Sophie Friedländer

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Sophie Friedländer (born January 17, 1905 in Hamburg , † February 20, 2006 in London ) was a German-Jewish and German-British educator who had been banned from state schools in 1933 for “racial reasons” and taught at Jewish schools for several years and emigrated to England in 1938 . She took an active part in looking after the refugee children who had come to England with the Kindertransporte . From 1940 to 1995 she lived in a work and life relationship with Hilde Jarecki (born August 31, 1911 in Berlin - † May 10, 1995 in London), whose life story is shown here due to this closeness.

Family background

Sophie Friedländer was born on January 17, 1905, the third of four children. Her father, Josua Falk Friedländer (born June 11, 1871 in Stade - † October 22, 1942 in the Theresienstadt ghetto ), was a teacher at the Hamburg Talmud Torah School at the time , and her mother Else (born May 11, 1875 in Posen - on June 15, 1942 most likely deported to Izbica , the exact place and time of death are not known) Housewife, but a trained teacher. In 1898 the Friedlanders came to Hamburg, where their son Walter was born on December 7, 1900 and their son Johanan Priel, also known as Hans, on June 16, 1902. The fourth child after Sophie, Ernst, was born on July 2, 1907 in Berlin.

In the year after Sophie Friedländer was born, the family moved to Berlin, where the father got a job as a teacher for Latin, modern languages ​​and Jewish religious instruction at the Königstädtische Oberrealschule . The Friedlaenders first lived on Eberswalder Straße, between 1917 and 1918 they moved to Schönhauser Allee and finally to Siegmundshof around 1934/35. The parents lived here until they were deported. Josua Falk Friedlaender was a religious man who had developed away from orthodoxy and towards liberal Judaism, as a saying passed down by Sophie Friedländer shows: “You can only be liberal if you have been orthodox beforehand.” He was nevertheless heavily involved in the Jewish community work. “He was a member of the school board of the Jewish community in Berlin. He was also a member of the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith . For many years Joshua was the head of the synagogue in Berlin's Rykestrasse . [..] He also worked as a lay preacher on major holidays in the prayer rooms of the congregation. In the Auerbach orphanage in Berlin, Joshua took over the post of director for a time and tried to organize the services according to his ideas. ”Both parents were also socially committed. “Even during the First World War, Joshua took on pastoral tasks in the hospitals for Jewish soldiers. He and his wife also took part in the station welfare for East Jewish workers on their way to the Ruhr area and, as a volunteer at the Central Welfare Office of German Jews , looked after Jewish people in the Prenzlauer Berg district. "

education

Sophie experienced a carefree childhood in Berlin with her family, combined with a sensitive introduction to Judaism and Jewish rites and festivals. When she started school in 1911 and was torn out of the sheltered family environment for the first time, she felt it was a shock, combined with “many fears of the unknown that I only began to overcome late”. The First World War was associated with hardship for the family, but neither the father, who was already too old for this, nor one of the brothers had to enter as an active soldier. Sophie spent the post-war period at a lyceum , where she had a teacher in the Obersekunda , who had a strong influence on her future path through his educational work. In 1924 she passed the school leaving examination and began training as a teacher. She completed internships at the Rütlischule , one of the first community schools in Berlin, whose advanced teaching methods deeply impressed Sophie Friedländer.

At the end of this training, which ended with the teaching examination for high schools, secondary schools and elementary schools, the parents sent their daughter to relatives in London in 1924, to an extended Jewish family. “It was the house of the former chief rabbi of a Sephardic community, who was born in Romania and studied in Wroclaw, a great scholar who was intimately familiar with all European and Semitic languages. His wife, a cousin of our father, the only daughter of the head of the Jews College in London. There is a photograph of him: velvet knee suit and buckled shoes. So he was invited to the king. It was an English household, but mostly a Jewish one, with strict observance of the dietary laws, daily prayers and traditional festivals. And thirteen very intelligent and spirited children - and no two with anything similar in development. There was nothing that was not passionately discussed and actively carried out among the siblings. Life in the house was so interesting and strong that it was very difficult for me to say goodbye after eight months. ”Sophie Friedländer does not mention the names of her relatives, but in her obituary for Sophie Friedländer in The Guardian , Elizabeth Rosenthal mentions that they are Relatives traded to a family Gaster . This family was that of Moses Gaster , a Sephardic chief rabbi, Jewish scholar and folklorist who was the son-in-law of Michael Friedländer . Michael Friedländer was an uncle of Sophie's father, Moses Gaster's wife was a cousin of Sophie's father, and there were close relationships between Michael Friedländer and Sophie's father: Josua Falk Friedlaender had “from 1892 to 1893 stayed in England for a year. There he attended the Jews' College, whose director, Dr. Michael Friedlaender who was his uncle. With this he also lived in time. He later translated a book by his uncle, 'The Jewish Religion', into German. "

For Sophie Friedländer, the stay in London and living with her relatives was important not only because of the improvement in her knowledge of English and her broadening of horizons, but also because the basis was laid here for her later rescue from the German Reich : “With the youngest, who were mine were close in old age, later there was also a community of beliefs. It was she and her friends who saved me to England. "

Back in Berlin, she completed her training. With financial support from her older brothers, she began an academic training and also prepared for the Jewish religion teacher examination. She broke off the latter after two years because she realized that “honestly, she could never take the class as a believer”. She studied English and geography at the University of Berlin , interrupted by a semester in Freiburg. She made a formative experience during her English exam for the state examination:

“We sat around a table - almost all of them were prospective teachers - to do a translation. For some reason we all had an encyclopedia with us, which of course we weren't allowed to use. However, when the invigilator went out to drink tea, as we sat there, we all took a quick look at the dictionary. The teachers too. That's how we all cheated. It was then that I decided in my heart that I would never punish a child for cheating. And I kept this promise. "

Sophie Friedländer, who gave private lessons during her studies and only had to do a shortened clerkship because of her previous teacher exams, leaves the year of her state examination open and only reports that she had been assigned to a girls' school for her clerkship. She only lasted here for a week and applied to Fritz Karsen to continue her legal traineeship at the Karl Marx School in Berlin-Neukölln , one of the most famous reform schools of the 1920s and early 1930s.

She describes her first encounter with Karsen as follows:

“Karsen, the head of the school, said thoughtfully: 'I already have so many Jewish trainee teachers. . . ‹To my own amazement, I heard myself say,› Well, then you'll have another ‹and I was accepted. Under the more or less strict supervision of a tutor, we had to give trial lessons 11 hours a week. I found myself confirmed in many ways and learned a lot. In the classes I felt the power of motivation from students and teachers. I watched a lot and learned that something was going on in every class. It was an atmosphere of searching and finding, of giving and taking, and not of being fed with measured knowledge. "

In addition to Fritz Karsen, Sophie Friedländer was also very impressed by Alfred Ehrentreich , who was her tutor in English.

