course, initially part-time and then full-time. He then became the assistant director of the Pleasantville Cottage School .

Irmgard Goeritz, née Frank

The year 1942 not only brought Henry Selver the new position at the Pleasantville Cottage School , but also led to a change in his private life: In September 1942 he married Irmgard (Irmi) Goeritz, née Frank.

Origin and education

Irmi Selver (born August 24, 1906 in Chemnitz - January 19, 2004 in New York) came from a middle-class Jewish family from Chemnitz, who owned several textile companies in the region. She was the seventh child in the family, the youngest child who could well have been a grandchild. She attended a public school in Chemnitz and also received religious and Hebrew lessons in the Jewish school. The family had otherwise survived the First World War, in which a brother of hers had fallen, without major impairments, and in 1922 Irmi had finished school. However, her parents thought about continuing their daughter's education and in the spring of 1923 sent her to a boarding school in Lausanne for 20 months. There she learned French, studied art history at the university and received first-class musical training. For a higher daughter it was certainly unusual that she was able to climb the Allalinhorn in the Saas-Feer mountains in the summer of 1924 .

The marriage to Karl Goeritz

At that time there was already a relationship between her and Karl Goeritz (born February 1, 1900 to November 18, 1939), which was maintained by telephone from Lausanne. Back in Chemnitz, this relationship intensified, and in August 1926 the engagement took place, then the marriage in December. She describes their common interests as follows: “Although he was an entrepreneur (he and his brother manufactured a luxury line of women's underwear, blouses and swimsuits under the label“ VENUS ”), Karl's passion was art. We started a collection of German expressionist painting, handicrafts from Viennese and German workshops and housed this collection in our new home in Chemnitz. We were politically and financially active in the Zionist movement to promote a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and Karl was particularly helpful in building a symphony orchestra that would later become the Israel Philharmonic. "

The Goeritzs' first child was born in 1932, but only a year later they had to realize that their happiness together was finite. Only consideration for Irmi's old parents prevented the young family from emigrating immediately. That changed when the parents died in quick succession in 1936. But now the question arose of a possible country of emigration. The USA dropped out because their quota system offered Germans no chances of getting a visa for the foreseeable future, so they finally moved to Aerdenhout in North Holland. Before Karl and Irmi Goeritz set out there in autumn 1937, they went to see a couple who were friends in Berlin to say goodbye. This visit almost led to a first encounter with Heinrich Selver:

“While we were visiting a couple, we heard that their children were enrolled in a private school, the Kaliski Private Forest School, which was organized in such a way that Jewish children, who were no longer allowed to attend German schools, received their training from Jewish teachers who were no longer allowed to teach in German schools. The director of this school was Heinrich Selver, a name that rang my doorbell. There were two Selver sisters in my Hebrew class in Chemnitz. And of course, when I asked where this director was from, the answer was Chemnitz. In an outburst of Chemnitz pride, Karl and I tried to find the school the next day so we could pay our respects to the director of this unique facility; but we couldn't find the street where it was and we had to leave Berlin without meeting Heinrich Selver. "

The Goeritz family had lived in Aerdenhout since November 1937 and felt very comfortable there. their second child, a daughter, was born there in February 1938. But the November pogroms of 1938 also made it clear to them that Holland would not be a safe place in the long term. The search for a non-European country to emigrate began and ultimately Chile was chosen.

On the evening of November 17, 1939, the Goeritz and their children embarked on the Simon Bolivar in Rotterdam . The ship left at midnight to cross the then heavily mined English Channel.

“On November 18th at 12 noon there was a huge explosion, which was indirectly followed by a second. When the boat sank quickly, a huge wave carried me to the only part of the deck that was still above water. Even though I was covered in oil, I made it to the one lifeboat that was released. When we were found by an English mine sweeper, we were brought on board with the help of a rope. The next thing I noticed was that I was shivering with my niece Ilse in one of the mine sweeper's engine rooms. I slowly realized what had happened. I had lost my husband, my son, and my daughter. Thirteen years of happiness were wiped out in a few minutes. "

Exile in England

Irmi Goeritz was brought to Harwich with the other rescued persons, and from there to a hotel in London. Friends then took them into their home. Here she met the widower Walter Elkan and his two sons. The two soon developed a closer relationship, which gave Irmi the prospect of a new family and a joint emigration to the USA.

