Website and research project “Jüdische Pflegegeschichte /Jewish Nursing History – Biographies and Institutions in Frankfurt am Main“

Dr. Edgar Bönisch, Prof. Dr. Eva-Maria Ulmer
Project www.juedische-pflegegeschichte.de
at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, c/o Prof. Dr. Julia Lademann

We started our research project in 2006 at the Frankfurt University of Applied sciences. In 2009 the website registered as “www.juedische-pflegegeschichte.de” went online. The main focus is on the Jewish nursing history in Frankfurt am Main and on the time from 1870, the beginning of modern Jewish nursing in Frankfurt, until the end of the National Socialist Regime in 1945.
In the databank, the cornerstone of the internet site, information is available for 546 persons, 152 institutions, 222 locations of Jewish life, 53 buildings and objects as well as 991 sources. One gets scientific articles about persons, institutions and special questions. 
The construction of the website allows us to present new research results quickly and make it possible for the user to conduct research based on their own questions. 
The research work has changed over the years. Much information is easier to find today, for instance in the databank of the Leo-Baeck-Institute, in the data of Ellis Island or in address books of many cities. One problem is that many resources cannot longer be double-checked visually and haptically in order to take note of specific characteristics that are no longer visible in the digital material.
Today the website functions as a virtual memorial in which persons and places important to Jewish Nursing history are found in a memory space that can be visited. And the visitors can participate in creating the memory space by submitting data which we can integrate. 
During the presentation we want to highlight three points:
1.	How can one research in our database accessing alphabetical lists of biographies, institutions, places and sources. Or starting the research on an interactive city map as well as a timeline of key events and a picture gallery of all images in the databank.
2.	We want to present Thea Levinsohn-Wolf (1907-2005) a Jewish nurse born in Essen, educated in Frankfurt am Main. She worked and survived in Kairo, lived in Palestine and Israel before she came back to Frankfurt am Main. Telling about her live and work we can show the connections between person, places and institutions how they are integrated in our website.
3.	As an example, for the contact between scientists and users we refer to the Stutzmanns. In 2010 we met Markus Stutzmann, who had come to Frankfurt from Israel to be present for the laying of a “stumbling block” in memory of his mother Amalie. Amalie Stutzmann, a protestant Christian who converted to the Jewish faith, was a nurse in Frankfurt am Main and was murdered in Ghetto Minsk around 1942. In 2020 the great-nephew of a colleague of Amalie Stutzmann contacted us. Through this contact it was possible to return a book to Markus Stutzmann that he had been read to him as a child, a book of legends about Frankfurt am Main. His daughter said that it was like the return of a long-lost family member.

Website and research project “Jüdische Pflegegeschichte /Jewish Nursing History – Biographies and Institutions in Frankfurt am Main“

The international conference #DHJewish - Jewish Studies in the Digital Age will bring together more than 60 scholars and heritage practitioners to discuss how the digital turn affects the field of Jewish Studies. The conference is organised by the [Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH).](https://www.c2dh.uni.lu/) 

[For more information, and a PDF download of the program, please see also here.](https://www.c2dh.uni.lu/events/dhjewish-jewish-studies-digital-age) 



In order to meet other participants and for informal chats in the breaks, join us in our [wonder.me room](https://www.wonder.me/r?id=73a12756-8d93-4871-9374-143253bfbf59).