Lotte Kaliski

Lotte Kaliski (born September 17, 1908 in Breslau ; † September 9, 1995 in New York City , USA ) was a German school principal and founder.

family

Lotte Kaliski was born during the imperial era as the first child of Elsa Kaliski, née Sonnenfeld, and Max Kaliski (* July 10, 1871, † September 1, 1942). The father was a lawyer with his own law firm. In the course of the father's professional advancement, the family was able to move to the Breslau villa area in 1912, where Lotte's younger sister Mia (born November 17, 1914) was born.

The parents came from assimilated Jewish families and visited the liberal New Synagogue in Wroclaw with their children for the New Year and Yom Kippur .

At Easter 1915 Lotte started school in the private co-educational Weinhold School in Breslau. In July of the same year, at the age of seven, fell ill Lotte to spinal polio and was henceforth paralyzed from the waist. After a year she was able to return to school. Her mother therefore developed a training and rehabilitation program that Lotte had to complete with great pain. Lotte was able to walk again, but was disabled for the rest of her life.

The economic crisis in the years after the First World War forced the father and his family to move into a cheaper apartment on the third floor. The handicapped Lotte therefore had to climb many steps every day, which led to a lifelong conflict between mother and daughter. Lotte accused her mother of choosing the high apartment on purpose to torment her.

The parents attached great importance to Lotte's education, because a later marital union was considered unlikely due to the physical handicap. At the same time, the subsequent school changes were also determined by the family's financial bottlenecks and in some cases were accompanied by strong conflicts within the family. After her first private school, Lotte attended three secondary schools until she graduated from the Cecilienschule in 1928 . During this time Lotte Kaliski and two friends also became a member of the comrades . This was not only important for her political orientation, but also gave her the “opportunity to avoid the trap of withdrawal into domesticity, which is so obvious in the case of a severe disability. [..] The other girls supported her to the best of their ability - the heartfelt integration of a disabled person resulted from the practiced ideals of the federal government. "

The hyperinflation and its consequences had a direct effect on the stock of his father's law firm - they had to close. When her own parents had become completely penniless, an uncle took over the further financing of Lotte's training in the winter semester of 1928/29. Her parents' marriage fell apart under the tremendous stress of that time. Max Kaliski, whom Lotte loved as especially kind, moved to the capital of the Reich, where he promised a better livelihood as a lawyer.

In 1934, Lotte's younger sister Mia, married Kroch, emigrated to Palestine . In 1939 the family and friends succeeded in getting Lotte's mother out of Germany. But the daughters could not save the father.

At the age of seventy, Max Kaliski was deported by the Nazis and died on September 1, 1942 in the Theresienstadt ghetto .

education

In 1928 Lotte began studying mathematics and physics for teaching at the Lyceum . During the course of studies, however, the situation on the labor market worsened for this professional goal. Lotte therefore followed a given advice to instead take an exam as a middle school teacher, which did not include pedagogical training.

Act

After successfully completing her studies on November 24, 1931, she too moved to Berlin to be close to her father and to get away from her mother. There she applied to middle schools, from which she was rejected because of her physical disability. Lotte Kaliski did not want to become a lifelong pension case. She was too strong-willed for that, too independent, too independent and too energetic. The only alternative that she thought she recognized at the time was purposeful and committed, when the only twenty-three-year-old pursued: founding a private school, more specifically: a forest school. The model was the forest school in Berlin-Westend , whose concept Lotte Kaliski was enthusiastic about. She had applied to be a teacher there, but was turned down because of her physical disability. For a disabled, young, inexperienced woman, the numerous visits to the authorities were by no means easy to complete and pass. In her favor, the fact that she lived with a family friend in Charlottenburg's Rankestrasse and was allowed to use this address as an office with a telephone worked out. From her grandfather she received an early inheritance of RM 2,000 as start-up capital.

Private forest school Kaliski

With the energetic support of her colleague Heinrich Selver (1901–1957), she succeeded within a few months in founding a small, reform-pedagogical private school for girls and boys, co-educational , non-denominational and in line with a trend that was beginning at the time as a so-called forest school , i.e. away from the urban densification in the country, with the appropriate design options for the students: the private forest school Kaliski .

