Else Hirsch
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Else Hirsch (29 July 1889 – 1942 or 1943) was a
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
teacher in
Bochum Bochum (, ; ; ; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 372,348 (April 2023), it is the sixth-largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous German federa ...
, Germany, and a member of the German Resistance against
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
. She organized transports of Jewish children to the Netherlands and England, saving them from Nazi deportation to
concentration camps A concentration camp is a prison or other facility used for the internment of political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or ethnic minority groups, on the grounds of national security, or for exploit ...
and death. Hirsch perished in the
Riga Ghetto Riga Ghetto was a small area in Maskavas Forštate, a neighbourhood of Riga, Latvia, where Nazis forced Latvian Jewish, Jews from Latvia, and later from the German "Reich" (Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia), to live during World War II. On ...
, at the age of 53 or 54.


Biography

Born in Bützow, in the
Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin The Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin () was a territory in Northern Germany held by the House of Mecklenburg residing at Schwerin. It was a sovereign member state of the German Confederation and became a federated state of the North German C ...
, Hirsch came from Berlin to Bochum at the end of 1926 and lived with her mother. She had taken an exam to qualify as a teacher of older children, but was unemployed and was assigned (and required) to teach at the Jewish school. She was initially less than pleased with this but soon threw herself into her work.Biography of Else Hirsch
. City of Bochum official website. Retrieved 24 April 2010
In her free time, Hirsch worked at the Bochum Jewish Women's Club and gave Hebrew lessons to girls until these activities were stopped by the Nazis in autumn 1933.Karin Finkbohner, Betti Helbing, Carola Horn, Anita Krämer, Astrid Schmidt-Ritter, Kathy Vowe. ''Wider das Vergessen — Widerstand und Verfolgung Bochumer Frauen und Zwangsarbeiterinnen 1933 – 1945'', pgs. 62-63. Europäischer Universitätsverlag; In October 1937, she took a course in English at the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden in Berlin to be able to give English lessons to those who might be able to emigrate. She travelled to
Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...
in June 1938. On 11 November 1938, Reichskristallnacht, the Bochum synagogue was burned down. The Jewish school was also destroyed by the SA. Afterward, all of the official representatives of the Jewish community were deported. Hirsch fought to have the school reopened, but it stayed open only for a short while. Hirsch began to organize transports for children and adolescents in arrangement with the Jewish Reichsvertretung. Between December 1938 and August 1939, she organized ten children's transports to the Netherlands and England. Hirsch took care of all the travel preparations, filling out lengthy forms, registering the children, gathering required documents, sending papers to London, securing exit visas, reserving seating on the trains, buying the tickets and staying in close touch with the parents. She stayed with the remaining pupils as the only Jewish teacher until the school was closed in September 1941. Emigration for Jews was prohibited after 1941. In late January 1942, Hirsch and some of her pupils were deported to the
Riga Ghetto Riga Ghetto was a small area in Maskavas Forštate, a neighbourhood of Riga, Latvia, where Nazis forced Latvian Jewish, Jews from Latvia, and later from the German "Reich" (Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and Moravia), to live during World War II. On ...
. A surviving pupil reports that for a short while she continued to teach children. She also organized meals for weakened people and the elderly. The last time when the surviving student saw her, she was collecting nettles and dandelion leaves to cook as vegetables for the seniors. She was killed in 1942 or 1943.


Quote

Hirsch wrote in the poetry album of a pupil, "Judge not the worth of men / after just one peep / Up above are but ripples / to probe, one must dig deep."


Legacy

Streets in Bochum and Bad Lausick are named after her. There is a
stolperstein A (; plural ) is a concrete cube bearing a brass plate inscribed with the name and life dates of victims of Nazi extermination or persecution. Literal translation, Literally, it means 'stumbling stone' and metaphorically 'stumbling block'. ...
for Hirsch at Huestraße 28 in Bochum, Germany, where she taught from 1927 to 1941.Stolperstein for Else Hirsch, with photo
Genealogy Wiki. Retrieved 24 April 2010


See also

* Anna Essinger * Bunce Court School * List of Germans who resisted Nazism


References


External links


"Gedenkveranstaltung zum 65. Jahrestag der Pogromnacht"
City of Bochum. Retrieved 24 April 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hirsch, Else 1889 births 1940s deaths Date of death unknown People from Bützow People from the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin German Jews who died in the Holocaust People who died in the Riga Ghetto Female resistance members of World War II Jewish resistance members during the Holocaust Lists of stolpersteine in Germany