Nettie Sutro-Katzenstein

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Nettie Sutro-Katzenstein (born November 1, 1889 in Munich , † September 21, 1967 in Zurich ) was a Swiss historian and refugee helper with German roots and Jewish descent. She had acquired Swiss citizenship from Zurich and Gerra (Gambarogno) .

Life

Nanette Gerstle grew up as the daughter of a businessman with two siblings in Munich. As a pseudonym for her literary work, she had adopted the maiden name of her maternal grandmother, Bessie Frankheimer-Sutro. In 1914 she married the medical student and later neurologist Erich Katzenstein, with whom she had two sons. From 1915 to 1919 she studied philosophy and sociology at the University of Munich .

After the violent suppression of the Munich Soviet Republic in 1919, the Katzenstein couple, who were friends with Ernst Toller , fled to Bern , Switzerland. There Nettie continued her studies in history, art history and economics at the University of Bern , where she received her doctorate in 1921 on the subject of The Pre-Parliament: Liberalism and Democratism in 1848 . After a stay in Ascona , where her husband Erich Katzenstein was the district doctor, the couple settled in Zurich. Here her husband had the opportunity to work as Constantin von Monakow's favorite assistant and thus met the writer Jakob Wassermann .

Nettie Sutro taught, translated Ignazio Silone's first works into German, worked for Emil Ludwig and worked for the radio. The Katzenstein house became a meeting point for intellectuals like Ernst Toller , Jakob Wassermann and Martin Buber . After the seizure of the Nazi regime, the Katzenstein supported the Emergency Association of German scientists abroad by Philipp Schwartz .

In 1933 she was a founding member of the Comité d'aide aux enfants des émigrés allemands, Swiss section (from 1935 Swiss relief organization for émigré children (SHEK)). The relief organization she headed from 1934 to 1948 (in close cooperation with the President of the Basel Section Georgine Gerhard ) supported children of German parents who had emigrated to France and, from 1934 to 1939, spent two to three months in Switzerland for around 5,000 Jewish children. The women of SHEK looked after these children with charitable help and maternal love. They did not care about political programs, but worked together with all those willing to help and provided suitable recreational and vacation spots for their protégés.

In November 1938 Georgine Gerhard and Nettie Sutro succeeded in obtaining a special permit for 300 Jewish children from Frankfurt, Konstanz and other communities in southern Baden (“300 children campaign”). Because the Second World War broke out, the children did not stay in Switzerland for six months as planned, but for six years, which was life-saving for them.

In the spring of 1940 the SHEK joined the Swiss Working Group for War Damaged Children (SAK) (from 1942 Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross ). Between 1939 and 1948, the SHEK looked after around 5000 Jewish refugee children, most of them illegally entered. SHEK ran its own homes and in 1944 created a central home commission, which was chaired by Georgine Gerhard.

As a member of the FDJP's expert commission for refugee issues set up in 1944, she and SHEK made a major contribution to the cooperation between the individual aid organizations. Since 1951 she has been involved in the Swiss children's village Kiriat Yearim near Jerusalem, which she co-founded . In her book Jugend auf der Flucht 1933–1948 , published in 1952 , she recorded her memories as co-founder and director of SHEK, which were then incorporated into the 1957 Ludwig report .

Honor

Publications

  • The Pre-Parliament: Liberalism and Democracy 1848 . Dissertation. University of Bern, 1921.
  • Ignazio Silone: Fontamara . German translation. Oprecht and Helbling, Zurich 1933.
  • Youth on the run, 1933–1948. 15 years in the mirror of the Swiss Aid Organization for Emigrant Children. With a foreword by Albert Schweitzer . Europa-Verlag, Zurich 1952.

literature

  • Miss Dr. Nettie Katzenstein-Sutro, November 1, 1889 - September 20, 1967. Publisher Friends of the Swiss Children's Village Kirjath Jearim in Israel, Zurich 1968.
  • Carl Ludwig: Switzerland's refugee policy from 1933 to the present. Report to the Federal Council from 1957.
  • Liselotte Hilb: A life for refugee children. Memories of Dr. Nettie Sutro. Neue Zürcher Zeitung from November 1, 1989.
  • Antonia Schmidlin: Another Switzerland. Helpers, children of war and humanitarian policy 1933–1942. , Dissertation, Chronos Verlag, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-905313-04-9 .
  • Sara Kadosh: Jewish Refugee Children in Switzerland 1939–1950. In: Elisabeth Maxwell and John K. Roth (eds.): Remembering for the Future: The Holocaust in an Age of Genocide. London 2001.
  • Ildikó Kovács: Nettie Sutro. Citizen's wife, historian and escape assistant . In: Helena Kanyar Becker (ed.): Forgotten women. Humanitarian aid to children and official refugee policy 1917–1948. Schwabe Verlag, Basel 2010, ISBN 3-7965-2695-0 .
  • Hans-Hermann Seiffert: My beloved children. The letters of the Konstanz Jewess Hella Schwarzhaupt from internment in Gurs and Récébédou to her children . Hartung-Gorre Verlag, Konstanz 2013, ISBN 3866284861 (The two younger children of the Schwarzhaupt family were able to survive thanks to the 300-child campaign)
  • Salome Lienert: We want to help where there is need. The Swiss Aid Organization for Emigrant Children 1933–1947 , dissertation. Chronos Verlag, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-0340-1157-0
  • Gerald Kreft: Neuroscientists rescuing refugee scholars. Philipp Schwartz, Erich Katzenstein, Kurt Goldstein, and the Notgemeinschaft in Zurich, 1933 . Swiss Archives for Neurology and Psychiatry 2015; 165 (8): 293-297.
  • Dorothee Degen-Zimmermann: The Schabbes received us. In: I'll show you! 15 women from Zurich tell. Limmat Verlag, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-85791-743-1 . Biography of Ilse Wyler-Weil, a child of the "300 Children's Campaign".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ René Kaech: Erich Katzenstein and Jakob Wassermann. 1971. Swiss monthly magazine: magazine for politics, economy, culture, accessed on August 10, 2020 .
  2. ↑ Brigitte Hürlimann: The legacy of Philipp Schwartz. Emergency community of German scientists abroad. An action of world historical importance , in: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , February 23, 2013, p. 37
  3. ↑ Independent Expert Commission Switzerland (UEK) - Second World War: Switzerland and the refugees at the time of National Socialism , Zurich 2001, p. 85
  4. ↑ Urs Knoblauch: Switzerland as the guardian of the humanitarian tradition. For the exhibition Humanitarian Switzerland 1933–1945. Children on the run , at the University of Bern, 2004
  5. ^ Ildikó Kovács: Netti Sutro. Citizen's wife, historian and escape assistant . In: Helena Kanyar Becker (ed.): Forgotten women. Humanitarian aid to children and official refugee policy 1917–1948.
  6. ↑ Alt-Züri: The Nettie-Sutro-Strasse
  7. ^ Modern Humanities Research Association MHRA: Nettie Sutro's German translation of Silone's Fontanmara
personal data
SURNAME Sutro-Katzenstein, Nettie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Katzenstein-Gerstle, Nanette; Sutro, Nettie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss historian
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH September 21, 1967
Place of death Zurich