While digging through mountains of genealogical information I have stored in the depths of my computer in order to write an account of my great-grandfather (including historical context), I came across the following. It's the biographical sketch I wrote in high school for our social studies genealogy project. I present it to you sans any editing, so I must apologize that it is very much written by a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old. Also, there may be some inaccuracies that I will try to clear up in a future, more thoroughly researched post; as is, the only thing I can directly point to now is that it's just as likely that her birth date was used as her date of death for convenience as it is that she actually died on her birthday.
Without further ado,
Anna Peltesohn was born on January 13, 1868, in Poznan (modern: Posen) to Heimann and Ernestine Peltesohn. She is my fifth cousin three or four times removed. She attended the Royal Louise school, a higher girls school that fed directly into a women’s teacher seminary. In October of 1884, the Peltesohns moved to Berlin. Anna continued her schooling at the private seminary of a Mr. Böhm. On May 22, 1886, she passed the teachers’ examination for middle and higher girls schools.
After passing the examination, Anna moved to England, where she started her career as a private teacher for a family in London. In 1887, she returned to Berlin, where she began to teach language classes for young women. In 1891, Anna moved back to England to finish teaching the London family’s children. On completion, she moved back to Berlin and started up a small school or, as she put it, an “Institute for the Supervision and Education of school girls outside of their school time.” To bring in extra money, she taught home economics courses. Two years later, Anna founded her own school, which was, as she put in an advertisement, a “private school for all grades of the higher girls school”. Anna and her cousin, Rosa Weiß, taught the classes. Unfortunately, the school had been started without a city license, and within days the school board attacked her. They granted her a waiver, with restrictions such as a maximum of twenty students and no foreign teachers or staff.
Anna spent several months fighting with the city school authorities, begging for extensions and special waivers until she passed her headmasters’ examination. In October of 1901, Anna opened up a family school with ten class-circles and six schools [grades?] per class circle. In doing so, Anna Peltesohn became the world’s first Jewish institute manager. The students of Anna’s school were exclusively Jewish girls, sent by their families for better educations. Her school was set up with half-hour periods so that special attention could be given to weak and sickly children.
In 1903, Anna Peltesohn gave up her Jewish heritage and converted to Evangelical-Lutheranism. Her school, which was now permitted to have 80 students per class circle, had many Christian children, but the majority was still Jewish. Anna herself taught Englisch (English), Frazösich (French), Deutsch (German), and Lied (song). In 1906, Anna moved her school to a new, more comfortable location – the home of her widowed mother (my great-great-great-grand aunt), Ernestine. She was still fighting with the school board, which wanted strict compliance to regulations that were often confusing and inane. Anna wanted to give courses that would give women the opportunity for advanced studies, but the board would hear nothing of it.
Then, in 1908, the Prussian universities were opened up to women, and a reformation of girls’ education went underway. While many schools closed down under the demand for expansion and better curricula, Anna managed to stay afloat, even though her applications for enlargement of the school were once again denied. At the end of 1908, Anna’s school moved for the last time. By now, most of her students are Christian. In 1913, Anna applied for the first time to have her name changed. She wanted the “h” omitted from Peltesohn, giving a more English or French spelling to the name – Pelteson. Unfortunately, every time she applied for a name change, she was denied. Instead of waiting until she got an official name change, Anna signed all of her documents as Anna Pelteson, which got her in more trouble with the school board, which called her use of the name “Pelteson” an “anarchistic misdeed”. She also began to write her name in the papers as Mrs. instead of Miss.
In 1922, Anna applied without success to add a second floor to her institute. She needed the increased revenue to pay the staff, which was suffering terribly from the economic crisis that was sweeping across Germany at the time. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, there was hardly any materials for the school to use. The eighty students were taught by eleven staff members. Even so, Anna kept advertising small classes and short school mornings in specialized Jewish newspapers.
With the rise of the Nazis, Anna’s school began to fall apart. She was no longer allowed to teach Aryan children. Her boarding school was dissolved, and in October of 1938, she was evicted from the rooms she occupied because the owner wanted a Jew-free house. The school was disbanded, and the remaining students sent to the near-by Goldschmidt School. Anna moved in with her sister, Jenny. In 1938, Anna celebrated her 70th birthday in good health.
On September 14, 1938, Anna Pelteson and Jenny Peltesohn were deported on the second largest transport for the elderly to Theresienstadt (modern: Theresin literal: Theresian City). Jenny died on December 22, 1942. Anna Pelteson died on January 13, 1943 – her 75th birthday.
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