First, however, Walter Elkan was interned as a hostile foreigner . For the marriage he was allowed to leave the camp for a short time accompanied by an officer, and Irmi then took care of the preparations for emigration. The plan stipulated that Walter and his sons should travel to the USA first on the basis of the entry papers they had previously requested. After six months there, he could have had his wife come with a non-quota visa . In September 1940 the three left England.

Irmi used the time to enroll at a school for rhythmic gymnastics in London and started training as a masseuse. When her entry papers were available, she managed to get a passage on a banana freighter that transported fruit to England and took passengers on the return journey. This ship brought her to Halifax , from where she traveled on by train. On March 20, 1940, she stopped over with friends in Montreal , and the next day she was met by Walter and his sons in New York.

The meeting with Henry Selver

Irmi was impressed by the abundance of goods that could be seen and bought in New York, unlike in England. “Did the people know what was going on? Did you know about the devastation there? From the privations of a large part of the population? I couldn't help but wonder. "

The plans for the future were not made to their full satisfaction either. Walter Elkan had decided to send his sons to boarding school and become chicken farmers himself. In order to acquire the necessary knowledge, they sat on a farm in New Jersey. But Irmi had enough of it quickly and went back to New York. She opened a craft shop that wasn't doing too well, but she was also able to use the time to successfully prepare for a massage license exam.

“During this time, I also volunteered to help a German-Jewish fundraising organization. The purpose of this organization was to raise enough money to buy a fighter jet and present it to the United States government as a gesture of gratitude for German Jewish immigrants. I was interviewed for the job by the fundraising manager, an extremely handsome forty-year-old man who introduced himself as Henry Selver. I immediately recognized the name as that of the director of the private school, for which Karl and I had looked unsuccessfully one morning in Berlin; now, five years later and after major changes in my life, I finally met him. We immediately felt a mutual attraction and from that day on our paths ran together. "

Walter Elkan and Irmi separated by mutual agreement and divorced in the summer of 1942 in the divorce paradise of Reno (Nevada) . In September 1942 he married Henry Selver in New York. The two daughters Irene and Veronica come from this marriage.

Professional and volunteer activities in the United States

In the service of immigrants and their integration

In addition to his work at the Pleasantville Cottage School, Henry Selver developed extensive voluntary work in immigrant organizations, which can be easily traced from 1941 onwards using articles under construction . He was first mentioned on March 14, 1941 in an announcement for a lecture to be held the next day before the Youth Group of the NWC. The NWC , the New World Club founded in the 1920s , was a more intellectual New York German-Jewish association which, among other things, also published the structure , and to whose youth club Henry Selver, as representative of the Immigrants' Conference , was supposed to give a lecture about the preparations for a Conference on Immigration Youth . It is expressly noted: "No amusement."

Many of Selver's other activities were related to the Immigrants' Conference . The structure reported in its edition of November 1, 1939 about this umbrella organization of various individual organizations and clubs, which had been founded shortly before with the addition of "1939" to the name and which arose as self-help organizations for immigrants, especially political emigrants who immigrated to the USA from 1938 onwards : “The need to bring these organizations together to coordinate their work and represent their interests was brought about by the Immigrants' Conference in 1939 , which, in collaboration with American aid organizations, added a large number of new plans and projects to its program. A faster and more sensible Americanization of the newcomers, a clearing in career counseling and placement, in training and redeployment , the creation of support funds, health and hospital insurance, a non-profit legal and economic advice , loan brokerage, summary of the emigrants Settlement, etc. are only a few points from the large number of necessary and urgent problems among immigrants. "At the time the organization was founded, there were around 25 organizations, and it was intended that the work should not only be aimed at German emigrants. but on emigrants from all European countries. The first chairman was Wilfred C. Hulse , who was later succeeded by Henry Selver.

Analogous to the Immigrants' Conference , Selver was involved in the formation of a youth umbrella organization in 1941. As a representative of a preparatory committee, he called on the most diverse immigrant youth groups for October 16, 1941 to found a Council of Immigrant Youth (CIY) , which the establishment on October 10, 1941 drew attention to. A little later he is presented as a representative of the CIY in the "Executive Board" of the Immigrants' Conference .

