Mathilde Paravicini

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Mathilde Paravicini (center) on the Switzerland-France border, 1945
Austrian children on their departure in Vienna (after 1945)

Mathilde Paravicini (born June 9, 1875 in Basel ; † June 10, 1954 there ) was a Swiss philanthropist and pioneer of children's trains .

life and work

Family grave of Mathilde Paravicini (1875–1954) humanist, philanthropist, pioneer of children's trains, Dr. hc, u. a. Awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor, grave in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery, Basel
Family grave plate of Mathilde Paravicini (1875–1954) in the Wolfgottesacker cemetery , Basel

Mathilde Paravicini was the youngest of five daughters of the Basel merchant family Emanuel Leonhard and Elise Paravicini-Heusler. The Paravicini (Baseldytsch: Pravezi or Braveci ) were religious refugees who were able to save themselves from the Veltliner murder of 1620 to Basel, where they became a patrician family. The humanitarian tradition of the Basel patricians ( Daig ) goes back to the 16th century. After the father lost his fortune, which included the ironworks in Lucelle , in the 1880s , the family had to change their lifestyle and the five daughters learned to be humble and helpful. The father made it possible for all daughters - unusual for the time - to receive practical vocational training.

After school, Mathilde Paravicini did a French year in Neuchâtel and then moved to Paris , where she completed an apprenticeship as a dressmaker for several years. She opened a tailoring course in Basel, which she ran from 1898 to 1948. At the same time she exercised her humanitarian commitment.

During the First World War she gained international renown through her charitable activities in connection with the transports of around half a million wounded and evacuated from occupied France . The neutral Switzerland saw itself as a transit country, where German, French, American, Czech, Polish "returnees" at the border stations Schaffhausen , Basel and Geneva fed, clothed and were cared for medically before they left Switzerland again relatively quickly. Paravicini was involved in the exchange of wounded, at the Basel relief agency for hostages and on the board of the organizing committee for evacuation trains and looked after refugee women, children and the elderly in Schaffhausen and Basel.

In 1916 she was co-founder and first president of the Association for Women's Suffrage in Basel and the surrounding area . The vice-president was Georgine Gerhard , the founder of the Basel section of the Swiss Aid Organization for Emigrant Children (SHEK).

In the summer of 1917 she organized children's trains for children of the Swiss abroad from Germany, and she also accompanied the children's trains. The Swiss Aid Association , Holiday Campaign for Children of the Swiss Abroad (later the Foundation for Young Swiss Abroad ) was looking for vacation spots and took care of the financing. Tuberculous children had to be placed in mountain sanatoriums.

After the war, she and the Pro Juventute Foundation continued the campaign with thousands of Swiss children abroad every year. During the famine in Vienna , around twenty aid organizations were set up in Switzerland, which in 1920 were coordinated by the newly founded umbrella organization Union internationale de secours aux enfants (UISE) under the auspices of the ICRC . The Swiss Central Committee for Children Abroad in Need developed the criteria for the children's trains.

During the Great Depression worked the Proletarian help of Regina Kägi-Fuchs man (from 1933 Arbeiterhilfe Switzerland and from 1936 Swiss Labor Assistance SAH) with the established in 1933 Swiss NGO for children of emigrants SHEK of Nettie Sutro Katzenstein together. Paravicini was responsible for the organization of the SHEK children's trains from Paris from 1934 to 1939. In 1939 she took part in the development of the Swiss Women's Service (FHD).

During the Second World War , Paravicini built 1940–1941 in cooperation with the Swiss Working Group for War Damaged Children (SAK) and in 1942 and 1944–1945 with the Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross to transport around 65,000 war-damaged French children. On the children's trains from occupied Paris, she was the only Swiss woman allowed to drive over the demarcation line and pick up the children from northern France and Bordeaux.

In Basel she helped Georgine Gerhard in her work for the Basel section of SHEK, with the support of her group of helpers, to which the Paravicini family belonged. The chief physician Anton Christ, a nephew of Paravicini, treated the children in the SHEK-Heim Waldeck in Langenbruck free of charge.

