Rhena Schweitzer-Miller
Rhena Schweitzer Miller ( born January 14, 1919 in Strasbourg in Alsace, France, † February 22, 2009 in Los Angeles, California, USA ), the daughter of Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer and Helene Bresslau was.
Life and work
Rhena Schweitzer Miller grew up in Germany, France and Switzerland.
In 1939, she married Jean Eckert, an organ builder, whom she had met in Paris, but was later divorced from him. By the end of the 1950s she completed a medical training.
Work in Lambarene
From 1960 she worked in her father's hospital in Lambaréné in Gabon and took over after his death in September 1965 to 1970 the administrative management of the hospital. In religious education, the rotated her documentary about the hospital work in Lambaréné is recommended today.
Her second husband, the American physician David C. Miller, they learned in their work in Lambaréné know, this worked with her father.
Humanitarian work
With her second husband she performed humanitarian work in her father's spirit in several countries. They worked among others in India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Yemen and Egypt in medical projects. In Pakistan, her husband was responsible for 80,000 refugees.
In the late 60s, during the Biafra war in Nigeria, it took about 20 Ibo children in her home, as she told the New York Times in 1968.
Together with Harold Robles founded Schweitzer -Miller 1984, the Albert Schweitzer Institute for the Humanities, which moved its headquarters later in the Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. Robles and Miller created in 1990 the " Reverence for Life Commendation " to honor humanitarian efforts in the spirit of Albert Schweitzer.
Ambassador for the Albert Schweitzer companies
In addition to this commitment, she was also later worked for her father's work as an ambassador for many organizations bearing his name. Inter alia visited her 2001 Fobung Foundation in Cameroon. They also informed also about the Austrian Albert Schweitzer Society.
Private life
Rhena Schweitzer Miller is from his first marriage mother of Philippe, Monique Egli, Christiane Engel and Catherine Eckert and had at her death, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Literature / Media
- Literature by and about Rhena Schweitzer Miller in the catalog that German national library
- The years before Lambarene - Letters 1902-1912. Edited by Rhena Schweitzer Miller and Gustav Woytt, 1992, CH Beck, ISBN 978-3-406-36788-5
- Albert Schweitzer in his jungle hospital in Africa ( short version) by Rhena Eckert Schweitzer, Federal Republic of Germany 1965, 25 min, f, Documentary
- Rhena about her mother
- My father, Albert Schweitzer. Posted by Miriam Devine, Saturday Evening Post, 1994
- Message for the Jubilee Year 2007, the Albert Schweitzer Children's Villages