With the entry of the United States into World War II on December 8, 1941, immigrants from Europe were forced to increasingly grapple with their status within American society.

In the structure of December 12, 1941, a multi-page article appeared under the main topic "Immigrants and National Defense" with the situation and status of immigrants in a situation that has now also changed domestically. This was followed on January 16, 1942, under the heading “United Front of All 'Axis' Hostile Immigrants”, a detailed account of the work of the Immigrants' Conference , which had set itself the task of “creating a united front for all those who were victims of the European fascism have found acceptance in the United States ”. As part of the action program, Henry Selver is named as responsible for two areas of work: for the "Social Service for Soldiers and Selectees ( USO , Jewish Welfare Board)" and as a representative of the "advisory board" of the "Youth in Defense" .

In the United States, the Victory Book Campaign was launched in 1942 , through which 10 million books were to be collected through private book donations across the country. They were intended for soldiers and sailors in camps, for the wounded in hospitals and homes, for prisoners abroad, and for workers and learners in the large industrial centers. On behalf of the Immigrants' Conferenc , Henry Selver and Gustave von Grunebaum appealed to support the campaign and referred to the New York collection points set up by the conference. The March 6, 1942 at the building published appeal ended with the words: "No one hesitated to give because it can only be separated by one or two books. Since we give together, many small donations will become a large contribution. The action starts immediately. Don't wait, give immediately and get your friends and acquaintances to do the same! "

How precarious the situation of immigrants in the United States was in some areas is shown by a protest by the “Council for Aliens From Enemy Countries”, which Henry Selver helped to sign at the end of March 1942. In this statement, published in the structure on March 27, 1942 , the decision of some local New York Red Cross chapters is condemned to refuse refugees “according to the so-called 'aliens of enemy nationality' regardless of their status as refugees from all activities (as teachers and Students are excluded from teaching First Aid and about war nutrition, blood donations, etc.) ”. The signatories demand that this measure be reversed.

Another campaign also refers to the difficult situation of the refugees, who apparently felt compelled to demonstrate their loyalty to the USA to a particularly high degree. On April 10, 1942, the structure on page 1 under the heading "Calling All Immigrants" brings a call in English and German with the title "America's enemies are our enemies!" And the slogan "We were the first victims of Hitler!" he turned to the Enemy Aliens who "we know, and America knows, that we are not 'enemies' but loyal allies". Knowing that the struggle for freedom is also their struggle, immigrants are urged to “raise funds for a fighter jet to be handed over to the American government. As an expression of our devotion to it Wirde bear the name: Loyalty . Some sponsors "are already named in the call, and it will, which was founded for this task Loyalty Committee noted the Executive Committee Henry Selver as Chairman Organizizing Committee belonged. As mentioned above, this campaign was also very significant for him privately: through her he met his second wife Irmi, with whom he married in September 1942.

As the structure reported on March 8, 1943, Henry Selver was appointed chairman of the Executive Committee of the Immigrants' Conference . Another post on the same page reports that he was elected "Acting Chairman of the Immigrnts' Conference". After a reference to his earlier work in Berlin, it says: “In the United States he then worked in the field of child care. He devoted all of his free time to the interests of immigration; u. a. he organized the refugee youth in the Council for Immigrants Youth, was Campaign Manager of 'Loyalty Action' and brings his experience in the field of the cultural classification of immigrants since 1933 as an important property to his new office. "

The loyalty campaign leads to a great success after just one year. On March 19, 1943, was build -Aufmacher on page 1: "The great day of Immigration: 'Loyalty' rises." A P-40 fighter plane was financed by donations and be put into service. The article ends with an appeal: “Immigrants - persecuted over there, rescued here - we expect you on Sunday, March 21, at 11 o'clock, at LaGuardia airfield.” On March 26, 1943 , the structure reported on this festival on several pages . The aircraft, which had been christened by Elisabeth Bergner , had the inscription "LOYALTY GIFT OF RECENT EMIGRES FROM NAZI-FASCIST OPPRESSION" on the front of the bow. Henry Selver gave the closing words at the event: “If I am trying to express the essence of the experiences that this day symbolically means and for which we are so deeply grateful to all of you, then it is this: As individuals we are building a new human community in this great nation on; as a group, brutal violence cannot eradicate or paralyze us, we are free to take our place in the ranks of American citizens in the struggle for the liberation of the world; we are free to serve, to serve this one great purpose that comes first in all of our hearts and minds: victory for the United States and the United Nations! "

