Margarete Sommer

Margarete ( Grete ) Summer ( born July 21, 1893 in Berlin, † June 30, 1965 ibid ) was a Catholic social worker. During the Holocaust, she helped persecuted Jewish citizens, many saved from deportation to extermination camps. In 2003, she was posthumously awarded the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations.

Life

She was born as the daughter of a railroad bill Council. In 1914 she graduated from the High School at the Werner - Siemens Real Gymnasium in Berlin- Schöneberg, studied philosophy, economics, history and law at the Friedrich- Wilhelms- University of Berlin and the Ruprecht -Karls- University of Heidelberg, obtained his doctorate in 1924 with valde laudabile on Prisoners Welfare, a forensic - socio-economic study.

She has taught at the school welfare of the Catholic German Women's Federation ( KDFB ), at the youth center and the Social Women's School. In 1927, as a full-time lecturer in the care of the Pestalozzi- Froebel seminar house in Berlin- Friedenau. When she refused the summer of 1934 to teach the forced sterilization of disabled people, she was compelled to submit their resignation.

In 1935, she was Executive Director of the Catholic Welfare Association for women, girls and children, 1939 Diözeseanleiterin for Women's pastoral care. In September 1941 she took over the management of the aid organization founded in 1938 at the Diocesan Berlin ( HBOB ), which officially converted to Catholicism Jews, but actually helped other Jewish citizens in housing and employment search as well as the emigration from Germany. As Jews, neither work, nor were allowed to emigrate, the office strove summer for them to food, clothing and money.

During the Holocaust summer, submerged Jews helped in the Sacred Heart Church on the road to hide Fehrbellinerplatz 98 and other places in Berlin. A twelve year old girl was hidden in various children's homes under their protection until 1945 and survived the killing. Affected families they had forewarned of community priests of planned deportations. Your information she received from an extensive network, which included the Gestapo informers.

For the German church leadership and the Pope wrote detailed accounts of the Holocaust: Your first report of September 1941 concerned the Star Regulation, the second of February 1942, the situation of " Jewish half-breeds " and " mixed marriages ", the third of August 1942, the fate of deported Jews in the extermination camps, the fourth of November 1942 dealt with remarks on the second Wannsee follow-up conference. In it she repeatedly demanded the intervention of the Catholic Bishops for the human right to life and freedom. Beginning of March 1943 succeeded Margarete Sommer, Cardinal Bertram to move as chairman of the Bishops' Conference to a protest against the arrest of Jewish spouses of so-called mixed marriages. According to the historian Ursula Büttner was " this intervention of the otherwise extremely cautious Cardinal ... at least as to the fact that the authorities backed away as the now much publicized and in their effect perhaps overestimated demonstrations of the members in the Rose Street. " In vain did Margaret Sommers demand, Cardinal Bertram should publicly protest against the destruction of the Jews.

After 1945, she worked at the Catholic Pastoral wife, was among the first members of the Society for Christian- Jewish Cooperation and criticized half-hearted action against neo-Nazis. In April 1960, she was retired.

Awards

The Pope drew them in 1946 with the Order of Merit Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice from. 1953 she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit, First Class. The Senate of Berlin she took in 1961 in the list of unsung heroes. The Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem posthumously in 2003 she drew from the honorary title Righteous Among the Nations. In 1993, the former Werneuchener street was named after Margaret summer in the Berlin district of Prenzlauer Berg.

Works

• The care in the criminal law: prior to indictment, in the process, after release. Heymann, Berlin 1925