Dagmar Schwermer

No Trace of a Salon

The Jewish Women's Union after 1945

[German]

When the Jewish Women’s Union (JFB) was re-established at the beginning of the 1950s after being banned by the Nazis in 1938, the organisers’ main aim was mitigating suffering in the wake of the Shoah. But the women also gained new political strength through their activities. Three of the group’s co-founders, Ruth Galinski, Inge Markus and Lilli Marx, spoke with Dagmar Schwermer about the revival of the JFB.

Dagmar Schwermer: What was the role of the JFB after the war?

Ruth Galinski: We had to draw to us those who were coming out of the concentration camps, because all of them were in a state of despair. They were broken. That’s why we set up a women’s group, to give these people something to hold onto and a bit of warmth. That was the most important thing we did in the first years.

What was the contact like among the women themselves? Was there a specific culture of conversation?

Inge Markus: Well, there wasn’t a trace of the old bourgeois salons. People got to know each other. Each told of their particular fate. Traces of hope returned for some. We were really a long way from a salon. We didn’t want to be like Rahel Varnhagen. No. That just doesn’t exist anymore. At the time, the Jewish communities had only about five to six thousand members. A women’s group with 500 people in it was considered enormous. Unfortunately, it didn’t remain that way, namely due to the ageing process, of all things.

Ruth Galinski: Don’t forget ... in those days mainly the women who were single were the ones who survived.

How did you exchange information among yourselves? Ms. Marx, at that time you were already editing a newspaper solely for the women in the different communities.

Lilli Marx: That was a newsletter for the JFB in Germany. It was called “The Woman in the Community”. We believed that title encompassed everyone. Our goal was to promote social work, provide information about gaining citizenship and to awaken women’s interest in politics. We also wanted to kindle interest in and promote working for Israel. We wanted to make it particularly clear to the women how important it was to remember not only social work, but also other things. We were really lucky we were able to occasionally publish the paper, which could be as long as 16 pages, using money from the budget of the General Jewish Weekly (Allgemeine Jüdische Wochenzeitung). Our paper was inserted in the Allgemeine and widely circulated as a result.

From the beginning, you’ve emphasised that the women in your community were primarily concerned with social work. The original JFB, before the war and the Shoah, represented completely modern thought. Did feminist ideas later play a role in your group again?

Ruth Galinski: There was no talk of feminism then. We had to survive and regain our strength. Besides, as far as I recall, we were very confident women. We never had the feeling a struggle was necessary. Religion, of course, was another thing entirely, but everyone has their own opinion on that. One is orthodox, the other liberal.

What made you so strong?

Ruth Galinski: What made me strong to begin with, was that I survived at all and I could begin again. I got married to a strong man. That made me strong as well.

Ms. Galinski and Ms. Marx, your work is linked to the work of your well-known husbands. One, Heinz Galinski, was the long-time president of the Berlin community and the chairman of the central council. The other, Karl Marx, was a publicist and the publisher of the General Jewish Weekly. What were your roles when you stood alongside these men?

Ruth Galinski: Take my husband, for example. He had the feeling he was stronger when I was with him. He always demanded I come along. I’ll give you a small example. When we came home in the evening, we always sat down and talked over a glass of wine. Mutual sharing played a major role.

Lilli Marx: I can only underscore that. It’s true I was one of the few Jewish women who had a career. There were only two in Düsseldorf. Besides me, a friend of mine was a paediatrician who had returned from Israel. We had already worked together in exile in England. I learned a great deal from my husband and I was allowed to learn. There was never the need to fight ... quite the contrary. He had an extraordinary understanding for working women and found it was important enough that it was done.

The work of the JFB was not limited to Germany. You soon began to take part again in meetings of the International Council of Jewish Women. What were your experiences there?

Inge Markus: These international meetings were really interesting. Seen in a purely personal light, we were really good together, even when most were looking at us with the thought in the back of their minds: “... Oh, God, they come from Germany. How could they live there again? Or, How could they ever go back there?” Like me: I had lived in exile in England and I went back. They really had a hard time understanding that. But we tried to explain the dilemma to them with a funny little rhyme:

We are two boys from Germany
They call us Max and Moritz

Wherever we come on the scene
We’re always having Zorres

But we don’t think we need an excuse
to live in Germany

Because, remember, we are Jews
Wherever we may be.

Of course, we were wildly interested in the work at that time. It was so diverse. Our women contributed to it and they got to hear things from the large, free world beyond the war zone. And besides, the women’s group was a springboard for me. At that time I was relatively young. I’d just had my third child and Heinz Galinski came to me and said, “Inge, I’d like it if you stood as a representative of the Jewish community. I said, “How am I supposed to do that? I’ve got a baby.” He replied, “Oh, we’ll manage all that.” Well, why? Because we had a whole lot of women supporting us.

What are the tasks facing women’s organisations today?

Lilli Marx: I believe the integration work done in our generation fell on fertile ground. We simply felt obliged to make ourselves available to the community. The main thing all organisations suffer from today is that contemporary young women who have superb career training don’t make themselves available ... out of their own conviction. It takes a great deal of persuading to recruit young women.

Ruth Galinski: Well, in my opinion, the women’s organisations have survived as such. Today there are women’s organisations in the professions and in academe, or whatever you like, but the regular, old-fashioned women’s unions are no longer “in”.

Bet Debora is campaigning for equal treatment of women in Jewish ritual. What did you think of the religious services celebrated by the women at the conference?

Lilli Marx: I was really impressed both yesterday and today. It was the first time in about 54 years I’d been to a liberal or a reform service. It was a wonderful ceremony. The simultaneous readings of Hebrew, German and English scripture impressed me as well. I could read along, which is something I can’t do in Düsseldorf.

Dagmar Schwermer is a journalist in Munich. Ruth Galinski and Inge Markus both live in Berlin, Lilli Marx lives in Düsseldorf.