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Recha Freier (~ 1964)
Monument on Recha Free Square in Jerusalem

Recha Freier ( Hebrew רחה פריאר; born Schweitzer, born October 29, 1892 in Norden ; † April 2, 1984 in Jerusalem , Israel) was a German-Jewish resistance fighter against National Socialism , teacher and poet. On January 30, 1933, she founded the " Children and Youth Alijah ". The organization saved thousands of Jewish children and young people by helping to emigration from the German Reich in the era of National Socialism life.

Life

Recha Freier was born as the daughter of the Orthodox Jewish elementary school teacher Manasse Schweitzer. Already in her childhood she was confronted with anti-Semitism in Norden when she and her family were prevented from entering a public place by a sign: "Dogs and Jews are not allowed to enter". She later processed this experience in the poem “Earthquake”. In 1897 the family moved to Glogau in Lower Silesia after their father's application for transfer had been granted. In the school there, Recha was the only Jewish student and was mocked at school because of the writing ban on Shabbat and asked maliciously by a teacher whether she could even tie her apron on Saturdays.

Berlin memorial plaque in Berlin-Charlottenburg (Fasanenstrasse 79-80)

After finishing school, Recha Schweitzer studied pedagogy and folklore in Breslau and Munich and then worked as a teacher for German, French and English and as a pianist at secondary schools. In 1919 she married Rabbi Moritz Freier. The marriage resulted in four children, three of whom now live in Israel.

In 1919 the family moved to Sofia . Here Recha founded the Jung- Women's International Zionist Organization (Jung-WIZO), which got girls and young women enthusiastic about Zionism . In 1926 the couple moved to Berlin after their husband was appointed chief rabbi for the three large Orthodox synagogues of the Jewish community in Berlin. There, in 1932, five 16-year-old East Jewish boys who had lost their jobs because of their beliefs came to her and asked her for help. Shaped by this experience, she saw the incident not as an economic and social problem, but as anti-Semitic action. So the idea matured in her to bring these Jewish young people to Palestine, to train them there and to create a new home for them with adoptive parents in kibbutzim . The first group of children left Germany in 1932, the year in which the Children and Youth Alijah was founded. The official registration document was signed by a lawyer in Berlin on January 30, 1933, the day Hitler became Reich Chancellor. The amalgamation of various organizations resulted in the Child and Youth Alijah on May 30, 1933. The organization was based in Berlin-Charlottenburg 2, Kantstr. 158, there was u. a. also the office of the Prussian State Association of Jewish Communities. She was responsible for the selection and preparation of the 13 to 17 year olds for emigration to Palestine.

Recha Freier insisted on the emigration of young people to Palestine without them having received professional training in Germany or elsewhere in Europe. She pleaded for them to be immediately integrated into kibbutzim and cooperative villages and not to be given to special facilities for refugee children.

The male members of the Freier family left Berlin for London between 1937 and 1939. However, Recha Freier decided to stay with her daughter as long as there was still a chance to save Jews.

When obtaining the necessary exit and entry documents for the young people, Recha Freier did not always proceed legally, which is why she was expelled from the board of the association in 1938, as the association did not want to come to terms with the methods she had learned from a lawyer. During the Reichspogromnacht Recha Freier stayed with her family in London. But she returned to Germany immediately when she heard what had happened. She decided to continue her activities on her own. In 1940, colleagues denounced her for anti-Nazi propaganda. Since she was warned in good time, she managed to flee to Palestine using British entry documents for Palestine via Vienna, Zagreb, Turkey, Greece and Syria . In doing so, she managed to save 120 children who would later have been threatened with deportation to extermination camps.

In 1941 she founded the Agricultural Training Center for Israeli Children in Israel. This institution took in children from poor families and placed them in kibbutzim. In 1958 she founded the "Israel Composers Fund" and in 1966 the "Testimonium Scheme", an association of writers and musicians.

In 1984 she died in Jerusalem at the age of 91.

Honors

  • In 1954 Albert Einstein proposed her for the Nobel Peace Prize, but in vain .
  • In 1975 Recha Freier received an honorary doctorate from the Hebrew University.
  • In 1981 she was awarded the Israel Prize .
  • Since November 26, 1984 there has been a memorial plaque in Berlin in the Jewish parish hall , Fasanenstrasse 79/80, to commemorate her and her work.
  • A place in Jerusalem has been named after Recha Freier
  • The Recha-Freier-Haus was built in Kibbutz Yakum as a meeting place for Israeli, German and other young people.

Services

The child and youth Aliyah saved 7,600 children from Nazi Germany. The organization is still active today and helps orphaned children who come to the country with the various waves of immigration. According to the organization, more than 350,000 children and young people from over 80 countries have been cared for since it was founded.

Works (in selection)

  • On the stairs , Hamburg, 1976
  • Shutters , Hamburg 1979

Settings

  • Eva-Maria Houben : 5 haikus (2003) for speaking voice and piano. WP February 21, 2004 Düsseldorf (Kunstraum; Sylvia Alexandra Schimag [voice], Eva-Maria Houben [piano])

literature

  • Gudrun Maierhof: Assertiveness in chaos. Women in Jewish Self-Help 1933-1943 . Frankfurt 2002, ISBN 3-593-37042-5
  • Gudrun Maierhof, Chana Schütz, Simon Hermann Eds .: Children became letters. The rescue of Jewish children from Nazi Germany. Metropol, Berlin 2004 ISBN 3936411867
  • Hildegard Feidel-Mertz : Freier, Recha , in: Hugo Maier (Ed.): Who is who of social work . Freiburg: Lambertus, 1998 ISBN 3-7841-1036-3 , pp. 179f.

Web links

Commons : Recha Freier  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.hagalil.com/deutschland/berlin/frauen/freier.htm
  2. ↑ List of memorial plaques
  3. ↑ suitor: passim. With name register of the emigrants mentioned or depicted in the book
personal data
SURNAME Free, Recha
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Zionist, sponsor of the child and youth aliyah
DATE OF BIRTH October 29, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH north
DATE OF DEATH April 2, 1984
Place of death Jerusalem