Another impressive experience had by attending a teachers' conference in from Minna Specht led Landerziehungsheim Walke mill where she was fascinated by one of Gustav Heckmann held demonstration lesson in mathematics. His teaching method encouraged her to try it out in her own lessons at the Karl Marx School .

Sophie Friedländer's female assessor examination took place on April 1, 1933. “That was the date on which I was officially transferred to the civil service, but then already 'on recall'. [..] In September, the same week as my father after 27 years of service, I was retired. ”The law for the restoration of civil servants passed on April 7, 1933 had found two further victims in the Friedländer family.

The years 1933 to 1938

Caputh Jewish children's and rural school home

In May 1933, Sophie Friedländer started teaching English and geography at the Caputh Jewish children's and rural school home founded by Gertrud Urlaub .

In a retrospective from 1983, Sophie Friedländer emphasized the importance of Caputh for her personal career and reflected on the previous stages of her training in this context:

“For me, Caputh had a very special meaning in my career as a teacher. During my training during the Weimar period, I had attended many progressive schools and had sparked my enthusiasm for teaching with the 'Socratic Method' as demonstrated at a teachers' conference in Minna Specht's' Walkemühle '. At Easter 1933 I finished my traineeship year with my assessor examination at the Karl-Marx-Schule in Berlin-Neukölln , where I received a lot of inspiration for free, meaningful lessons and where I could find out how far our ideas from work lessons could be carried out in practice. And now I could apply what I had learned. "

Sophie Friedländer describes Caputh as an “oasis in the desert”, in which adult Jews in Hitler's Germany could find a way to cope with their own situation and, in the process, could help the children entrusted to them to find their way into a world of growing Finding uncertainty about right.

“As part of a larger community of fate, a strong community spirit soon developed. The adults gave, each in his own way, what they had to give, without restriction and without reference to a corresponding salary. I could not have had this happy experience in a normal technical class at a high school. The enthusiastic and very intuitive acting director was in her early 40s, the teacher and housemother between 23 and 35 years old, and almost all of us came from the free and progressive school efforts of the Weimar period. It was our privilege that we were able to continue working in this sense with work lessons in school, with extensive participation of the children in the daily chores in the home, council meeting and individual treatment of the children and their special situation without restrictive external pressure. "

She mentions a meeting from May 1934, rather casually: her first meeting with Hilde Jarecki, who had started her job as the new housemother. A year later, Sophie Friedländer asked her to replace her as a teacher, as she was traveling to England as an interpreter with Gertrud Urlaub. Hild Jarecki, who did not see herself as a teacher at the time, mastered the task with success. But the personal relationships between the two of them seem to have been rather loose at the time, and Sophie Friedländer writes: "We emigrated separately from one another, but since we met again - after a few adventures - in London in 1940, we have shared our lives."

Sophie Friedländer left Caputh in 1937. Sophie Friedländer was able to express her thanks to the Jüdische Kinder- und Landschulheim and its founder in a very special way, as Ingeborg Hansen-Schaberg pointed out in her 2006 obituary:

“A special achievement of Sophie Friedländer is that she has kept alive the memory of Gertrud Urlaub, who was murdered in Auschwitz, and of Caputh's educational reality. Her text on 'the lost paradise' Caputh appeared as early as 1983 in the volume 'Schools in Exile' edited by Hildegard Feidel-Mertz, and on the basis of the documents, student work, photos, letters, etc. she had collected over decades, which Hildegard Feidel Mertz bequeathed the exhibition on Caputh, which opened in Potsdam in 1994, and the book 'A Lost Paradise. The Jewish children's and rural school home Caputh (1931–1938) '[..] published. "

Excursus: Hilde Jarecki

Less is known about Hilde Jarecki (born August 31, 1911 in Berlin - † May 10, 1995 in London) than about Sophie Friedländer. But the "twin book" Sophie & Hilde , the second part of which takes up their lives, helps here too.

Origin and childhood

Hilde was the third of seven siblings. Her father, who participated in the First World War, “worked in the clothing industry”, the mother “came from a middle-class home”, but because of the early death of her mother, she lived in the orphanage until she was 14 years old before she attended a commercial college. Both parents, the mother grew up Protestant, had only very loose ties to Judaism.

Hilde Jarecki had a largely carefree childhood and school days, but had to go to children's homes several times because of tuberculosis. As a result, she spent six months in a sanatorium in Davos , and when her parents took her home from there because of a lack of healing prospects, she had asthma attacks that plagued her until she was 17. All of this led to an incomplete school education, but she was still able to graduate from a university with a secondary school leaving certificate. Through her older siblings she came into contact with Zionist and left youth organizations and became a member of the SAJ herself .

Training at the youth home association

Because of her inadequate school education and her weak constitution, many career aspirations were shattered, so that at 17, Hilde Jarecki accepted the offer of the Arbeiterwohlfahrt to work in a children's rest home. The position was limited, but when she said goodbye the director of the home advised her to train as a kindergarten teacher and youth leader. She wanted to train at the social education seminar founded by Anna von Gierke under the umbrella of the Jugendheim association and bridged the time until the next course start with private childcare and as a group leader at the holiday playgrounds set up by the Jewish community. At the age of 19 she began her training in Berlin-Charlottenburg , in the west of Berlin, "where the rich Berliners live".

“But the 'West' is not all Kurfürstendamm. Farther away from the main street, in the smaller back streets, there was a lot of unemployment and abject poverty. To give the children of this poverty what makes life worth living and to train young people who were up to this task, that was the goal that the manager Anna von Gierke and her staff of talented and committed employees had set themselves. I slipped into this atmosphere like a fish in water, as happens when kindred souls meet each other. Here in the youth home with its day care centers for socially disadvantaged children from 2-15 years of age and its exemplary training opportunities for kindergarten teachers, after-school care workers and youth welfare workers, what was wanted was not just theory, but lived life. "

Hilde Jarecki was enthusiastic about her training. Of her trainers, she particularly mentions Alice Bendix , who ran the Finkenkrug youth home that belongs to the association , and Nora Astfalck . In March 1933, she passed her state examination, six months before the training center was closed by the Nazis . Hilde Jarecki was now a “youth hostel”, as the graduates called themselves, and one of them “was a number of emigrated social pedagogues who - like Jarecki - the skills and experience they acquired in exile helped them to adapt flexibly and innovatively to new requirements to let in. "

House mother in Caputh

After her examination as a Jew, Hilde Jarecki was denied permanent employment in state institutions. She temporarily found work in a private Montessori kindergarten until that too had to be closed in January 1934. Its manager, however, knew Gertrud Urlaub, and so Hilde Jarecki found her way to Caputh.

