Regina Kägi-Fuchsmann

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Regina Kägi-Fuchsmann (center), Camp de Gurs , 1942
Holiday camp Mösli of the Red Falcons Zurich

Regina Kägi-Fuchsmann (born May 10, 1889 in Zurich as Regina Fuchsmann ; † June 12, 1972 ibid) was a Swiss women's rights activist, refugee worker and humanitarian activist.

Life

The daughter of a Jewish businessman was a primary school teacher from 1911 to 1913 and studied for secondary school teaching at the University of Zurich from 1913 to 1916 . In 1915 she married the welfare officer Paul Kägi, who then headed the Central Office for Social Literature in Switzerland from 1929 to 1941 . From 1918 on she was a teacher in Schaffhausen, from where she was actively involved in setting up the women's center, of which she was President for the whole of Switzerland from 1923 to 1925. She also campaigned for the improvement of working and living conditions for homeworkers . In 1924 she gave birth to her son Ulrich.

From 1933 on, she headed the Proletarian Children's Aid in Zurich , which in the same year was renamed Workers Child Aid of Switzerland (AKH) and in 1936 was merged with the Swiss Workers' Aid Organization (SAH). She was managing director of the SAH until 1951. In this function, she organized holidays for working class children and for German refugee children in private households and in camps during World War II. In the summer campaign of 1935 for the children of Swiss unemployed, 520 preschool children spent with private individuals and 714 children in a camp (such as the Haselmatt Jurahaus in Aux Bulles, the Albishaus Naturfreundehaus on the Albispass, the Mösli near Stallikon). The management of the AKH held advanced training courses for managers and helpers, where Kägi also gave lectures on topics such as the establishment of the camp, the technical structure or hygiene in warehouse operations.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) she also looked after Spanish refugee children. For aid in the Spanish Civil War, in 1937 the SAH united with 13 aid organizations to form the Swiss Working Group for Spanish Children (Ayuda Suiza, SAS) , which in 1940 - due to the expansion of the war misery to more and more countries (Finland, Poland, Benelux, France) - with 17 organizations became part of the Swiss Working Group for War Damaged Children (SAK) and, from January 1, 1942, became the children's aid of the Swiss Red Cross . Starting in 1940, as the initiator of the Colis Suisse campaign (Swiss parcels), she regularly traveled to the refugee camps in non-occupied France to offer help on site.

When the Second World War was over, Regina Kägi was involved in reconstruction in Europe and among other things organized the Swiss donation in 1944. From 1948 she was President of Swiss European Aid (later Swiss Foreign Aid ).

In the 1950s, Kägi shifted its commitment to development aid . From 1952 she worked for the UN. In 1955 she was a founding member of the Swiss Aid Organization for Non-European Areas ( Helvetas ). In 1961 she was given the title of Dr. hc awarded by the University of Zurich.

plant

Regina Kägi was a staunch social democrat who always clearly distanced herself from communism . Their work, but also their written works and lectures, testify to an all-pervasive realism . Kägi always preferred concrete actions for the benefit of the disadvantaged to political discourse, placing emphasis on feasibility, effectiveness and rapid implementation.

Fonts

  • Solidarity across borders. Lecture at the public final rally of the Reich Conference of Workers' Welfare in 1959 in Wiesbaden. Arbeiterwohlfahrt, Bonn 1959.
  • The good heart is not enough. My life and my work. Ex libris, Zurich 1968.

See also

literature

  • Valérie Boillat, Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War: Switzerland and the refugees at the time of National Socialism. Chronos, Zurich 2001, ISBN 3-0340-0617-9 .
  • Markus Bürgi: Kägi [-Fuchsmann], Regina. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . November 26, 2014 .
  • Björn Erik Lupp: From class solidarity to humanitarian aid. The Refugee Policy of the Political Left 1930–1950. ISBN 3-0340-0744-2 .
  • Nicole Weil: Regina Kägi-Fuchsmann. Social Democrat and Organizer. In: Helena Kanyar Becker (ed.): Forgotten women. Humanitarian aid to children and official refugee policy 1917–1948. Schwabe, Basel 2010, ISBN 3-7965-2695-0 .
  • Serge Nessi: The Children's Aid of the Swiss Red Cross 1942–1945 and the role of the doctor Hugo Oltramare . Preface by Cornelio Sommaruga . Karolinger, Vienna / Leipzig 2013, ISBN 978-3-85418-147-7 (French original edition: Éditions Slatkine, Genève 2011, ISBN 978-2-8321-0458-3 ).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kägi-Fuchsmann, Regina
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fuchsmann, Regina (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss women's rights activist, refugee worker and humanitarian activist
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH June 12, 1972
Place of death Zurich