About the official end of the campaign the reported structure then on November 26, 1943. US Vice President Henry Wallace received in Washington delegation, who also belonged to Henry Selver. She presented a Declaration of Loyalty , signed by more than 16,000 participants , in which the support of America by the immigrants was reaffirmed, which had found its expression in the financing of a fighter jet. The "patriotic commitment of German emigrants" to the USA had thus reached its climax.

In the meantime, another campaign had already started. On July 2, 1943, the appeal “Immigrant, America needs you” appeared in the construction phase. Through him the immigrants should call for stronger support for the USA in the war. For this purpose, various organizations and people joined together in the Immigrants' Victory Council with the aim of "centralizing the war effort of immigration, especially in the area of ​​civilian defense". The immigrants were asked to volunteer and "expand the united front of immigration in this historic hour and bring it to a powerful use". For the immigrant 'Conference signed Paul Tillich as president and Henry Selver as "Acting Chairman" the call. These appeals to the immigrants were subsequently repeated several times in the structure and illustrated by small action reports. They achieved a new level of urgency through the campaign launched by several immigrant organizations to subscribe for war bonds under the slogan "For the Victory of a Better World", which the structure reported on January 21, 1944. Henry Selver contributed an appeal on behalf of the Immigrants' Conference that ended with the sentence, "It's not sacrifice, it's wisdom for the immigrant to sign America's 4th War Loan."

After the end of the war, Henry Selver took part in the relief efforts for the surviving Jews in Germany and Austria. On October 26, 1945, under the title “Do not forget the dead - remember the living”, the assembly called for a large rally in New York on November 10th, commemorating the pogroms of November 10th and at the same time initiating a “relief operation to alleviate the suffering of survivors in Germany and Austria ”. In addition to many celebrities who supported this call, Henry Selver is also named, who has agreed to help set up an action committee for aid in Europe . After that, Henry Selver's traces in the structure are lost .

From New York to Chicago

Henry Selver has apparently served as the assistant director of Pleasantville Cottage School all these years . Why he gave up this task in 1946 and went to Chicago is not known, even Irmi Selver does not provide any reasons for this in her memoir. There he became director of a Jewish orphanage, the Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home . That he did not take on an easy task becomes clear from the following quote.

"Dr. Henry I. Selver came to the home in 1946 after serving as the Assistant Director of the Pleasantville Cottage School of the Jewish Child Care Association of New York. He was clearly not what the kids were used to, and that was by design. The home, then known as Marks Nathan Hall, was run by the Organizing Committee of the Jewish Children's Bureau, headed by Charles Herron. Mr. Herron has served on the board of directors of the Mark Nathan Jewish Orphan Home since 1908. The organizing committee decided in 1946 that Mr. Feinstein was no longer the home manager the home needed. Only a hundred children were cared for at Marks Nathan. The building was derelict and the workforce had shrunk. In part, this was due to the lack of money and labor after World War II. Samuel Feinstein left the house with a record of 23 years of honest work. What was sad for him was that his principles of raising children had become old-fashioned in his day. Dr. Selver was hired to replace Mr. Feinstein and convert Marks Nathan Hall from an orphanage to a new system of small group housing. Several new offers were planned to enable children who could not be adequately accommodated with families to receive more individual care and therapy. "

From some of the stories told by former residents of the home, it becomes clear how much Selver approached the children and young people and did not approach them as a punitive authority. But his work did not last long. In 1948 the home was closed, which was apparently directly related to Henry Selver's order, as Irmi Selver reported:

“Henry was responsible for fundamental changes in the structure of children's homes by encouraging the breakup of large institutional shelters into smaller autonomous units where children could live in a more homely atmosphere. The changes he introduced became a model for many children's homes in the United States. In September 1948 the children in Chicago moved from the single facility in which they were previously housed to the specially converted smaller apartments, and with this transition the time had come for us to return to New York. "

Before it closed, Marks Nathan Hall hosted a special reunion. In June 1947, former PriWaKi teachers and students met here . Gunther Siegmund Stent , who reported on it, it seemed as if Selver had hardly changed in the ten years that he had not seen him. Eight students from the older grades and two girls from the lower grades attended the meeting.