After Feidel-Mertz, Hilde Jarecki came to Caputh on May 1, 1934 as a housemother and stayed there for 18 months. She left a brief memory about her time in Caputh and her relationship with Gertrud Urlaub:

“GF [Gertrud Urlaub] and I immediately had good contact. She offered me the position of housemother for a small group of girls aged 7-10 on one floor in the main building. After 4 weeks I wanted to enter my resignation. With my socio-educational training, the work with the somewhat spoiled children seemed too tight. But I was able to speak openly about it with GF. She laughed and said I could take on a much larger group with older children, with 20 boys and girls aged 11-16, far away from the main house, in the village. I could be completely independent there.
That was a group of quite healthy, but sometimes also very difficult young people. GF gave me, the 23 year old, full confidence and gave me all the freedom to shape life in this group in my own way. A strong community soon formed. Participation in all daily chores in the house not only made outside house help superfluous, but also strengthened the young people's sense of responsibility.
The weekly group evenings, shared wonderful experiences such as excursions, night hikes, reading together and meetings helped to open hearts and eyes for mutual understanding and mutual help.
It was only 18 months that I was in Caputh, but to this day this time is an important part of my varied work experience with all ages. "

Hilde Jarecki's last professional positions before emigration

Hilde Jarecki describes her departure from Caputh as a result of the gradual dissolution of the group structures as a result of increasing emigration. For her, who hadn't thought of leaving for the time being, it was an occasion to look after children who needed more care than the children who were still in Caputh, and those were the children in a Jewish orphanage. She moved to the "Reichenheim orphanage".

According to Jörg H. Fehrs, "the conservative-educational character of the institution, based on the principles of discipline and order, [..] has changed just as little in the last decades of its existence as has traditionally religious education". This assessment can also be found with Hilde Jarecki, having found “an old-fashioned orphanage” in which she should now take care of the “heartbreaking longing [of the children] for a little personal care, a little love”. She took on this task, implemented changes, but failed because the requirements overwhelmed her. She resigned, took on the task of setting up a playgroup for handicapped children on a temporary basis for three months, and in April 1937 switched to the Jüdische Kinderhilfe as a lay therapist , where she had to work with severely disturbed children.

Hilde Jarecki was next offered a position as director of a children's rest home. The home was on the ground floor of a villa near Berlin-Nikolassee and was financed by the Schocken family. Hilde Jarecki mainly looked after children from Berlin's Scheunenviertel , who were able to find relaxation here for six weeks, and became acquainted with homeopathy and other methods of naturopathy .

In the summer of 1938 the Schocken Verlag was forcibly closed, and support for the convalescent home ceased to exist. It was not possible for the Jewish Community to continue it for financial reasons, so Hilde Jarecki moved to another Jewish institution. She took over the management of a kindergarten on Grolmannstrasse, “one of the many facilities in private houses or apartments that had been abandoned by Jews. There was a day nursery on the ground floor, the kindergarten was on the first floor. Since there was now also a Jewish training for kindergarten teachers and after-school care workers, I was then able to take in schoolgirls for practical guidance. "

During the November pogroms in 1938 , the windows were smashed in Grolmannstrasse, but Hilde Jarecki was not deterred from opening the kindergarten again the next day. But now she too could no longer ignore the idea of ​​emigrating. She was in close contact with her teacher in the youth home association , Nora Astfalck, and her partner Johanna Nacken , who had emigrated in 1933 but continued to visit Germany as "Aryan women". The two found Hilde Jarecki a job as a domestic servant in England, and another friend found a place for Hilde's youngest sister Mirjam at the Bunce Court School , from where she was to travel to her siblings in Palestine.

Hilde Jarecki's departure was delayed for a few more months, and it was a happy coincidence how it came about. The way led via the Neu-Isenburg girls' dormitory founded by Bertha Pappenheim :

“ I heard from the Reich Representation of German Jews about a German-Jewish family who had already acquired British citizenship and thus no longer had any problems when they wanted to adopt a child from the baby home in Isenburg. Do I want to bring this baby over? Apart from Little Mirjam, I had no experience with babies. But I immediately agreed. Now I even had free travel. With 10 marks in my pocket - you weren't allowed to take more out with you - and a small suitcase I drove to Frankfurt, where the baby was to be handed over to me.
Yes, I emigrated with a small suitcase. I had left my winter coat behind - it was already March - I was wearing the only dress. The suitcase contained only a few clothes, especially a few favorite books, pictures and photographs. It was wonderful to be so unencumbered, because one arm had to be free for the baby! The baby was given to me in Frankfurt. I took it in my arms and with a 2nd class reservation I boarded the train to Hook van Holland. "

In Harwich, Hilde Jarecki and the baby were conceived by the adoptive parents, and she spent her first night on English soil with those in Craydon.

Sophie Friedländer's path to emigration

1937 joined Sophie Friedlander along with her colleagues Caputher and until then headmaster Fridolin Friedmann as a teacher at the of Bruno Strauss led Jewish High School Berlin . She describes the undertaking, which at first glance seems absurd, to found a Jewish school again, as well as the motives for changing as a teacher, very impressively:

“Today it seems quite unbelievable to us that the Jewish Community of Berlin opened its own Jewish secondary school in 1937, in which all the Jewish students and teachers who were excluded from the public schools were still grouped together for normal lessons in full classes could become. The head of the Caputh School at the time and a number of friends heeded the tempting call to go back to a 'real' school. "

But it wasn't just her enthusiasm for the job that made Sophie Friedländer stay. She, who had never organized herself politically, but saw herself as a socialist, could not join the trend of emigrating to Palestine that was widespread in her environment.

