Thekla Kauffmann

Female 1883 - 1980


Personal Information    |    Sources    |    All    |    PDF

  • Name  Thekla Kauffmann  [1
    Born  18 Jan 1883  Stuttgart, Württemberg, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location  [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 Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2
    Person ID  I9449  My Genealogy
    Last Modified  5 Feb 2006 

    Father  Herrmann Kauffmann,   b. 03 Aug 1854, Ludwigsburg, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 06 Jul 1922, Stuttgart, Württemberg, Germany Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Mother  Rosalie Hirsch,   b. 05 May 1864,   d. 14 Nov 1947, Chicago, Cook, Illinois Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Married  1882 
    Family ID  F2392  Group Sheet

  • Sources 
    1. [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.

    2. [S333] Signs of Life, Editor: Walter Strauss, (Ktav Publishing House, New York, 1982), Thekla Kauffmann, pp. 145 - 146.