She rented suitable premises at the Charlottenburg sports club in Eichkamp in Berlin-Westend , which was dependent on rental income, and had an advertisement published in Berlin newspapers that contained all the buzzwords that made parents' hearts beat faster at the time: “Day boarding school 9 am–6pm. Gymnastics, showers, sunlamps, sun terrace. Individual treatment. ”On April 7, 1932, lessons and school operations began with the first twenty-six students.

The educational reform concept of having as many school activities as possible outdoors, giving students plenty of physical exercise and activity, setting up small classes for individual care, and including garden design and maintenance in the curriculum was not entirely new. It dates back to the 1920s. Lotte Kaliski could see from projects of previously active competitors such as Toni Lessler with their private forest school Grunewald that it was promising and that increasing demand could be expected.

In 1933, the city of Berlin announced the forest school Kaliski to currently used by spaces for the Theodor-Mommsen-Gymnasium to use.

For this reason, the so-called “PriWaKi” by the students moved to Bismarckallee 35/37 in Berlin-Grunewald in October 1933 , directly opposite the Grunewald Church .

In 1936 the Kaliski forest school moved again to Berlin-Dahlem , to street Im Dol 2-6.

Lotte Kaliski managed to emigrate to the United States in August 1938, despite much opposition due to her physical disability , without assets and without connections - a feat. As a tourist, she personally looked for two guarantors for a visa, but was rejected many times because of her physical handicap, before ultimately succeeding. Lotte Kaliski never visited Germany again until her death.

She did not get off to an easy start in the USA either, and because of her paralysis, she was never employed at any school. The attempt to found a private school failed due to funding. Lotte Kaliski therefore first founded a kindergarten. However, this activity did not suit her, so the kindergarten did not last very long. She then began to catch up on something she lacked - pedagogical knowledge. She received a grant from a refugee organization to study special education at Columbia University , which she successfully completed. She began working with brain-damaged children at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center.

Lotte Kaliski Foundation for Gifted Children

Even during her studies she worked with "exceptional children", highly gifted children with emotional disorders. For them she later founded the Lotte Kaliski Foundation for Gifted Children . Your foundation supported exceptional children. Physically or mentally handicapped pupils and students could receive a scholarship if they had outstanding talent in at least one academic or artistic discipline.

New Kaliski Country Day School

Her colleagues in the neurology department finally convinced Lotte Kaliski to found a private school for special needs. This was created in 1947 in Riverdale, New York, as the "New Kaliski Country Day School for the child with learning disabilities" with the entire wealth of experience from the private forest school Kaliski in Berlin. Lotte Kaliski had never forgotten her forest school in Berlin, she arranged for former student meetings in 1960 and 1981. The new school operated until the early 1990s, when Lotte Kaliski died in 1995.

Works

• with Robert Tankersley and Ruth Iogha: Structured dramatics for children with learning disabilities, Academic Therapy Publications, San Rafael, CA, USA, 1971

Honors

• In the exhibition "Here is no longer staying" ( Nelly Sachs ) of the Museum Wilmersdorf (today: Museum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf) from March 19 to September 18, 1992, five founders of Jewish schools in Wilmersdorf were commemorated: Leonore Goldschmidt (1897–1983) , Lotte Kaliski (1908–1995), Vera Lachmann (1904–1985), Toni Lessler (1874–1952) and Anna Pelteson (1868–1943).
• Lotte Kaliski is remembered in Germany to this day. Twice a year the Faculty of Rehabilitation Sciences at the Technical University of Dortmund awards the Lotte Kaliski Prize to outstanding graduates of the special education degree and teacher training course.