“While everyone in my immediate and extended family was naturally trying to emigrate to Palestine, I had serious doubts. While the right to settle was not a problem for them, because the land was largely bought by the Keren Kajemeth from the Arabs, I was familiar with the statistics of the Arabs and, through some heated discussions, I understood that nationalist movements must logically lead to armed conflicts. These considerations kept me from going with the flow. So I stayed. "

She later wrote about her beginning at the Jewish High School :

“That's when I started teaching in the spring. The school opened at Easter 1937. That was also something strange: in 1937 the Jewish community in Berlin opened a secondary school. What did they actually do ... well to take care of all those who were discharged from the other schools. And these then gathered - there were lots of talented students ... Back then, a boys 'class and a girls' class were set up for the Sexta because there were so many. So they were so divided, and in the other classes - the Quarta was also a girls 'and boys' class - were all mixed. "

Sophie Friedländer, who taught English, geography, history and German at this school, received a special farewell present here: a. the dramatization of the fairy tale 'The Cold Heart' (published in Edition Hentrich 1993, series AnDenken 2) by Wilhelm Hauff in the work with the girls of sixth birthday. It was in a booklet with beautiful illustrations by the students as a parting present for the teacher when she left Germany on September 23, 1938. "

“The work of her pupils from the sixth at the high school of the community in Berlin-Moabit, which she took into exile on that day, are not only mementos of her productive working hours as teachers of these children, but they are also documentation of a special one Learning process: The Sexta girls learned with their teacher to grapple with the history of their Jewish people and to perceive their presence in 1938 in Berlin; they have learned to orientate themselves in their metropolitan environment, which in some cases was already closed to them and forbidden and from which they were increasingly excluded. They did not do this passively, but with an activity that FRANZ ROSENZWIG understood in 1937 as the meaning of education: for him, education is' strength to act, ability to understand, not as mere matter, always personal, always the person himself, never from just had him. It is never knowledge of things, everywhere a sense of it. '"

In the long run, Sophie Friedländer could no longer avoid the idea of ​​emigrating. Her brothers, who had lived temporarily in the Soviet Union and only barely escaped the Stalin's purges , were able to travel to Palestine. She herself had a connection to Harold Laski , who wanted to employ her, but this failed because of the regulations that were harassing for émigré women: Laski should only have employed her if she had already been in England; But she was only allowed to enter England if she had a job. Friends from Liverpool then made sure that the domestic servants they had requested were allowed to enter the country, because a domestic permit was often the only way to enter England.

On September 23, 1938, Sophie Friedländer boarded the train into exile at Berlin-Charlottenburg station .

“I was the last of the four siblings to leave home. Our father gave me a used typewriter that has accompanied me through life and a small Hebrew Bible with a neatly small but clear Hebrew inscription, which I was only able to read and understand much later: ' You should do this for seven days Eat the unleavened bread of poverty, for you left Egypt in a hurry, so that you should remember the exodus from Egypt every day of your life. ' (5th Book of Moses 16/3)' His angels are to accompany you and protect you on your ways. ‹ (Psalm 91, 11) › A gift is spreading over my daughter Sophie: to learn, to teach, to preserve and to do. ‹
And on a note also in Hebrew: › What small wood kindles a large one : when pupils of small sages inspire the great. It is said Rabbi Chaninah: Much have I learned from my teachers and my friends, more of my colleagues, but most of my students. ' "

Sophie Friedländer never saw her parents again afterwards; According to an official report, her father “died” in Theresienstadt, the mother had to go to a sanatorium due to a mental illness and was deported from there. Sophie Friedländer's memoirs, published for the first time, were entitled Most I learned from my students , a reminiscence of the Rabbi Chaninah saying that her father had written in the Bible that he gave her when he left.

New start in England

Sophie Friedländer's start in England

Sophie Friedländer traveled to a family friend in Liverpool. “A lovely family. The mother had just published an anthology of works by socialist writers. Her husband was then a lecturer in education at the University of Liverpool. “It is about the Palmer family, but little is known about them.

Sophie Friedländer also received news from the Palmers of the events on the so-called Kristallnacht and of the upcoming Kindertransporte to England. The Palmers spontaneously decided to take in a former Caputh student who came to England on a transport and also let her parents stay with them until the end of the war. Sophie Friedländer immediately volunteered as a helper for a camp where children from the Kindertransporte were to be looked after. After trying to dissuade her, she was assigned, thanks to the mediation of a lady with previous connections to Caputh, as "second-in-command" for a camp in Selsey Bill , which is normally used as a holiday camp . ( Location ) The children to be looked after should be taken over by the initial reception camp in Dovercourt. After two weeks in Selsey Bill , Sophie Friedländer herself was ordered to Dovercourt.

After the rather xenophobic motivated expulsion in Claydon, Sophie Friedländer went to London. By chance she met an acquaintance, Martha Friedländer , who had previously also worked in Caputh and now worked as a domestic worker for a doctor and ISK activist who were friends with them . Martha Friedländer found Sophie a room with her relatives in Golders Green .

Sophie Friedländer spent Christmas 1939 with her friends, the Palmer family, who had since bought a house in North Wales . She stayed longer, helping the Palmers with paperwork and translations, and teaching English to refugee domestic workers. She was spared a nanny job when she received an offer from Bloomsbury House to enable her to teach English to adults.

Through this activity, Sophie Friedländer came into contact with many refugees, especially political refugees, and that was the way she met Hilde Jarecki again, who one day showed up in preparation for her hearing at a foreigners tribunal, with whom Sophie Friedländer lived in Golders Green .

“And so one day she turned up at our mutual friends in Golders Green. We had not known anything about this commonality until then. Little did we know then that after more than 50 years, after many years of working together, we would still live under one roof. So here in Golders Green our life began for two. "

Hilde Jarecki's start in England

For Hilde Jarecki, Craydon was just a stopover to her real destination, friends who lived in Golders Green . At the time she did not know that she would meet Sophie Friedländer there later. From Golders Green she started her first job as domestic help for a young couple. Hilde Jarecki did not feel comfortable there and was taken advantage of, and when it came to an argument about a day off when her sister Mirjam arrived, she was fired.

Hilde Jarecki stayed afloat after doing a few odd jobs and still managed to finance a place in Minna Specht's Welsh refuge for Mirjam, who had not found a good place in Liverpool . In February 1940 she found long-term prospects for herself as a housemother in a Montessori boarding school, which had also been evacuated to Wales because of the outbreak of war . But the headmaster, a German who was married to a Jewish woman, was interned and the school closed. The school of Minna Specht met the same fate , so that Hilde Jarecki first had to find a new place to stay for Mirjam. She herself went to her friends in Golders Green , where she unexpectedly came across Sophie Friedländer. "How naturally a warm relationship developed between us, and when, after my birthday on August 31, the Blitzkrieg began over London and the little world around us fell apart, we stayed together as a matter of course."

Working together in the refugee hostels

Internment of a roommate and increasing bombings led to the dissolution of the household in Golders Green and finally to an evacuation of Sophie and Hilde. They found shelter again with the Palmer family (see above) in Wales, where they stayed for the winter. At the end of February 1941 they were offered the opportunity to work in a private girls' school in Morcott, a tiny village "in the middle of nowhere", which had been evacuated from London. ( Location ) Hilde's sister Mirjam also found a job here as a supervisor for a children's group.