Activity in Newark

After the closure was Marks Nathan Hall, Henry Selver took on a new role in Newark in January 1949, "again as director of a home for Jewish children and young people," as Busemann writes. No more is known about this episode, which means that it must remain open whether this home was the Hebrew Orphan Asylum , the only Jewish children's home in Newark to which a trace could still be found. In a construction article from June 24, 1949, however, it says that Selver was most recently director of the Jewish Child Care Association in Essex County (NY). It is not known whether he also managed a home in this capacity.

Jewish social work in Europe

In the above-mentioned Aufbau article of June 24, 1949, the appointment of Henry Selver, known as a "well-known educator and social worker in Europe and the United States", as the first director of the new Paul Baerwald School of Social Work is announced.

A systematic review of the work of this school and its director does not seem to exist to this day, although extensive material is available in the archive of the Joint Distribution Committee (see web links). Meanwhile, Wilfred C. Hulse's obituary says: “There, out in Versailles, he taught young Jews (and non-Jews) from all over Europe, from Israel and North Africa, social welfare, help for children and adults, understanding of people in their suffering - but not 'charity', but scientifically based ways of helping people . From Versailles and Paris he was able to influence the social institutions of Israel, the relief organization in Morocco and Tunis, in France and Belgium, in the camps for refugees and ' displaced persons ' all over the European continent - he was able to rebuild 'his' Jews on the day and work all night. "

After the school closed, Henry Selver became head of the “Social Welfare Department” of the Joint Distribution Committee in Paris and campaigned for the school to continue in Israel. He was not able to experience its reopening in November 1958 at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem as The Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare . Henry Selver, who had already survived two heart attacks in Versailles, died in Paris on September 21, 1957. Irmi Selver writes that the library of the new Paul Baerwald SAchool is in hot honor of her husband Henry Selver Library . Evidence of this can no longer be found on the school's website.

Irmi Selver returned to the USA after the death of her husband. She lived in New York and from 1959 in a house on Cape Cod . On many trips, mostly with her daughters, she visited Berlin again and, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, her native city of Chemnitz.

