Elisabeth Abegg

Luise Wilhelmine Elisabeth Abegg (; 3 March 1882 – 8 August 1974) was a German educator and resistance fighter against Nazism. She provided shelter to around 80 Jews during the Holocaust and was consequently recognised as Righteous Among the Nations.

Biography

Abegg was born in 1882 in Strasbourg, then a part of Germany, to Johann Friedrich Abegg, a jurist, and Marie Caroline Elisabeth (Rähm) Abegg. In 1912, she enrolled at Leipzig University, where she studied history, classical philology and Romance studies, and graduated with a doctorate in 1916. She moved to Berlin in 1918 when the Alsace region was reclaimed by France. In Berlin, she became involved in postwar relief work organised by the Quaker community. She became a teacher at the in Berlin-Mitte in 1924 and was an active member of the German Democratic Party. She established an extensive network of rescuers—including her Quaker friends and her former students—to provide accommodation to Jews in hiding. Abegg temporarily housed dozens of Jews in her Tempelhof apartment, which she shared with her mother and disabled sister, and vacant neighbouring apartments, and secured permanent accommodation for them across Berlin, East Prussia and Alsace. She sold her jewelry to pay for some Jews' escape to Switzerland and tutored hiding Jewish children at her apartment.

Honours and legacy Abegg received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Verdienstkreuz am Bande) in 1957. In 1967, she was recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. A memorial plaque was mounted in her Tempelhof neighbourhood in 1991 and a street in Berlin's Mitte, Elisabeth-Abegg-Straße, was named after her in 2006.