After a falling out with the two headmistresses, an Englishwoman and their friend, a teacher from Berlin, the father of a former Caputher employee soon offered the opportunity to run the newly opened hostel for young refugee girls for the Birmingham Refugee Committee. These were mostly girls over 16 years of age who were already going to work and who should be offered accommodation independent of a family. The hostel already existed, but the refugee committee was not satisfied with the way it had been managed so far, and so Sophie and Hilde got their chance.

Refugee Hostel Birmingham (1942–1943)

From July 1941 to December 1942, the two managed the hostel, which was housed in a former rectory.

“We found a very mixed up group of 15-16 girls who had come with the Kindertransport from Vienna, Prague, Berlin, Frankfurt, from all social classes and various religious and political shades. They had all been through wanderings and adventures in England for a year or two. The 14-year-olds were mainly affected. When the war broke out, many guarantees had collapsed. The English fathers had moved in and the family worries were often so great that they left little room for sympathy for the refugee children. The feeling of insecurity was so great that one day we met one of our girls on the street: She had run home from her place of work at noon to see if we were still there! "

Over time, Sophie and Hilde, together with the girls, succeeded in removing the youth hostel character of the hostel and establishing a community life. Main concerns were opportunities to graduate from school and job opportunities for the girls. Some were able to find shelter in crèches and day-care centers, others in gardening centers. The latter was especially important for the girls who were hoping to leave for Palestine and who wanted to prepare for it. External contacts also developed, for example with the Quakers who ran Woodbrooke College across from the hostel . Here the hostel residents took part in Quaker meetings and put on plays. Sophie and Hilde were in close contact with Mrs. Adams, whose husband was a history professor at Woodbrooke College, and there were also relationships with Fridolin Friedmann, who was now employed at a public school in Warwick and shone there with theatrical performances he had staged.

Close contacts were also established with the anthroposophically oriented Sunfield Children's Homme , in which physically and mentally impaired children were cared for. Actually, jobs were supposed to be found there for the hostel residents, but Sophie Friedländer attests that the home has had a great influence on them through the empathic care practiced there.

Life in the hostel was also heavily influenced by fluctuation, because it was expected that everyone older than 14 years had to go to work. This could not always be realized in Birmingham, and so some took off because they wanted to qualify in preparation camps for Palestine, others moved to Anna Freud's kindergarten, which had meanwhile been evacuated from London to Warwick. Some girls were also able to continue their education at Bunce Court School , which has now been evacuated to Wem in Shropshire . There they were given the opportunity to “finish their schooling, which in some cases was made possible by doing work in the office or house, kitchen or garden”.

The successful work came to an unexpected end when a new vicar laid claim to the rectory because he wanted to live there. In this situation, the refugee committee decided to set up a residential club for 45 refugees instead of the hostel. For Sophie and Hilde, this would have changed the character of their previous work too much, which is why they left Birmingham after the move they were still supervising.

Refugee Hostel Reading (1943–1955)

Sophie and Hilde were hoping for a quick new start with a hostel in London. But it was only three months later that they received an offer to start as deputy home managers in Reading , an offer that developed into a twelve-year commitment for the two of them.

“These twelve years became a very significant period in our life together, which we shared first with young people and later with children. We went with them through the various stages of their growth. I have to emphasize again and again that we - in our situation as refugees - fully identified with the hostel as our home. It was our life, more than our ›work‹. "

Similar to Birmingham, the work began with a small group of girls between the ages of 16 and 18. Many of the girls came from Vienna, a few from Germany; not all had finished school, but they were able to work in offices during the day and the hostel was their retreat.

Girls from the Birmingham hostel soon followed suit, and others from the Bunce Court School joined them. Despite great fluctuation, Sophie and Hilde managed to establish continuity and create a community atmosphere together with the girls. Hilde's sister Mirjam, who later trained as a teacher, also came back and gradually developed into a reliable representative for both of them.

Sophie Friedländer felt that the hostel was a small Jewish community of destiny, in which of course Jewish topics and festivals, but also the topic of emigration to Palestine played important roles. Nevertheless, Friday evening was not celebrated as a classic Shabbat , but rather as a cultural event. The German language was the colloquial language in the house, and German literature was often the focus on Friday evenings. “We shared with them what cultural assets we had brought with us. We spoke German with them in the house because we wanted to keep the girls' connection with their parents alive. A girl who was previously housed with English foster parents not only had completely forgotten her German, but could no longer remember what had happened before she emigrated. It took a long time before that could come back. "

The end of the war in May 1945 called for a new definition of future work. Again Fridolin Friedmann came into play, who had meanwhile taken over the management of a "reception camp" Wintershill Hall in Durley near Southampton for young people freed from the concentration camps. Sophie and Hilde took over two 16-year-old girls from him who subsequently successfully completed training, but: “The inner path to them was not easy.” Their concentration camp past was something they could only talk about many years later. Forty years later, in 1985, Sophie and Hilde saw one of them as an actress, who meanwhile played "important roles in plays about the Holocaust".

For other residents of the hostel, the end of the war was a time of departure. Contacts with parents or relatives could be re-established, family reunions were organized, and the hostel emptied. For the places that became free, Sophie and Hilde ensured that they were now allowed to take in younger people, also children who had survived the Holocaust. “Most of the children who came to us over the next ten years had a history of placement of all kinds and brought a fair amount of trouble with them. Again there was a lot of coming and going, but there was still a good core of twelve children - six boys and six girls - so that a certain continuity was ensured. ”Sophie admits that she only got to know the often difficult children through Hilde I learned that "every difficulty, aggression, bed-wetting, nail-nibbling, fear, stealing, life difficulties as a natural result of the previous life of the child [could] accept and knew how to cope with them". The English school system also proved to be problematic, which, in the opinion of Sophie Friedländer, solidified existing class differences, but did not take the situation of hostel children and their sensitivities into account. The task of the two supervisors was to absorb this and to counteract the school humiliation.

Over the years, Sophie and Hilde only occasionally had relief from Hilde's sister Mirjam, who had completed "pedagogical training based on the anthroposophical teachings of Rudolf Steiner" and worked in a kindergarten. Sometimes she took over the replacement for the two of them, but she mastered everyday life alone. “We didn't have - as was customary in homes back then - employees for cooking, cleaning, washing, gardening. We did everything with the children, who were properly instructed and gradually became independent in these tasks. "

One of the hostel’s main supporters was Edith Morley , the UK’s first female professor, suffragette and Fabian Society activist . Morley was the honorary secretary of the Reading Refugee Committee and was closely associated with the work of the two women; It was thanks to their initiative that the hostel was expanded to include a “playroom” which the children used for theater performances. The playroom also became the place of the festivals, which were usually the Jewish festivals that were celebrated there.

