Käte Rosenheim

Käte Rosenheim (born January 13, 1892 in Berlin; died December 4, 1979 in Cupertino, USA) was a German - American Jewish social worker, especially known for her help in rescuing children and young people from Nazi Germany.

Life and work Käte Rosenheim was the elder of two daughters of the physician and lecturer Theodor Rosenheim and his wife Hedwig, née Lipmann, a homemaker. Her younger sister was Hildegard (1903-1986).

She was active in many areas of social welfare: until 1914 in child welfare, from 1914 to 1915 in the National Women's Service, from 1915 to 1916 in the library of the Women's Vocational Office, from 1916 to 1918 at the War Office in the Marches as a transport supervisor and advisor for female auxiliary workers.

Jews had been persecuted in Germany for a long time prior to 1933, but the problem became much more acute when the Nazis came to power that year. Rosenheim was removed from her position of responsibility under the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. She subsequently became involved with the Central Welfare Agency of Jews in Germany. There, she organized the emigration of children and young people (up to 16 years old) to safety abroad and, in this capacity, also served as the contact person for the German Jewish Children's Aid (GJCA), a Jewish organization in New York that had been facilitating the entry of Jewish children from Germany into the USA since 1934. In 1936, Rosenheim traveled to the USA in person to learn about the situation of the rescued children.

After the November pogroms of 1938, Rosenheim herself accompanied several Kindertransports to England. She experienced firsthand the strange mixture of happiness and pain, of gratitude and worry among the parents of the children and young people as well as among the transport escorts.

By August 1939, Rosenheim and her staff had enabled approximately 7,250 children and young people to escape from Germany. When the Second World War broke out in September 1939, the Kindertransports to England came to an abrupt end. Rosenheim was the head of the Berlin office of child emigration. While very capable, she was insistent on following correct procedures and behavior and as such was opposed acts such as smuggling children past the Gestapo and other officials. She severely criticized those who did do such things, including .

In December 1940, she fled with her mother via Cuba to the United States. There she later graduated from the New York School of Social Work and worked as a social worker in New York City and San Francisco until her retirement in 1958. She never married. Her younger sister had come to America in 1939. In their senior years they lived near each other in California.