Jella Lepman

Jella Lepman (born 15 May 1891 in Stuttgart; died 14 October 1970 in Zurich) was a German journalist, author and translator who founded the International Youth Library in Munich.

Jella Lehman, born in Stuttgart, was the oldest daughter of the manufacturer Josef Lehmann (1853-1911) and his wife Flora born Lauchheimer (1867-1940). The parental home belonged to the Jewish-liberal Judaism. After the school days at the Königin-Katharina-Stift-Gymnasium Stuttgart she spent a year in a Swiss pension.

After her return to Stuttgart, she married Gustav Horace Lepman (1877-1922), the son of a German-born American and member of a bed-feather factory in Feuerbach. Two children emerged from the marriage (Anne-Marie, born in 1918, Günther, born in 1921). Gustav Lepman fought during the First World War as a German officer in France. He survived the First World War, but died in 1922 from his injuries of war.   After the death of her husband, Jella Lepman became editor of the Stuttgarter Neues Tagblatt, the first woman ever in this position. She wrote socio-political contributions and established "The woman in house, profession and society", in 1927. In addition, she published her first children's book (1927 The Sleeping Sunday) and a theatrical play for children (1929 The Singing Pfennig). She became a member of the German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei, DDP), where she was a leader in the women's group. In 1929, she ran, unsuccessfully, for the German Reichstag.

With the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, Jella Lepman, as a Jew, lost her permanent position. Until 1935 she was still employed as a freelancer. In 1936, she emigrated with her two children through Italy to England. There, she took on journalistic and literary work. In 1938 she took on the estate of Arthur Schnitzler at the University of Cambridge. Later, she worked for the BBC and the American Broadcasting Station in Europe (ABSIE). In 1943 she published the book Women in Nazi Germany under the pseudonym Katherine Thomas.

...
Wikipedia