In 1955 the hostel was closed. Some of the children had outgrown the home and could live independently in the future or at least return to their parents. But the main reason for the closure came from the Refugee Committee, whose opinion had changed. “Better a bad home than a good home.” That became the committee's motto in the 1950s. Children were accommodated with us less and less often, and it could happen that children were suddenly torn out in the middle of the school year, so that the home lost its original right to exist. [..] After the farewell party with friends and neighbors and a concert in Haslemere, the remaining children were picked up. Except for one. Explaining the how and why would be going too far. He stayed in our lives to this day. "

Sophie Friedländer's way after 1955

The end of the hostel was not the end of the personal relationship between Sophie Friedländer and Hilde Jarecki, who moved to London together and bought a house there. But they parted ways professionally. Sophie Friedländer had her German teacher training recognized and applied in 1956 as a geography teacher at a grammar school for girls. At first, working there was not easy for her because she found everyday English school life to be very formalized and the lessons were geared towards mechanized (external) learning. Toughly she fought for the freedom that gave her and her students the freedom to practice “learning as an experience”. She formulated her dissatisfaction with everyday school life, which contradicted her own experiences and her own practice, in a questionnaire: “And I often caught myself thinking: School is an invention of the devil. Why can't the schoolchildren learn what concerns them? Why aren't they encouraged to do anything anymore? Why can't you give them a lot more responsibility early on? Why can't you involve them much more in the whole school operation? Why not respect them as people with their own rights? "

In 1970 Sophie Friedländer retired. It was the year that their school was converted into a comprehensive school and co-education was introduced. Even if reforms were initiated that were more in line with her ideas about school: At 65, Sophie Friedländer was happy that she no longer had to face the demands associated with these reforms. “Saying goodbye to school wasn't difficult for me. It felt as if a great deal of pressure had dropped from me and I could return to myself. "

After the end of her professional life, Sophie Friedländer devoted herself to pottery, and here above all to modeling heads. After initially doing this for herself, she soon felt the urge to pass on her skills, and she began teaching adult courses at a community Adult Education Institute. In addition, she was interested in gymnastics according to the Hinrich Medau method and in eutonia according to Gerda Alexander . Sophie Friedländer and Hilde Jarecki lived in Golders Green again for their last years . Both cultivated lively contacts not only with their relatives in Israel, but also with many alumni from Caputh, whom they often visited on extended trips. Contacts with Hilde's sister Mirjam also remained close, and the boy from Reading, who was the only one with them after the hostel was closed, became a teacher and part of the closest circle around them.

Hilde Jarecki and the playgroups

After the hostel in Reading ended and the move to London, Hilde Jarecki completed a Senior Child Development Course at the Institute of Education at the University of London in 1956/57 on child development and then trained as nanny. Her tutor during this training was the psychoanalyst Edna Oakeshott , who remained on friendly terms with Hilde Jarecki in her later work as a consultant. She then switched to a day clinic for mentally handicapped people as a lay therapist, where she had to look after children who were difficult to educate and who had behavioral problems. The task that she set herself here consisted of changing the facility, which was geared towards the safekeeping of the children, in the sense of an upbringing oriented towards the participation of the children, and to enable the children to return to normal school. For the children on their first course, this succeeded after two years.

Hilde Jarecki's next professional engagement had its origins in the inadequate childcare in Great Britain in the 1960s. In 1961 a young London mother, Belle Tutaev , wrote to the Guardian and reported that the lack of a state kindergarten for her young daughter had forced her to set up her own private group for childcare. In response to Tutaev's letter to the editor, many other parents who suffered from similar problems and had already founded their own groups responded. Within a year, Belle Tutaev and other parents brought together about 150 members and organized the first annual general meeting of the Pre-school Playgroups Association. In May 1963, the association received the status of an official charity and has been committed to this educational segment ever since. Hilde Jarecki knew from her own experience how catastrophic the situation was at the time:

“In Inner London at that time they had 10 nursery schools for a population of 7 million. I knew them all inside out because I used them regularly for visits as a tutor for child development in the training of nursery nurses. These nursery schools were good, but, as I soon discovered, were filled with children from professionals who knew what was good for their children. And the socially disadvantaged children, for whom this facility was intended, I found out on the street. They were only occasionally involved here and there. "

The new movement found the support of the authorities, who made it a condition, however, that a full-time employee had to be employed to ensure the technical and organizational coordination. Hilde Jarecki applied for this position and was hired as a professional adviser . Her main tasks were to organize playgroups in Inner London and to set up training courses for playgroup leaders.

Hilde Jarecki soon realized that the playgroups she now had to work for did nothing to improve the living conditions of children from socially disadvantaged backgrounds and thus reproduced the conditions that she had previously criticized in public day-care centers. From then on, she concentrated on initiating new playgroups that should primarily look after disadvantaged children. To this end, she next organized training groups for mothers in order to qualify them to lead groups. The courses took place in cooperation with adult education institutions and pursued a kind of dual training strategy: the mothers who took part in the courses should also be able to bring their own children with them. From an initial two training courses, a training system for Inner London developed based on a basic course and a two-year advanced course. The system was supplemented by monthly meetings of the playgroup leaders of a district to discuss overarching problems.

Hilde Jarecki was able to firmly establish her training model in London and received sufficient financial support for it. Her model was also used in Scotland, where she worked in an advisory capacity, and the concept also found its way into schools in a modified form, where it was used in “child care courses” to care for young people. With all this, Hilde Jarecki did not forget her roots, the origins of her educational activities, and for her they were clearly in her own training at the Berlin “Verein Jugendheim”: “And I have to keep pointing out how much I use my guide in my work , the youth home. Just as all the businesses back then - day care centers, kindergartens, after-school care centers - were lively connected with one another, so it was in Inner London: everything was connected. The mothers in the playgroups had their regular meetings, the playgroup leaders their monthly meetings in the boroughs; for the tutors there was a 5-day conference after the end of the summer term. I led the beginning of each new course myself. It was important to make it clear to the students what this was an opportunity to learn, but also what was expected of them. I also appeared for a long time at the end of the course to find out what the students had learned from the course. That was also the time for suggestions for improvement and requests for the subsequent courses. "

Hilde Jarecki made it clear that her playgroup concept was a "grassroots concept". Their basic rules were:

  • Children have to be mature in their development for the playgroup; this is usually not before the 3rd birthday. (Insisting on this principle has often earned me accusations of stubbornness. But I stuck with it.)
  • Undisturbed acclimatization for the children.
  • No bossing around and constant patronizing.
  • Good quality in gaming.
  • A child-oriented environment.
  • Observe and wait.
  • The parents should be actively involved.
  • The playgroup shouldn't make a profit. That was a request for Inner London only. Because where profit plays a role, attention is diverted from the essentials.

