Recha Freier

Recha Freier (Hebrew: רחה פריאר) born Recha Schweitzer, (October 29, 1892 in Norden, East Frisia – April 2, 1984 in Jerusalem) founded the Youth Aliyah organization in 1933. The organization saved the lives of 7,000 Jewish children by helping them to leave Nazi Germany for Mandatory Palestine before and during the Holocaust.

Recha Freier was also a poet, musician, teacher and social activist.

Recha Schweitzer was born into a Jewish Orthodox family. Her parents were Bertha (née Levy, 1862–Theresienstadt, 1945), a French and English teacher, and Menashe Schweitzer (1856–1929), who taught several subjects at a Jewish primary school. She grew up in a music-loving family and learned to play the piano.

Already as a child Recha Schweitzer was confronted with antisemitism: a notice in Norden's city park stated that "Dogs and Jews are forbidden." In 1897 her family moved to Silesia, where she received home-schooling for a while before attending the lycée in Glogau, where she was mocked by her classmates because she wouldn't write on the Sabbath. Her reaction to the humiliation inflicted upon her had a lifelong impact on her and made her to become a full-hearted Zionist.

Recha Schweitzer completed her gymnasial studies in Breslau, passed the exams for teachers of religion, and studied as a graduate student philology in Breslau and Munich.

In 1919 she married Rabbi Dr. Moritz Freier (1889–1969), with whom she moved to Eschwege, Sofia, and finally in 1925 to Berlin, where her husband worked as a rabbi. Their sons Shalhevet, Ammud and Zerem were born in 1920, 1923 and 1926 respectively, and their daughter Ma'ayan in 1929. During this time, additionally to her family obligations, Recha Freier worked as a teacher at a German high school in Sofia, and as a writer and folklorist.

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