When the children's trains were no longer allowed to run at the end of 1942, she continued her work in the station works of the Friends of Young Girls (FJM), of which she was president from 1921 until her death. During the war, her FJM “Stübli” on the first floor of the Basel train station functioned as a center for refugee aid.

After the end of the war, she organized children's trains across Europe for the Swiss donation , and tirelessly accompanied and cared for the children in the bumpy third-class cars. Paravicini died in 1954 at the age of 79.

Honors

  • On September 2, 1919, she and her sister Helene were awarded the knighthood of the French Legion of Honor in Basel for repatriating the evacuated French .
  • On February 2, 1922, the “Franzosendenkmal” by the French sculptor Paul Landowski was inaugurated on the Promenadenstieg in Schaffhausen in memory of the transports and care of French evacuees during the First World War.
  • In 1942 she was the first woman to receive an honorary doctorate from the Medical Faculty of the University of Basel .
  • In 1946 the French government appointed her an officer of the Legion of Honor.
  • On June 27, 1948, the monument of gratitude , the mother figure by French sculptor Georges Salendres ((1890–1985)) was unveiled to the sound of the Marseillaise by a girl in Alsatian costume and a Basel child, as a thank you from France to the helpers of the Swiss Children's Aid Red Cross who looked after many French children.
  • In 1964, the city of Basel named a street in the Gellert district ( St. Alban district ) after her, and she was the first woman to receive this honor.
  • Exhibition at the University of Basel from April 2 to May 31, 2014: Forgotten Basel woman - Mathilde Paravicini

literature

  • Mathilde Paravicini: Children come to Switzerland. In: Eugen Theodor Rimli (ed.): The book from the Red Cross. The Red Cross from the beginning until today. Fraumünster-Verlag, Zurich 1944, pp. 336–367.
  • Helene Vischer: Dr. hc Mathilde Paravicini. In: Basler Jahrbuch 1955, pp. 196–200.
  • Mathilde Paravicini 1875-1954. Necrology on the occasion of her burial on June 15, 1954.
  • Helena Kanyar Becker: pioneer of children's trains. Mathilde Paravicini (1875-1954). In this. (Ed.): Forgotten women. Humanitarian aid to children and official refugee policy 1917–1948. Basel 2010, pp. 18–40.
  • Salome Lienert: We want to help where there is need. The Swiss Aid Organization for Emigrant Children 1933–1947. Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-0340-1157-0
  • Helena Kanyar Becker (Ed.): Pioneer of children's trains: memories of Mathilde Paravicini (1875–1954). Schwabe, Basel [2017], ISBN 978-3-7965-3731-8 .

Web links

Commons : Mathilde Paravicini  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Helena Kanyar Becker, Alfred Christ: Kriegssanität ohne Krieg, The founding years of the Basler Red Cross. In: Thomas Brückner, Dominik Pfister (eds.): The Basler and the Red Cross, 125 years of the SRK Basel. Basel 2013, pp. 27–36.
  2. ↑ Paramedics without war. When the Basel section of the Red Cross was founded 125 years ago, the Daig played a central role. Week of the day of June 27, 2013.
  3. ↑ Helena Kanyar Becker: Pioneer of children's trains. Mathilde Paravicini (1875-1954).
  4. ^ SRK: Admission of war disabled children. Retrieved September 13, 2019 .
  5. ^ L'express du midi, Toulouse, September 2, 1919
  6. ↑ Schaffhauser Magazin, 1/1985.
  7. ^ SRK: Honorary doctorate from the University of Basel. Retrieved November 29, 2019 .
  8. ^ Journal et feuille d'avis du Valais et du Sion May 24, 1946
  9. ↑ Old Basel: Monument of Gratitude from 1948
  10. ↑ Swiss Red Cross of April 9, 2014: Courageous woman honored. The first - especially when helping.
  11. ^ SRK of April 9, 2014: exhibition poster
  12. ↑ NZZ of February 22, 2018: Pioneering spirit and courage. Mathilde Paravicini's commitment to refugees.
personal data
SURNAME Paravicini, Mathilde
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss humanist
DATE OF BIRTH June 9, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1954
Place of death Basel