literature

• Michael Daxner: The Private Jewish Forest School Kaliski in Berlin, 1932–1939. In: Arnold Paucker, Sylvia Gilchrist, Barbara Suchy: The Jews in National Socialist Germany. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 1986, ISBN 3-16-745103-3 , pp. 249-258.
• Hertha Luise Busemann: The school founder - Lotte Kaliski . In: Hertha Luise Busemann, Michael Daxner, Werner Fölling: Island of Security. The private forest school Kaliski. Berlin 1932 to 1939. Metzler, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-476-00845-2 , pp. 76-126.
• Werner Fölling: Between German and Jewish Identity. Springer Fachmedien, Wiesbaden 1995, ISBN 978-3-8100-1269-2 , pp. 99-136.
• Ricarda Bernhard: In Dol 2–6. The private forest school Kaliski. In: Jessica Hoffmann (Ed.): Dahlemer Memories. Frank & Timme, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86596-144-0 , pp. 27ff.
• The persecution and murder of the European Jews by National Socialist Germany. Volume 1. German Reich 1933–1937. Oldenbourg, Munich 2008. ISBN 978-3-486-58480-6 .
• Birgit Rothenberg: The principle of self-determined living and its importance for university studies. Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 2012, ISBN 978-3-7815-1850-6 .

Movies

• Ingrid Oppermann: A villa in Dahlem - On the trail of the Kaliski Jewish Forest School , length: 60 minutes, production: Sender Freies Berlin , 1999
• Ingrid Oppermann: Class reunion - a Jewish reform school in the Third Reich

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ricarda Bernhard: Im Dol 2–6. The private forest school Kaliski. In: Jessica Hoffmann (Ed.): Dahlemer Memories. P. 27
2. ↑ Gifted despite handicap In: Jüdische Allgemeine, March 16, 2006, at: juedische-allgemeine.de, accessed on July 20, 2015
3. ^ Ricarda Bernhard: Im Dol 2–6. The private forest school Kaliski. In: Jessica Hoffmann (Ed.): Dahlemer Memories. P. 28
4. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann / Michael Daxner / Werner Fölling: Insel der Geborgenheit , p. 97
5. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann / Michael Daxner / Werner Fölling: Insel der Geborgenheit , pp. 97–98
6. ↑ Hertha Luise Busemann / Michael Daxner / Werner Fölling: Insel der Geborgenheit , pp. 99-100
7. ^ Ricarda Bernhard: Im Dol 2–6. The private forest school Kaliski. In: Jessica Hoffmann (Ed.): Dahlemer Memories. Pp. 28/29
8. ↑ Death report Max Kaliski, Ghetto Theresienstadt ( Memento of the original from July 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at: holocaust.cz, accessed on July 20, 2015 
9. ↑ Commemorative plaque Waldschule Kaliski on: Gedenkenafeln-in-berlin.de, accessed on July 20, 2015
10. ^ Werner Fölling: Between German and Jewish Identity. P. 188
11. ↑ Berlin's Jewish School History: The Kaliski School at: berlin-judentum.de, accessed on July 20, 2015
12. ↑ A safe place. A Jewish private school in Berlin 1932–1939 at: zeit.de, accessed on July 20, 2015
13. ^ Werner Fölling: Between German and Jewish Identity. P. 100
14. ↑ Berlin Waldschule Kaliski: Memory of a Refuge In: Der Tagesspiegel, April 18, 2001, on: tagesspiegel.de, accessed on July 20, 2015
15. ^ Werner Fölling: Between German and Jewish Identity. Pp. 105/106
16. ↑ Lotte-Kaliski-Schule In: Berliner Bezirkslexikon Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, on: luise-berlin.de, accessed on July 20, 2015
17. ^ Photo (1938): School building Im Dol 2–6, Berlin-Dahlem , from: jmberlin.de, accessed on July 20, 2015
18. ^ Ricarda Bernhard: Im Dol 2–6. The private forest school Kaliski. In: Jessica Hoffmann (Ed.): Dahlemer Memories. P. 29
19. ↑ The persecution and murder of European Jews by National Socialist Germany. German Empire 1933–1937. P. 730
20. ↑ Lotte Kaliski Foundation for Gifted Children Inc. at: guidestar.org, accessed July 20, 2015
21. ^ Ricarda Bernhard: Im Dol 2–6. The private forest school Kaliski. In: Jessica Hoffmann (Ed.): Dahlemer Memories. P. 29
22. ↑ Birgit Rothenberg: the self-determined life principle and its meaning for university studies. P. 225
23. ↑ Harriet Pass Freidenreich: Female, Jewish, and Educated: The Lives of Central European University Women. P. 256
24. ^ Werner Fölling: Between German and Jewish Identity. P. 188
25. ↑ TU Dortmund: Prices at: tu-dortmund.de, accessed on July 20, 2015