Elly Freund née Rzeszewski

Escape from the religious parental home

Elly Freund was born into a strictly religious family, who were constantly concerned about keeping the child away from - in their view - dangerous external influences such as children's birthday parties. Already in her youth, Elly Freund turned away from religion and thus - at first secretly - from her parental home. She began to read Marxist and psychoanalytical literature. She trained as a correspondent in Breslau and Great Britain, completed her A-levels and chose to study in Heidelberg, which was as far away from her parents' home as possible.

She financed her medical studies as a working student. She was also interested in philosophy and went to lectures by the philosopher Karl Jaspers instead of attending the compulsory lectures on physics and botany. She did not initially perceive the victory of the National Socialist German Student Union in the AStA elections in Heidelberg as a serious threat.

Medical studies with obstacles

After two semesters, Elly Freund returned to Breslau, but dropped out twice. After the seizure of power in January 1933, she no longer dared to go to university for fear of reprisals. She witnessed several communist friends being arrested.

When the situation had calmed down after a few months, she returned to lectures. However, the study conditions became unbearable: Jewish students were not allowed to sit next to non-Jewish students, for example, but had to remain standing in the entrance area during lectures.

At the centre of the Youth Aliyah

During her studies, Elly Freund became increasingly interested in Zionism and the kibbutz movement. Her partner Edgar Freund was instrumental in building up the Zionist movement in Breslau. From 1932, she was also involved in Zionist youth organisations such as the "Jung-Jüdischer Wanderbund" and "Habonim" as a leader of girls' groups. At weekly meetings, she spoke about socialist and Zionist history, organised excursions and celebrated Jewish festivals with the girls.

Shortly after the Youth Aliyah was founded in Berlin at the end of 1932, Elly Freund took over the regional leadership in Breslau. From then on, she was mainly occupied with persuading parents to send their children to Israel and preparing these young people for entry. The first group she supervised emigrated to a kibbutz in 1935.

In Berlin

In autumn 1935, the main office of the Jugendalija brought Elly Freund to Berlin so that she could run a "Beth Chaluz", a house for young pioneers, as an employee of the Reichsvertretung. Shortly afterwards, she married her long-time friend Edgar Freund, who took over the management of the Reich-wide Jugendalija in Berlin. At the family's insistence, the wedding was performed in Breslau according to religious rites.

Elly Freund enjoyed the relative freedom afforded by the anonymity of the city of Berlin. Without running the risk of being discovered as Jewish by acquaintances on the street, she was able to go to the opera or take the tram despite official prohibitions. She decided to catch up on her exams and enrolled at Friedrich Wilhelm University in 1936, the year of the Olympics. For months, she worked at night in the Jewish hospital to prepare for her exams, while during the day she taught young people with whom she lived under the same roof. As one of the last Jewish students - surrounded by fellow students with National Socialist leanings - she passed her state medical examination in the spring of 1937. However, she never completed a dissertation in pathology that she had begun because she saw no prospects in it. From April 1937, it was no longer possible for Jews in the German Reich to complete a doctorate anyway.

At the end of 1937, Mr and Mrs Freund moved to a hachshara camp, the "Ellguth Jewish Teaching Estate" in Upper Silesia. Together with a second couple, they were now responsible for 50 young people who were trained in agriculture by non-Jewish farmers in the neighbourhood.

Arrival in Palestine

The fear of imminent arrest by the Gestapo grew ever greater, so Elly and Edgar Freund finally decided to emigrate earlier than planned. They arrived in Palestine in October 1938 via detours and settled in the German-speaking kibbutz Givat Chajim. Most of the members of their youth group, some of whom had been deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp during the November pogrom, were able to flee to Palestine in 1939; two were murdered in the Shoah.

Elly Freund was unable to practise her profession in Palestine, as the British Mandate administration no longer issued licences for doctors. Instead, she dedicated herself to youth aliyah again. She moved to Jerusalem, where she helped her husband run a boarding school for young people who had arrived alone. In the meantime, she had also been able to bring her mother to Palestine. In 1940, when the Second World War had already begun, Elly Freund travelled alone to Trieste in Italy on behalf of the Youth Aliyah. There she organised the crossing and entry of the last groups of young people from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia from Europe.

A new start as a doctor

After a practical year in northern Afula, Elly Freund was finally granted her licence to practise medicine in 1943. Her first job was in the pathology department of Hadassah Hospital near Jerusalem. She worked there in life-threatening conditions when Jerusalem was under siege during the First Arab-Jewish War in 1948 and medical convoys were at risk of being attacked. At home, her son, now two years old, was usually looked after by his father.

From 1948, she trained as a paediatrician. She worked in a reception camp for Yemeni refugees and in various hospitals. In the mid-1950s, she moved to the Israeli Ministry of Health, where she was responsible for "mother and child health care". Later, after briefly studying psychiatry in the USA, she also worked as a family therapist and worked as a panel doctor until her retirement. After the death of her husband Edgar in 1986, she left Jerusalem and lived in a retirement home near Tel Aviv. She died in 2012 at the age of 103.