Paula Blank

Paula Blank (born March 23, 1887 in Wallensen , † May 17, 1967 in Tel Aviv ) was a German librarian .

Life

Paula Blank was the daughter of Ely Blank (1839–1926), a businessman and factory owner, and Sophie Blank, b. Levy (1851-1892) from Wallensen (Weserbergland). In 1911 she completed the course at the librarianship school in the House of Representatives in Berlin (headed by August Wolfstieg ), one of two training institutions that existed at the time. In 1913 she came to the Royal and Provincial Library of Hanover (today's Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library ) to complete the compulsory practical year , in order to pass the diploma examination for the intermediate service in academic libraries in 1914. From May 1914 she worked as a volunteer in the Royal and Provincial Library in Hanover and was hired on July 1, 1914 as a library assistant. It was sponsored by the library director at the time, Karl Kunze (1863–1927). In 1922 she was appointed library secretary, and in 1925 as library secretary.

In 1933, like her colleague Werner Kraft , she was dismissed as a Jew under the so-called “ Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service ”. After her leave of absence from the library service (on September 1, 1933, she was officially "retired"), she stayed in Ascona (Switzerland) at the end of June 1933 and then emigrated to Jerusalem . She later lived with her sister, the social worker Gertrud Blank (1892–1981) in Tel Aviv . Her brother Albert Blank (1885–1963), later managing director of the carpet factory Otto Kuhlmann & Co in Hameln , emigrated with the family to England in 1936.

literature

• Blank, Gertrud. In: Biographisches Handbuch der Deutschensprachigen Emigration nach 1933. International biographical dictionary of Central European emigrés 1933–1945. Published by the Inst. Für Zeitgeschichte München and by the Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration, New York, under the overall direction of Werner Röder and Herbert A. Strauss . Vol. 1: Politics, Economy, Public Life. Red .: Sybille Claus (among others). Munich 1980, ISBN 3-598-10087-6 , p. 68.
• Bernhard Gelderblom : The Jews of Hameln. From its beginnings in the 13th century to its destruction by the Nazi regime. Mitzkat, Holzminden 2011, ISBN 978-3-940751-39-3 , pp. 107-109. ( The manufacturer Albert Blank and the "Aryanization" of the carpet works Otto Kuhlmann & Co. )
• Bernhard Gelderblom : The Jews in the villages of Salzhemmendorf. Mitzkat, Holzminden 2013, ISBN 978-3-940751-76-8 , pp. 162-165. ( Jews in Wallensen: Blank family. )
• Between everyday worries, lack of space and new building plans. The former Royal and Provincial Library Hanover / Lower Saxony State Library as reflected in the diary of its directors Karl Kunze, Otto Heinrich May and Gerhard Meyer 1907–1961. Edited and commented by Ulrich Breden . Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Library, Hanover 2016.

Web links

• Bernhard Gelderblom: The Jewish cemetery in Wallensen Darin about the Jewish Blank family and Paula Blank's grandfather David Blank, who lived in Wallensen since 1820 (the family lived in Wallensen until 1890/91). Here is a detailed biography of Paula's brother Albert Blank.
• Life chronicle of Werner Kraft (The historical photo shows Paula Blank and Werner Kraft among the employees of the "Formerly Royal and Provincial Library Hanover", around 1928/1929.)