Shimon Gottschalk

Shimon Gottschalk , Stefan Gottschalk up to the age of twelve , (* 1929 in Berlin ) is an American social work scientist of German origin who fled Germany in 1938 with his father, stepmother and older brother. He is Professor Emeritus of Social Work at Florida State University .

Life

Stefan Gottschalk was the son of a Jewish couple who worked for the progressive youth welfare office in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district, headed by Walter Friedländer . The father Arthur Gottschalk worked as a legal department head at the youth welfare office, the mother (she died a few months after Stefan's birth) as a child welfare worker. After the National Socialists came to power in 1933, the youth welfare office became a particular target because it had many Jewish and politically left-wing employees. Arthur Gottschalk also lost his office and did volunteer work for the Jewish community. He had since lost his second wife and remarried in 1938. After the Reichskristallnacht in 1938, he and his family fled by train to Hoek van Holland and then by ship to the USA .

In the United States, Stefan took the first name Shimon and joined the Jewish community in Boston . In Berlin the family had not actively participated in the life of the religious community. After graduating from high school , Gottschalk attended college and trained as a carpenter. In 1950 he traveled to Europe for a year and also cycled through Germany. He then studied philosophy and Jewish history at Brandeis University up to the Bachelor's degree . He continued his studies in Cincinnati at the Hebrew Union College . He then worked as an educator at large synagogues from 1956 to 1962 ; he did not want to become a rabbi .

In 1962, Gottschalk followed in his parents' footsteps and studied social work at Rutgers University up to a master’s degree. He then spent several years in the Rhode Island state community . In 1972 he received his doctorate from Brandeis University and was soon professor at Tallahassee University .

In teaching, Gottschalk always took a critical position towards professionalization and specialization in social work - it creates too great a distance between social workers and their clients and expresses itself in the following attitude: I am the social worker and that is just a poor person. He mustn't do what we do.

Since his retirement, Gottschalk has lived with his family in an alternative community in Tallahassee, which has its own school, which is based on the principles of Summerhill .

literature

• Irmgard Beckmann: Sometimes you are not allowed to obey , in Joachim Wieler, Susanne Zeller (Ed.): Emigrierte Sozialarbeit. Portraits of displaced social workers. Lambertus, Freiburg 1995, pp. 157-165.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Source of the biographical information is: Irmgard Beckmann, Sometimes one may not obey , in Joachim Wieler, Susanne Zeller (Ed.): Emigrierte Sozialarbeit. Portraits of displaced social workers. Lambertus, Freiburg 1995, pp. 157-165.
2. ↑ quote from the interview; in Irmgard Beckmann, Sometimes you are not allowed to obey , in Joachim Wieler, Susanne Zeller (ed.): Emigrierte Sozialarbeit. Portraits of displaced social workers. Lambertus, Freiburg 1995, p. 163 f.