Evelyn Benson Collection

Evelyn R. Benson was born in 1924 and lived in Havertown, Pennsylvania, and Boston. After retiring from nursing, she turned her attention to scholarship with a particular focus on the history of Jewish women in nursing. Her publications include the book As We See Ourselves: Jewish Women in Nursing (Sigma Theta Tau Intl, 2001).

Ilse Beck was born in Berlin in 1916(?). She was prevented from studying medicine in a university during the Third Reich, but was able to work and train as a student nurse in the Jewish hospital in Berlin from 1935-1937. She then emigrated from Germany to the United States.

Doris Grey worked as a nurse in the Jewish hospital in Berlin from 1933-1940. She then emigrated from Germany to Shanghai.

Ruth Knopp (née Lebram) was born in Lower Silesia in 1922 and educated in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland). She started working and training as a student nurse at the Jewish hospital in Berlin in April 1939, graduating in 1941. In 1943, she was deported to Theresienstadt, where she was put to work as a nurse. She was rescued by the Swedish Red Cross and lived in Denmark and Sweden before immigrating to the United States.

Frieda Lefeber was born in Poznań, Poland, in 1915. She worked and trained as a student nurse at the Jewish hospital in Berlin starting in 1935. She emigrated from Germany to the United States in April 1939.

Thea Levinsohn (née Wolf) was born in Essen in 1907. She trained and worked as a nurse at the Jewish hospital in Frankfurt am Main; she later worked as a nurse in Alexandria, Egypt, during World War II and in Israel. She died in 2005.

Hilda Westenberg was born in Upper Silesia. She started training and working as a student nurse at the Jewish hospital in Berlin in 1936. She emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1939.