Works

literature

  • Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Island of security. The private forest school Kaliski 1932 to 1939. Verlag JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 1992, ISBN 3-476-00845-2 . Mainly the chapters:
    • Hertha Luise Busemann: The school founder - Lotte Kaliski. Pp. 76-126.
    • Hertha Luise Busemann: The headmaster - Heinrich Selver. Pp. 127-199.
      A shorter account based on this can be found in Werner Fölling: Between German and Jewish Identity. A Jewish reform school in Berlin between 1932 and 1939. Leske + Budrich, Opladen, 1995, ISBN 3-8100-1269-6 , pp. 188-189.
  • Irmi Selver: My Memoirs. New York 1989 (available online in the Center for Jewish History Digital Collections ).
  • Jörg H. Fehrs: From Heidereutergasse to Roseneck. Jewish schools in Berlin 1712–1942. Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1993, ISBN 978-3-89468-075-6 .
  • Jews in Chemnitz - The Goeritz Family .
  • Henry Selver in the construction archive .
  • Wilfred C. Hulse: Obituary for Henry Selver. In: Structure. September 27, 1957, p. 10 (pdf page 63).
  • Aaron Gruenberg (Project Coordinator Marks Nathan Oral History Project): Home Kids Memories Of The Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home. Published by The Jewish Children's Bureau of Chicago, no.
  • Selver, Henry , in: Joseph Walk (ed.): Short biographies on the history of the Jews 1918–1945 . Munich: Saur, 1988, ISBN 3-598-10477-4 , p. 340
  • Selver, Henry , in: Werner Röder, Herbert A. Strauss (eds.): Biographical manual of German-speaking emigration after 1933. Volume 1: Politics, economy, public life . Munich: Saur, 1980, pp. 688f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hertha Luise Busemann: The headmaster - Heinrich Selver. P. 129. The work was created in connection with a research project funded by the DFG at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg on the private forest school Kaliski . In this context, the historian Busemann was responsible for researching the biographies of the headmistress Lotte Kaliski and the headmistress Heinrich Selver. Unless other sources are named in the following description of Selver's life and work, all information is based on the work of Busemann.
  2. ↑ According to Buisemann, the spelling of the family name was initially Selwer , before Abraham decided to follow the example of his brother David and to choose the Latinized form Selver .
  3. ^ Hertha Luise Busemann: The headmaster - Heinrich Selver. P. 128
  4. ↑ This also explains that the DNB catalog lists Henrik Selver as the author of his dissertation , but no further personal data is assigned to him, whereas Heinrich Selver has correct personal data assigned to him, but no references to publications. In the following the first name Heinrich will be used until Selvers emigration, then Henry.
  5. ^ Hertha Luise Busemann: The headmaster - Heinrich Selver. Pp. 166-167
  6. ^ Hertha Luise Busemann: The headmaster - Heinrich Selver. Pp. 170-171
  7. ^ Stefan Laeng-Gilliatt: Charlotte Selver Oral History and Book Project . "Interestingly, though Charlotte and Heinrich had been dating since 1920, he had never been to Ruhrort nor had he met her parents. This should finally happen only weeks after this postcard was sent. It was part of preparing Heinrich for the visit. Why it took so long for this meeting to take place is not entirely clear to me yet but it may well have been a class issue. Charlotte, on the other hand, had long met Heinrich's family in Chemnitz. "
  8. ^ Hertha Luise Busemann: The headmaster - Heinrich Selver. P. 176
  9. ^ Stefan Laeng-Gilliatt: Charlotte Selver Oral History and Book Project . "From early on in Charlotte's life the professional and the personal were very much intertwined. Charlotte lived for her work, and she was very passionate about it, be it in the 20s when she was a Bode Gymnastik teacher, be it as a student of Elsa Gindler and Heinrich Jacoby or later on, as many of us have experienced, when she lived in the United States. As I continue to explore Charlotte's early life it is becoming increasingly evident that her vocation must have had a big impact on the relationship with her first husband, Heinrich Selver. An image emerges of their relationship that shows two young people who are fiercely independent in their everyday lives but emotionally entangled, two people who adored each other but who could never settle for an 'ordinary' marriage. It seems that they loved each other most passionately when they dreamed to build a life together but struggled when they actually shared an apartment. That is not to say that they did not enjoy living together. I know from Charlotte how much she loved coming home after a days work to join Heinrich in their apartment when he was still a student at the university of Leipzig: “I remember the evenings when I came home late from the work. I entered the living room, cigarette smoke was hanging in the air and there sat Heinrich, working very quietly and I came from the very lively lessons into this stillness. ”“
  10. ^ Hertha Luise Busemann: The headmaster - Heinrich Selver. P. 182
  11. ↑ See the article on Paula Fürst and Jörg H. Fehrs: Von der Heidereutergasse to Roseneck. P. 273 ff.
