Helga Stöver
Helga Stöver (born April 9, 1926 in Mönchengladbach ; † October 7, 1993 there ) was a German educator . In view of her experiences in National Socialism, she was committed to the integration of disabled people, the concerns of refugees and Christian-Jewish understanding throughout her life .
Live and act
After attending the Protestant elementary school on Charlottenstrasse, Helga Stöver switched to the Oberlyzeum Mönchengladbach (today Gymnasium am Geroweiher ) at Easter 1936 , which she left on February 1, 1944 with the Abitur. From March to December 1944, she served in the Reich Labor Service . From February to June 1945 she was a student nurse in Bethel and then until October 1945 at the Bethesda Hospital in Mönchengladbach. From May to September 1946 she was the deputy camp manager of the girls' summer camp in the Hardter Forest. From November 1946 to August 1948 she attended the Pedagogical Academy in Kettwig, where she passed the first teacher examination. From November 1, 1948 to August 11, 1959, she taught at the Evangelical Elementary School in Engelbleck. During this period she completed the second teacher examination and also studied for teaching at secondary schools, with a successful final exam on October 30, 1957. Subsequently, she studied teaching at auxiliary schools with a final exam on October 20, 1961. From August 12, 1959 to December 31, 1968 she taught at the special school Zeppelinstrasse, from 1965 as vice-principal .
On January 1, 1969, she asked to be released from civil servant status in order to be able to become deputy principal at the Karl-Barthold-Schule of the Protestant educational and nursing home in Hephata . She held this position until she retired on July 31, 1986. Helga Stöver was characterized by a strong commitment to the integration of disabled people into society. She was also co-founder and for a long time managing director of the “Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation Mönchengladbach e. V. ".
When Helga Stöver had read the book “Between Day and Dark, Girls Years in the Ghetto” by Hilde Sherman , née Zander from Wickrathberg, which was just published by Ullstein-Verlag in 1984 , she wrote to the publisher to be able to contact the author. A friendship emerged from the resulting correspondence, and Helga Stöver's visit of several months in Bogotá ( Colombia ), Hilde Sherman's place of residence at the time , emerged from the friendship . In 1988 the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation was re-established in Mönchengladbach and Helga Stöver was its first managing director. In 1989 the city of Mönchengladbach invited around 150 former Jewish citizens or their relatives to visit their former hometown for a week.
In addition to this affair of the heart, Helga Stöver was involved in a variety of ways in the city youth council, in the Evangelical Peace Church Community. In 1988 she adopted a Kurd to save him from deportation. In 1993 Helga Stöver was to be honored with the badge of honor of the city of Mönchengladbach, her death on October 7, 1993 came before that. In her honor, the park in front of the houses "Neusser Str. 92 to 114" in Helga-Stöver-Park ( Lage ) was named in April 2013 in the immediate vicinity of her long-term home in the Gaußstrasse in Mönchengladbach . On October 3, 2013, a name stone was unveiled there in a ceremony.
“My youth during the Nazi era shaped my further life - until today. Because I learned how terribly power can degenerate, I love the powerless today: the disabled, foreigners, Jews ... That's why I became a special education teacher. I want to remember the terrible past of our people so that I can experience in the present what Baal Shem Tov , a Jewish sage, summed up in the phrase 'The secret of salvation is memory'. "
Speeches and writings
- Helga Stöver: God has always stood by me. In: Stadtarchiv Mönchengladbach (ed.): Contributions to the history of the city of Mönchengladbach. Editing by Doris Sessinghaus-Reisch. Mönchengladbach 1975, ISSN 0175-4793 , pp. 23-50.
- Helga Stöver: What is not in the diaries. In: Wulf Schade (Red.): Wake up, it's war! : How Poles and Germans experienced September 1, 1939. Publisher: German-Polish Society of the Federal Republic of Germany. Bielefeld 1989, ISBN 3-9801753-2-4 , pp. 109-118.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hilde Sherman- Zander: Between Day and Dark, Girls' Years in the Ghetto. Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-548-20386-8 .
- ↑ Work folder to prepare the visit of the former Jewish citizens in Mönchengladbach from 24.-31. August 1989 (PDF; 13.1 MB)
- ↑ See article in the Westdeutsche Zeitung , October 5, 2013: Faith made them strong ; and in the Rheinische Post , October 11, 2013: New memorial stone commemorates Helga Stöver .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Stöver, Helga |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German educator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 9, 1926 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mönchengladbach |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 7, 1993 |
| Place of death | Mönchengladbach |