The later development, the institutionalization of the playgroups under state supervision and prescribed curricula, was not Hilde Jarecki's business. After eight years of work, at the age of sixty-two, she left her full-time job, not bitter and still existing connections as a course leader or member of the “Executive Committee” of the “Inner London Pre-School Playgroups Association”. The eight years in the service of the playgroup movement was hard work for her, but her summary is positive:

“Yes, the implementation of this timetable meant for me a working day of 15-16 hours, five - often more - days a week, for almost eight years; but for me these weren't working days in the usual sense. It was an exciting creative time in which I was able to realize important plans in my own way. I did not tolerate delays easily, because when I started work I was 54 years old and life is far too short for everything that can still be done. "

“What still needs to be done”: Hilde Jarecki learned to play the violin when she was over 70 years old. She had one-to-one tuition, but soon took group tuition for three-year-olds and older, and she quickly developed a relationship with their mothers that was reminiscent of playgroups. "So I found my very own place again."

Memory work

Sophie and Hilde traveled well into old age, visited family and friends in Israel and the United States, and corresponded with people around the world. They kept in close contact with many of the children they had taught in Caputh and looked after in England. “We now had more time for each other, have made some wonderful trips and were able to take part in some meetings. It was like years of harvest. "

Around 1990 Sabine Merseburger shot a documentary for Norddeutscher Rundfunk , which was shot in the house of Sophie and Hilde in Golders Green, but also in Berlin and Caputh. Alumni from Caputh and Reading also had their say. Elizabeth Rosenthal (see web links) reported that from 2001 to 2003 Sophie and her colleagues and former students were interviewed for Radio Berlin. The resulting award-winning contribution was repeatedly broadcast in German-speaking Europe. In 1993 Sophie Friedländer took part in a conference of exile researchers in Berlin. She and Hilde also came a year later, on November 9, 1994, to the opening of an exhibition on the Caputh Children's and Country School Home, which Hildegard Feidel-Mertz had developed together with students and which was now being shown at the Potsdam University of Applied Sciences.

Another exhibition in Berlin was dedicated to Sophie Friedländer's teaching project, The Cold Heart . She gave the two of them the opportunity to meet former Caputhers again, to whom they felt connected as if by a family bond. “So you can say: what started as friendship 60 years ago in Caputh has come full circle - again in Caputh. It was visibly our last trip together. "

Works

Sophie Friedländer
  • Memories of a paradise lost. The Jüdische Landschulheim Caputh 1933–1938 , in: Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in Exile , pp. 43–51.
  • I learned most from my students. Life story of a Jewish teacher in Berlin and in exile , edited by Monika Römer-Jacobs and Bruno Schonig, GEW Berlin, Berlin, 1987.
  • "Trudebude" - Gertrud Ferien (July 4th, 1890–1943) , in: Hildegard Feidel-Mertz, Andreas Paetz: Ein Lost Paradies , pp. 87–108. In the text, Sophie Friedländer processed her own memories and those of others from the years in Caputh. On pages 245 ff. There are also lesson outlines of her and lesson evaluations.
Hilde Jarecki
  • Playgroups. A practice-related approach , translated by Sophie Friedländer, edited and commented by Hildegard Feidel-Mertz and Inge Hansen-Schaberg with the collaboration of Beate Bussiek and Hermann Schnorbach, Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn, 2014, ISBN 978-3-7815-1977-0 .
Sophie Friedländer & Hilde Jarecki
  • Sophie & Hilde. A life together in friendship and work. A twin book by Sophie Friedländer and Hilde Jarecki, edited by Bruno Schonig, Edition Hentrich, Berlin, 1996, ISBN 978-3-89468-229-3 .

