Klara Griefahn

Klara Griefahn (19 September 1897 – 30 January 1945) was a Jewish medical doctor who committed suicide in 1945 to avoid deportation by the Nazis. In Germany, she did not register as a Jew but only as a Hungarian, and went on to study to become a physician in Germany. In Greifswald she met her later husband Siegfried Griefahn. They married in 1920 in Budapest.

In 1922 the family moved to Lobeda, a small village next to the city of Jena, Germany. Klara's husband opened his own medical practice in Jena (first in Markt 3, then between 1924 and 1939 in Diakonatsgasse 5, and finally in Schulstr. 13). Griefahn completed her studies in Jena and received her license on 3 November 1923. She joined her husband's practice, focusing on postpartum recovery and infant care. She was the first to introduce free counselling for young mothers in Jena. Her patients treasured her motherly devotion. In 1924 Klara gave birth to her son Sigurd and in 1928 to her daughter Dörte.

In 1931 she opened her own general practice in Goethestr. 6 in Jena. However, by July 1933 she decided to close down her practice to avoid being classified as a “non-Aryan” doctor, as she was classified as a “2nd degree Mischling” at the time. She went back to work in her husbands’ practice.

In 1943 Griefahn's Jewish origins were discovered, following numerous interrogations by the Gestapo. She was denounced by a close friend and eventually admitted to being a Jew. 12 November 2005, exactly 60 years after the renaming of Schulstraße, an information plaque on was placed next to the street sign. On 17 August 2009, a "stumbling stone" (Stolperstein) was set in front of her former residence. Every year, since 2009, a small ceremony is held next to her residence on 9 November. On 25 March 2015, Jena's City Council unanimously included her grave in Lobeda in the city's charter of honorary graves.