Marie Meierhofer

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Marie Berta Meierhofer (born June 21, 1909 in Turgi ; † August 15, 1998 in Unterägeri ) was a Swiss pediatrician and the founder of the Institute for Mental Hygiene in Childhood (from 1978 Marie Meierhofer Institute for Children ). Your entire estate went to the Child and Environment Documentation Center .

Childhood and youth

Marie Meierhofer was a daughter of Albert Meierhofer von Weiach , the co-founder of BAG Bronzewarenfabrik AG in Turgi, where Marie attended primary and district school. She had five siblings but lost her brother, who was two years younger than him, at the age of eight. From 1924 she attended a private school in Paris. When Marie Meierhofer was 16 years old, her mother died in an airplane accident and she went to the Höhere Töchterschule in Zurich from 1926 to 1929, where she received her Matura in 1929 . When she was 22 years old, her father also died.

The architect Alfred Roth built her a bungalow in Holderbach, Oberägeri in 1939 . Henry van de Velde and his daughter Nele van de Velde lived there from 1947 to 1957 .

Pediatric pioneer

Meierhofer studied medicine in Zurich, Rome and Vienna from 1929 to 1935. She passed her state examination in Zurich in 1935 and was then an assistant at the psychiatric university clinic "Burghölzli" until 1939 . She spent two years as an assistant in the children's department there, specializing in paediatrics and child psychiatry . In 1937 she received her doctorate and began a traineeship at the University Children's Clinic in Zurich, which lasted until 1942. In 1938 she became a specialist in psychiatry. She then ran a pediatrician practice in Zurich from 1942 to 1948.

The basis of merit in child psychiatry awarded her the Faculty of Arts I of the University of Zurich in 1974 , "the tireless researcher of mental basic needs of the infant, its unwavering pioneer a practical and effective prevention of damage to the personal and social development of the people in the first years" the honorary doctorate .

As early as 1947, she had coined the term “mental hygiene in childhood” in an essay for the Basler Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Psychohygiene under the direction of Prof. H. Meng. She defined:

“Mental hygiene in childhood means above all proper upbringing in a suitable environment and promoting a harmonious development of the whole person. The prerequisite for this is: a correct understanding and knowledge of the child's development and encouragement of his or her positive dispositions, while at the same time supporting self-education to overcome negative tendencies. The goal is a harmonious, self-confident, socially adapted person who is aware of his strengths and weaknesses. "

activities

Direct help for war disabled children

During the Second World War, she looked after children who were disabled during the war in 1942/43 and 1945 on behalf of the Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross : in 1942 as a Red Cross doctor in Cruseilles (Savoy) and in 1945 in Caen (Normandy). To take care of her protégés, she smuggled medicines and food from Switzerland across the border into France. She hid children of Jewish descent and older teenagers from the National Socialists and their officials.

Establishment of the Pestalozzi Children's Village

Her wartime experience led to the foundation of the Pestalozzi Children's Village in Trogen in 1946 , with Meierhofer playing a key role in the conception.

Meierhofer was a city doctor in Zurich from 1948 to 1952. In this function, she found that homes and crèches were often in a precarious state and that they lacked the financial means for childcare.

The Institute for Mental Hygiene in Childhood

In 1957, Meierhofer gave the impetus to found the “Institute for Mental Hygiene in Childhood” (since 1978 “Marie Meierhofer Institute for Children”). The institute has a strong position in the training of day care managers, in the assessment and restructuring of day care centers , as well as in research and information, which means that there is now a network of advice centers for early childhood in the greater Zurich area.

Co-operaid - a project for AIDS orphans

From the end of 1992, Meierhofer set up an aid program for AIDS orphans in Africa. The aim was to keep the children in their own village by building up “children's families”. Siblings should learn to cope with everyday life through mutual support. In this way, the fate of the village should be controlled in democratic agreement among the children's families. In the autumn of 1998, the “Co-operaid” aid organization began its work in various villages on the African continent.

literature

Receipts / individual evidence

  1. ↑ Documentation Center Child and Environment, Internet presence
  2. ↑ Oberägeri municipality: Photo with Marie Meierhofer and Henry van de Velde in the bungalow in Holderbach. Retrieved April 16, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Dissertation by Maja Wyss-Wanner at the Philosophical Faculty I of the University of Zurich on Marie Meierhofer, p. 85
  4. ↑ Text of the dissertation for download

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Meierhofer, Marie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meierhofer, Marie Berta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss pediatrician
DATE OF BIRTH June 21, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Turgi
DATE OF DEATH August 15, 1998
Place of death Unterägeri