  12. ^ Hertha Luise Busemann: The headmaster - Heinrich Selver. Pp. 186-187
  13. ↑ Wilfred C. Hulse: Obituary for Henry Selver
  14. ^ Hertha Luise Busemann: The headmaster - Heinrich Selver. P. 187
  15. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann: The school founder - Lotte Kaliski. P. 119
  16. ^ Jörg H. Fehrs: From Heidereutergasse to Roseneck. P. 310
  17. ^ Hertha Luise Busemann: The headmaster - Heinrich Selver. P. 192
  18. ↑ Peter Landsberg, quoted from: Hertha Luise Busemann: The Headmaster - Heinrich Selver. P. 193
  19. ^ Ellis Island Passenger Search . Why in both cases the entry “Date of Arrival: January 1st, 1938” is not understandable.
  20. ^ Werner Fölling: Between German and Jewish Identity. S. 190. Both the organization (homepage of the Jewish Childcare Association (JCCA) ) and the school continue to exist (homepage of the Pleasantville Cottage School )
  21. ^ Ingrid Warburg Spinelli: Memories. The urgency of compassion and the loneliness to say no. Luchterhand Literaturverlag, Hamburg and Zurich, 1991, ISBN 978-3-630-71013-6 , p. 134
  22. ↑ However, contact with Lotte Kaliski was never broken, as evidenced by a letter from Selver to Kaliski dated November 15, 1951, in which Selver asks her to help her obtain specialist literature. ( JDC Archives: Letter from Henry Selver to Miss Lotte Kaliski )
  23. ^ Columbia University School of Social Work
  24. ↑ For the following description of Irmgard and Heinrich Selver see: a) Irmi Selver: My Memoirs (see sources); b) the website JUDEN IN CHEMNITZ - DIE FAMILIE GOERITZ (see sources); c) the short biography about Irmgard Anna (Irmi) Frank . Unless otherwise noted, the depiction follows Irmi Selver's memoir.
  25. ↑ Irmi Selver: My Memoirs. S. 8. “Although he was an enterprising businessman (he and his brother manufactured a luxury line of women's underwear, blouses and bathing suits under the label“ VENUS ”), Karl's passion lay in the arts. We began a collection of German Expressionist paintings, and of arts and crafts from Viennese and German workshops, and housed this collection in our new home in Chemnitz. We were politically and financially active in the Zionist movement to promote a Jewish homeland in Palestine, and Karl was especially helpful in establishing a synphony orchestra there, which later became the Israel Philharmonic. "
  26. ↑ Irmi Selver: My Memoirs. Pp. 9-10. 'While we were visiting one couple, we heard that their children were enrolled in a private school, the Private Waldschule Kaliski, which had been organized so that Jewish children, who were no longer allowed to study in German schools, would be able to continue their education with Jewish teachers, who for their part were no longer allowed to teach in German schools. The director of this school was Heinrich Selver, a name that rang a bell. There had been two Selver sisters in my Hebrew class in Chemnitz. And, sure enough, when I asked where this director was from, the answer was Chemnitz. In a burst of Chemnitz pride, Karl and I tried to find the sclool the next day so we could pay our respects to the head of this unique establishment; but we were unable to find the street where it was, and we had to leave Berlin without meeting Heinrich Selver. '
  27. ↑ Irmi Selver: My Memoirs. P. 15. 'At noon on November 18th there was an enormous explosion, followed mediately by a second one. As the boat sank rapidly, I was carried by a huge wave to the only portion of the deck that still remained above water. Even though I was covered with oil, I managed to make it to the one life boat that had been cut free. When we were found by an English minesweeper we were hauled aboard with the help of a rope. The next thing I knew I was shivering with my niece Ilse in one of the machine rooms of the minesweeper. Slowly I grasped what had happened. I had lost my husband, my son and my daughter. Thirteen years of happiness had been wiped out in minutes. ' Stumbling blocks laid in Chemnitz remember Karl Goeritz and the children: In memory of Karl Goeritz and his children
  28. ↑ It is probably Walter Bernhard Elkan (born September 11, 1891 in Krefeld - † July 26, 1957 in Cooperstown (New York) ), according to the Ellis Island database, a papermaker who on September 23, 1940 together with his two minors Sons Hans Bernd and Alfred entered the USA.
  29. ↑ Irmi Selver: My Memoirs. Pp. 21-22. "Did people know what was going on? Were they aware of the devastation there? Of the deprivations of a large part of the population? I couldn't help but wonder. "
  30. ↑ Irmi Selver: My Memoirs. P. 24. 'During this period I also volunteered for a German-Jewish fundraising organization. The purpose of this organization was to collect enough money to buy a fighter plane to present to the United States Government as a gesture of gratitude from Germarh-Jewish inmigrants. I was interviewed for this job by the head of the fundraising drive, an extremely attractive forty-year-old man who introduced himself as Henry Selver. I immediately recognized the name as that of the director of the private school Karl and I had looked for unsuccessfully one morning in Berlin; now, five years later and after great changes in my life I had finally met him. We immediately felt a mutual attraction and our paths fell together from that day forward. '
