Marie Schmolka

Marie Schmolka
Marie Schmolka in the 1930s
Born23 June 1893
Prague, Austria-Hungary
Died27 March 1940(1940-03-27) (aged 46)
NationalityCzechoslovak
OccupationSocial worker
Known forHelping Jewish and political refugees escape the Nazis from Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and Germany
Notable workO sociální práci

Marie Schmolka (née Eisner; 23 June 1893 – 27 March 1940) was a Czechoslovak Jewish activist and social worker who helped political refugees and Jewish adults and children escape the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the lead-up to World War II. She was a member of WIZO and WILPF. She had previously helped refugees from Germany who fled to Czechoslovakia after the Nazi rise to power.[1][2][3][4] Schmolka headed the newly founded Czechoslovak Refugee Committee, and also chaired local HICEM. In July 1938, she represented Czechoslovakia at the Évian conference.[2]

Together with Doreen Warriner from the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia and Martin Blake, she invited Nicholas Winton to Prague, where Winton helped with their Kindertransport scheme. In August 1939, she was sent by Adolf Eichmann to negotiate Jewish emigration from Central Europe to Paris on a JOINT conference. Caught up by the outbreak of the Second World War, she relocated to London and continued her work for refugees as part of Bloomsbury House. She moved in with her old friend, suffragist and pacifist Mary Sheepshanks in Gospel Oak, Lissenden Gardens. She died on 27 March 1940 following a heart attack. Her funeral in Golders Green Jewish Cemetery was attended by Jan Masaryk, Rebecca Sieff, Hana Benešová (wife of the Czechoslovak president), Wenzel Jaksch, as well as many leading personalities of British Jewry and Czechoslovak emigration.[2]

  1. ^ Kaplan, Thomas Pegelow; Matthäus, Jürgen; Hornburg, Mark W. (2019). Beyond "Ordinary Men": Christopher R. Browning and Holocaust Historiography. Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh. p. 100. ISBN 978-3-657-79266-5.
  2. ^ a b c Anna, Hájková (2018). "The Woman Behind the Kindertransport". History Today. Vol. 68, no. 12. Retrieved 12 February 2020.
  3. ^ "Saviour of Jewish refugees Marie Schmolka finally honoured in Prague". Radio Prague International. Retrieved 12 February 2020.
  4. ^ Tait, Robert (10 November 2019). "Prague to honour little-known saviour of refugees fleeing Nazis". The Observer. Retrieved 12 February 2020.