swell

literature

  • Bruno Schonig and Karl-Walter Beise: The cold heart: 1938 and 1992. A farewell gift from the Sexta M at the private Jewish secondary school in Berlin-Moabit for her teacher Sophie Friedländer with three attempts at rapprochement , published by the Pedagogical Museum e. V. and the Berlin School Museum. Edition Hentrich, Berlin, 1993, ISBN 978-3-89468-103-6 . The following essay relates to this book:
  • Bruno Schonig: “To learn, to teach, to preserve and to do” - On some documents from the reform pedagogy class of Sophie Friedländer at the high school of the Jewish community in Berlin-Moabit in the years 1937 and 1938 , in: Inge Hansen-Schaberg and Christian Ritzi (ed.): Ways of pedagogues before and after 1933 , Schneider Verlag Hohengehren GmbH, Baltmannsweiler, 2004, ISBN 3-89676-768-2
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz (ed.): Schools in exile. Repressed pedagogy after 1933 . rororo, Reinbek, 1983, ISBN 3-499-17789-7
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz, Andreas Paetz: A lost paradise. The Caputh Jewish Children's School Home 1931–1939 . Frankfurt, 1994, ISBN 3-7638-0184-7
  • Inge Hansen-Schaberg: Reform pedagogues in English exile. The article was published in:
    • Yearbook of the Research Center for German & Austrian Exile Studies, 2017, Vol. 18, p 114-127.
    • Charmian Brinson , Jana Barbora Buresova, Andrea Hammel (eds.): Exile and gender , 2. Politics, education and the arts , Brill Rodopi, Leiden / Boston, 2017, ISBN 978-90-04-34351-1
  • Inge Hansen-Schaberg: Obituary for Sophie Friedländer , in: New newsletter from the Society for Exile Research e. V. , No. 27, June 2006, ISSN 0946-1957.
  • Jörg H. Fehrs: From Heidereutergasse to Roseneck. Jewish Schools in Berlin 1712–1942 , Edition Hentrich Berlin, 1993, ISBN 3-89468-075-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ As can be seen in the “Sources” section, there is no shortage of biographical reconstructions of Sophie Friedländer's life. However, among the many sources there are also many occasionally contradicting statements. To avoid this dilemma as much as possible, Sophie & Hilde (see “Works”) will serve as a common thread in the following. Individual references to the different sources are only made where quotations have been taken over directly.
  2. ↑ a b c d Berlin: stumbling blocks for Josua Falk and Else Friedländer
  3. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 15
  4. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 27
  5. ↑ a b Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 35
  6. ↑ Elizabeth Rosenthal: Sophie Friedländer (see "Weblinks")
  7. ↑ This reference to the Gaster-Friedländer connection can only be found in the English WIKIPEDIA article about Moses Gastner.
  8. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 35
  9. ↑ On the Jews 'College mentioned here, see: Jews' College - Also known as London School of Jewish Studies . The book mentioned was published in German in 1922: Michael Friedländer: Die Jewish Religion . Only authorized translation from English by Josua Friedlaender, J. Kauffmann, Frankfurt, 1922, ( The Jewish religion in the catalog of the DNB ). Josua Friedländer was involved in the publication of another book: Carlton Joseph Huntley Hayes: Nationalism . Translated from English by JF Friedlaender. Edited and introduced by J. Goldstein, Der neue Geist-Verlag, Leipzig, 1929 ( nationalism in the DNB catalog )
  10. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 36
  11. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , pp. 36–37
  12. ↑ Sophie Friedländer does not mention it, but in some sources there is a reference that her father would also have taught here in the meantime.
  13. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 39
  14. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 39
  15. ^ Memories of a Lost Paradise , pp. 45–46
  16. ^ Sophie & Hilde , p. 44
  17. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 46
  18. ↑ a b Inge Hansen-scraper: obituary Sophie Friedlander
  19. ↑ Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 145
  20. ↑ Hildegard Feidel-Mertz: Introduction: An innovative approach in pre-school education and parenting
  21. ↑ Quoted from: »Trudebude« - Gertrud Ferien (July 4th, 1890-1943) (see 'Works')
  22. ↑ Jörg H. Fehrs: Von der Heidereutergasse zum Roseneck , p. 161. Fehrs also gives a detailed overview of the history of this orphanage.
  23. ^ Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 158
  24. ↑ For the history of Jüdische Kinderhilfe, see: The Jüdische Kinderhilfe in Berlin's Auguststrasse
  25. ↑ Jarecki does not specify this further, but the support probably came from Salman Schocken .
  26. ^ Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 160
  27. ↑ For the context of these visits, in which Hilde Lion was also involved, see the section "Intercultural Education and Relationships" in the article on the Stoatley Rough School .
  28. ↑ When Mirjam later came to England on a Kindertransport, she did not attend the Bunce Court School , but a day school in St. Hellen near Liverpool and then the school of Minna Specht . (Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , pp. 163–166)
  29. ^ Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 161
  30. ↑ The Oberschule of the Jewish Community in Berlin , which had been newly founded and approved in Marchstrasse in 1936, had to start teaching on Wilsnacker Strasse due to official harassment. The school worked according to the curriculum of a reform high school. (Jörg H. Fehrs: From Heidereutergasse to Roseneck. Jewish Schools in Berlin 1712–1942, Edition Hentrich Berlin, 1993, ISBN 3-89468-075-X , pp. 277–281)
  31. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 47
  32. ↑ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , pp. 47–48
  33. ↑ Bruno Schonig: A conversation with Sophie Friedländer in London
  34. ↑ Bruno Schonig: “To learn, to teach, to preserve and to do” , p. 53
  35. ↑ Here, too, the relationships with the Gaster family mentioned above may have played a role, because Harold Laski was the uncle of Marghanita Laski, who in turn was a granddaughter of Moses Gaster.
  36. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 51
  37. ^ "Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 84. Since Sophie Friedländer never mentioned the first names of her parents, the fate of the father's place of birth and Berlin's place of residence can only be clearly determined for the father: Josua Falk Friedlaender, born on June 13, 1871 in Stade / - / Hanover, residing in Berlin (Charlottenburg). Deportation: from Berlin, October 3, 1942, Theresienstadt, ghetto. Date of death: October 22, 1942. Place of death: Theresienstadt, Ghetto. ”( Josua Falk Friedlaender in the memorial book of the victims of the persecution of Jews under the Nazi tyranny in Germany 1933–1945 )
  38. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 52
  39. ↑ In 1938 the book Writing and action: a documentary anthology / compiled and edited by Mary Palmer was published , which can still be found in many Internet catalogs. It comes from Mary Palmer, née Davies, who was probably born in 1904. Thematically and chronologically it fits the anthology mentioned by Sophie Friedländer, but nothing more can be found about the author.
  40. ↑ Sophie Friedländer only speaks of "Marthchen", but as things stand it can only have been Martha Friedländer, who, despite the same surname, was not related to Sophie.
  41. ^ The building known as Bloomsbury House , in which the most important aid organizations for refugees had their headquarters, was originally the Palace Hotel on Bloomsbury Street in London; Over time, the name Bloomsbury House has been used for this. ( Bloomsbury House training schemes )
  42. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 66
  43. ↑ Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , pp. 165–166
  44. ↑ In her memories, Hilde Jarecki skips the years in the hostels and continues with her subsequent work with a group of children in a day clinic for mentally disabled people.
  45. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 75
  46. ↑ en: Sunfield Children's Home
  47. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 78
  48. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 80
  49. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 82
  50. ↑ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , pp. 88–89
  51. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 91
  52. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 101
  53. ↑ On Edith Morley see the article in WIKIPEDIA-EN : Edith Morley and numerous other articles about her available on the Internet.
  54. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 108
  55. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 120
  56. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 121
  57. ↑ Helene Rahms: Gymnastics in our time? , ZEIT-Online, February 8, 1951, updated November 21, 2012
  58. ↑ Edna Oakeshott née Yates (1904–1999)
  59. ^ Pre-school Learning Alliance: Who we are. . In 2011 the Pre-school Learning Alliance celebrated its 50th anniversary. On youtube there is an interview with Belle Tutaev from 2010, in which she tells in detail (in English) the founding history of the organization: Belle Tutaev: Founder of Pre-school Learning Alliance . Tutaev does not mention Hilde Jahrecki in the video, but she is featured in a commemorative publication for Hilde Jarecki with her own contribution. (Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 199)
  60. ↑ Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 176. By 'children of professionals', a somewhat misleading term, Hilde Jarecki mainly meant children from better-off middle-class families.
  61. ↑ Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 192
  62. ↑ Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , pp. 192 & 199
  63. ↑ Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 192
  64. ↑ Hilde Jarecki, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 203
  65. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 208
  66. ^ Sophie Friedländer, in: Sophie & Hilde , p. 212
personal data
SURNAME Friedländer, Sophie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-British reform pedagogue, emigrant
DATE OF BIRTH January 17, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH February 20, 2006
Place of death London