  31. ↑ The marriage announcement from “Dr. Henry I. Selver "and" Irmi Goeritz-Selver, née Frank "appeared without an exact date of the marriage on September 18, 1942 in the New York structure (page 20)
  32. ↑ For its history see: From the German Jewish Club to the New World Club
  33. ↑ For the history of the German-Jewish clubs see also: The era of the Social Clubs , In: Steven M. Lowenstein: Frankfurt on the Hudson. The German Jewish Cimmunity of Washington Heights, 1933-1983, Its Structure and Culture. Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1989, ISBN 978-0-8143-2385-4 , pp. 104 ff.
  34. ↑ See the article in the English WIKIPEDIA about the National Jewish Welfare Board .
  35. ↑ Detailed information (in English) can be found on the following websites: Valerie Wingfield: The Victory Book Campaign and The New York Public Library & Andrew Brozyna: The Victory Book Campaign, 1942–1943
  36. ↑ Aufbau , March 26, 1943. “When I try to express the essence of the experiences which this day signifies symbolically and for which we feel so deeply grateful to all of you, it is this: As individuals we are building new human fellowship in this great nation; as a group, brutal force could not exterminate nor paralyze us, we are free to take our place with the rank and file of the American citizens in the fight for world liberation; we are free to serve, to serve towards this one great goal uppermost in all our minds and hearts: Victory for the United States and the United Nations! "
  37. ↑ Elke-Vera Kotowski (ed.): Structure. Mouthpiece. Homeland. Myth. History (s) of a German-Jewish newspaper from New York 1934 to today , Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin, 2011, ISBN 978-3-942271-19-6 , p. 60.
  38. ↑ On its founding history see: Natalie Burda: Orthodoxy as a Means of Becoming Good Jewish Americans: Two Jewish Orphanages in Chicago. In: Constructing the Past. Volume 7, 2006, No. 1, Article 9. The home was founded in 1906 by Jews from Eastern Europe under the name Marx Nathan Jewish Orphan Asylum and was renamed Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home in 1939. (E. Wayne Carp (ed.): Adoption in America. Historical Persepectives. The University Of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 2005, ISBN 0-472-10999-5 . P. 119)
  39. ^ Aaron Gruenberg (Project Coordinator Marks Nathan Oral History Project): Home Kids Memories Of The Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home. Pp. 71-72. 'Dr. Henry I. Selver came to the Home in 1946 after serving as Assistant Director of the Pleasantville Cottage School of the Jewish Child Care Association of New York. He was clearly not what the kids were used to, and this was intentional. The Home, by that time known as Marks Nathan Hall, was overseen by the Institution Committee of the Jewish Children's Bureau, led by Mr. Charles Herron. Mr. Herron had served on the Board of Directors of the Marks Nathan Jewish Orphan Home since 1908. The Institution Committee decided in 1946 that Mr. Feinstein was no longer the kind of superintendent the Home needed. Only one hundred children were served by Marks Nathan. The building had fallen into disrepair, and the work force had dwindled. In part it was due to lack of funds and the labor shortage caused by World War II. Samuel Feinstein left with a record of twenty-three years of honestly devoted service. Sadly for him, his principles of child rearing had become old fashioned during his own time. Dr. Selver was hired to replace Mr. Feinstein and bring about a transformation of Marks Nathan Hall from an orphanage to a new system of small-group living units. Several new facilities were planned to provide more individual attention and treatment to children who could not be appropriately placed with families. '
  40. ↑ Irving Cutler: The Jews Of Chicago. From Shtetl to Suburb. University of Illinois Press, 1996, ISBN 0-252-02185-1 , p. 286
  41. ↑ Irmi Selver: My Memoirs. S. 27. 'Henry was responsible for making fundamental changes in the structure of children's homes by encouraging the break up of large institutional housing into smaller autonomous units where children could live in a more homelike atmosphere. The changes he introduced became a model for many children's homes throughout the US In September 1948, the children in Chicago moved from the single institution where they were housed to the specially remodeled smaller apartments, and with this transition, the time was right for us to return to New York. '
  42. ^ Gunther S. Stent: Nazis, Women and Molecular Biology. Memoirs of a Lucky Self-hater. Briones Books, Kensington (California), 1998, ISBN 0-9664563-0-0 , pp. 275 ff. Some survival biographies are briefly outlined by Stent.
  43. ↑ Irmi Selver also has nothing to report about her.
  44. ^ Jewish Children's Home (Hebrew Orphan Asylum)
  45. ↑ Irmi Selver: My Memoirs. P. 35
personal data
SURNAME Selver, Heinrich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zelwer, Hersch loaf; Selver, Henry
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Jewish educator and social worker
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1901
PLACE OF BIRTH Błaszki
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1957
Place of death Paris