Georgine Gerhard

Georgine Gerhard was a Swiss school teacher and administrator who was forced by hearing loss to take early retirement. Her wider legacy comes from her campaigning. She was a women's rights activist and also backed various humanitarian causes. During the 1930s she turned her attention to the growing refugee crisis which re-emerged in Europe during the middle part of the twentieth century. In 1934 she established the Basel section of the "Schweizer Hilfswerk für Emigrantenkinder", following that organisation's foundation in Zürich by her fellow activist, Nettie Sutro-Katzenstein, the previous year.