Helene Wolff & Margarete Herz

[reviews_and_ramblings]

Dentists Margarete Herz (March 23, 1872 - 1947) and Helene Wolff (July 25, 1871 – September 30, 1917) were founding members of the local Women's Suffrage Association in Bonn in 1909, in which they were active together with the publicist and fighter for women's suffrage Johanna Elberskirchen (1864-1943). Helene passed in 1917 and during WWII Margarete lost everything to the Nazi Regime. Margarete moved to the US and made her first home in Chicago.

Ingeborg Boxhammer is a freelance researcher in Bonn, Germany who created a lecture centered around Margarete and Helene's lives.

After Helene's death in 1917, Margarete Herz opened a vegetarian restaurant in eastern Germany, but needed to flee the country in 1938 because she was Jewish and lost all her belongings to the Nazi Regime. She made her first home in Chicago, on Paulina Street above the Herz General Store with her relatives. With the help of American relatives, including Judy Chrisman, a retired D/97 elementary school librarian and long-time Oak Park resident, Ingeborg's lecture includes information and photos of these early suffragettes in Germany.

Software-Trainer Ingeborg Boxhammer ( M. A. ) works as a freelance in Bonn, Germany. She is co-administrator of the website www.lesbengeschichte.org ( since 2005 ), which is presenting "lesbian-like" ( Judith M. Bennett ) publicists and activists from before 1933 until after 1945 as well as critiques and filmlists with regard to lesbian-like representation in German-speaking films from 1911 till this day. Boxhammer published a book about lesbian film history ( 2007 ) and is doing research on biography research and local lesbian history.

Source: www.centeronhalsted.org/coh/calendar/newevents-details.cfm