Else Falk
Else Falk (born April 25 1872 as Elise Wahl in Barmen; † January 8, 1956 in São Paulo) was a German women's rights activist and social politician during the Weimar Republic.
The father ran the textile business S & R Wahl here, was a promoter of the Barmer Bergbahn and founder of the local synagogue congregation.
The family moved in the circles of Rhenish assimilated Jewry, among others in the Central-Verein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens (Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith) of 1893.
In 1918, for example, she set up the first public library for the war-blind in Cologne and ran a shoemaker's workshop to provide an income for war invalids.
As early as 1927, she supported Hertha Kraus in setting up the Riehler Heimstätten homes for the elderly and infirm, which were converted from former barracks buildings.
In addition to restaurants where no alcohol was served, the GOA initiative supplied events, factories and construction sites with inexpensive, healthy food on a mobile basis using vehicles.
[6][7] In addition to her social project work in Cologne, Else Falk held board positions in numerous supraregional associations and political organizations, including the Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein, the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Stadtverbände von Rheinland und Westfalen, the Rheinisch-Westfälischer Frauenverband, and the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine.
Concerned about political developments in Germany, in 1932 she was one of the signatories of an appeal by the Cologne women's associations against Hitler's election as Reich Chancellor.
Two weeks after the Reichstag elections in March 1933, Else Falk, a Jew, was forced to resign from the chairmanship of the Cologne Women's Association, which she had held for more than 13 years.
The eldest son Alfred (born 1895) was killed in action in January 1917 as an officer in Manfred von Richthofen's fighter squadron.
The second-born son Fritz (born 1898), who was married to Margarete Oevel, held a doctorate in law from the Higher Regional Court in Düsseldorf.
On September 11, 1933, after his work permit was revoked and he was increasingly marginalized and humiliated due to Nai persecution, he committed suicide.
During her last stay in Cologne - she visited the city in 1952 at the invitation of Konrad Adenauer - a memorial plaque was erected on this building and a banquet was given in her honor.
[15] The second prize winner in 2022 was Behshid Najafi, a German-Iranian who works to combat discrimination against migrant and refugee women.. On October 5, 2020, in front of the long-time residence of the Falk family in Cologne-Bayenthal - initiated by the Rhineland-Cologne Section of the German Alpine Club - stumbling blocks were laid by the artist Gunter Demnig in memory of Else Falk, her husband Bernhard and their son Ernst Hermann.
