Cora Berliner collection

Cora Berliner was born in Hannover, on January 23, 1890, to Manfred and Hannah. She was an economist and social scientist who held leadership positions in several major Jewish organizations in Germany between 1910 and 1942. From 1912 to 1914, she served as secretary of the Association of Jewish Youth Organizations in Germany (Verband der Jüdischen Jugendvereine Deutschlands—VJJD), and from 1922 to 1924 she headed the organization. During her term of office she consistently advocated for the rights of Jewish girls. After the Nazis came to power she was active in the League of Jewish Women (Jüdischer Frauenbund, JFB). The fifth and last child of a prominent intellectual Jewish family in Hanover, Berliner studied mathematics and political economy, earning her doctorate and then taking up a position as department head in the city administration of Schöneberg. She worked for many of the highest governmental departments during the Weimar Republic, including the Reichswirtschaftsministerium and Reichswirtschaftsamt. She also became a professor of economics at the Technical College (Berufspädagogisches Institut) in Berlin. Along with most other German Jews she was dismissed from the civil service in 1933. In 1933 Cora Berliner began working for the Reichsvertretung der Deutschen Juden (Reich Representation of German Jews), founded in September 1933, later renamed the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Representation of Jews in Germany). She served as head of the department of statistics and was responsible for the economic and social spheres. During these years she wrote reports about the economic vicissitudes of German Jews after the Nazi rise to power, highlighting the especially difficult situation of Jewish women in her reports. At this time she became active in the JFB, acting as vice-president from 1934 onward. Together with her friend Hannah Karminski she was in charge of assisting women and children with regard to emigration matters. In June 1942, Cora Berliner was deported and murdered in Bergen Belsen according to the Yad Vashem page of testimony numbered 1060559.

Bibliography

Die Organisation der weiblichen jüdischen Jugend, lecture held at a meeting of Bezirksverband der jüdischen Jugendvereine, 18.11.1911, printed in: Mitteilungen des Verbandes der jüdischen Jugendvereine, vol. 3, Nr. 3, 1912.

Die Organisation der jüdischen Jugend in Deutschland—ein Beitrag zur Systematik der Jugendpflege und Jugendbewegung, Berlin: 1916; Dissertation.

Gesetz über die Statistik des Warenverkehrs mit dem Ausland, ed. by Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag, with an introduction by Cora Berliner. Berlin: 1928.

Kampf, in: Bertha Pappenheim: Zum Gedächtnis. Series: Blätter des jüdischen Frauenbundes für Frauenarbeit und Frauenbewegung, ed. by Jüdischer Frauenbund von Deutschland, Nr. 7/8, XII. Jahrgang, Juli/August 1936, Berlin, S. 29-30.

Die Frauen-Auswanderung, in: Jüdisches Nachrichtenblatt (Berlin), Nr. 56 (July 14, 1939, pg. 2).