Thekla Kauffmann
1883 - 1980-
Name Thekla Kauffmann [1] Born 18 Jan 1883 Stuttgart, Württemberg, Germany [1, 2] Gender Female Emigration 21 Apr 1941 [1] - to the United States
Anecdote - Thekla Kauffmann was active in the women's-liberation movement and in the political life of Germany long before German women egaged in public life. After World War I she became a member of the Constitutional Assembly of Württemberg. Thereafter she was a member of the Württember Legislature for many years. As a member of the German Democratic Party, she was one of the few successful women in the parliamentary life of Württemberg and was the only Jewish woman among them. Her profession was that of a social worker in the Stuttgart State Employment Office, and when she had to leave that office following the takeover by the Nazis, she was active in many Jewish organizations and head of the Stuttgart Immigration Organization, which worked closely with the American Consulate to obtain visas for the Jews from SOuth Germany, who were forced to leave their native country. Many of the Jews from South Germany owe it to her that they were able to leave Germany in time. She was one of the last ones to escape Stuttgart with her eighty-five-year old mother before deporations to the East started.
Anecdote - When she arrived in the United States in 1941, she settled first in Chicago, where the rest of her immediate family lived at that time. In Chicago she became the head of a large home for working mothers, and after she had attained retirement age she worked in the Chicago Public Library. In 1960 she came to New York, where she lived for many years together with her sister, Alice Uhlmann.
Reference Number 9449 Died 1980 Isabella Nursing Home, New York, New York [1, 2] Person ID I9449 My Genealogy Last Modified 5 Feb 2006
Father Herrmann Kauffmann, b. 03 Aug 1854, Ludwigsburg, Germany , d. 06 Jul 1922, Stuttgart, Württemberg, Germany Mother Rosalie Hirsch, b. 05 May 1864, d. 14 Nov 1947, Chicago, Cook, Illinois Married 1882 Family ID F2392 Group Sheet
-
Sources - [S356] Jewish Life in Ludwigsburg, Hahn, Joachim, (Stadtarchiv von der Stadt Ludwigsburg and vom Historischen Verein für Stadt und Kreis Ludwigsburg e.V., 1998), Carl Kauffmann und Familie, pages 435 - 436.
- [S333] Signs of Life, Editor: Walter Strauss, (Ktav Publishing House, New York, 1982), Thekla Kauffmann, pp. 145 - 146.
- [S356] Jewish Life in Ludwigsburg, Hahn, Joachim, (Stadtarchiv von der Stadt Ludwigsburg and vom Historischen Verein für Stadt und Kreis Ludwigsburg e.V., 1998), Carl Kauffmann und Familie, pages 435 - 436.