The display was installed by Library Staff Members Veronica Hart, Kristina Martinez and Steve Young. It was designed to complement the German Women Jewish Lawyers in the Third Reich Discussion and Exhibit held at the Law School on October 18th, 2023.
Ella Auerbach
Ella Auerbach was born on January 15th, 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany. Auerbach attended Frankfurt am Main University and passed the law trainee exam in 1922. She took the state examination in 1928 and subsequently was admitted to the Berlin Court of Appeals, the first female at that local court. In 1933, Auerbach was expelled from the Chamber Court as the Nationalist Socialists came to power. On January 30th, 1939, Auerbach and her husband, Richard, and their two children, Bridgette and Robert, immigrated to London, England. They reached New York in 1940, and Auerbach began working for the non-profit Selfhelp of Emigrees from Central, an organization specializing in finding work for immigrants fleeing Nazi persecution. Ella Auerbach began working with Selfhelp of Emigrees from Central Europe in December of 1940 to attain financial security for herself and her family. According to the interview with Herbet Strauss and Joan Lessing, Auerbach talked about her efforts at Selfhelp to find employment for Jewish immigrants, “You must consider that from 1941 on, the whole situation changed …. there were lots of factory jobs, and other jobs taken by men, where you could send women as well”. Auerbach was an active member in women’s suffrage movements in New York including serving as the president of the Sisterhood of the New York Congregation Habonim. She was affiliated with the women’s group at the Leo Baeck Institute and a member of the American Federation of Jews from Central Europe.
Margarete Berent
Margarete Berent was born on July 9th, 1887 in Berlin. After being a teacher from 1903 to 1906, Berent studied for the Arbitur to enroll at a German University. In 1910, she was allowed to enroll at the University of Berlin to study law, being among the 0.2% of women in the Law School. After completing her studies in 1913, Berent was not admitted to the bar until 1925. She was prohibited from practicing civil service under Nationalist Socialist German rule on April 7th, 1933. Berent emigrated from Germany to Chile, and subsequently four months later was granted a visa to the United States. In 1949, she earned a law degree from New York University and opened her own law firm in New York. She worked as a lawyer until her death in 1965. Margarete Berent began her university studies in Berlin, which at the time was a part of Prussia; however, women were allowed to study law but prohibited from taking the bar. In 1912 Berent moved to Erlangen in Bavaria and finished her studies in 1913 with a study “Community of Goods for Married Partners." This paper impacted the reformation of German inheritance laws in 1958. Throughout her legal career, Berent worked with other women lawyers, such as Marie Munk, to reform discriminatory laws regarding women’s rights. Berent fought for reformation regarding marital property law at the 33rd German Lawyers’ conference. Berent was an active member of associations that advocated for women’s suffrage in the professional world including the Federation of German Women Associations, the League of German Academic women, and others.
Felicia Hart
Felicia Hart was born on October 14th, 1903 in Lodz under Russian rule. Her family moved to Leipzig, Germany in 1906 and Hart would begin law school during the summer of 1923 at University of Leipzig; she completed law school in 1926. Her tenure in civil service was cut short when the “Law on the Restoration of the Profession of Civil Service” and the “Law on Admission to the Bar” were enacted on April 7th, 1933, prohibiting those of Jewish heritage to work in civil service. Hart and her husband, Johannes, emigrated to London, England that same year. Johannes, a medical doctor, opened his practice in London and Felicia worked for the practice as a patient administrator. Felicia Hart matriculated to University of Leipzig in 1923. From 1903 to 1935, only 40 Jewish women studied law in Saxony, a large disparity of representation of Jewish women in legal studies. She completed law school and passed the state examination in 1926 but was unable to attain an apprenticeship due to being a non-naturalized German citizen. Hart gained German citizenship in 1928 and began a legal apprenticeship that same year. After Hart and her husband emigrated from Germany to England, Hart was not admitted to practice law in England. She later wrote, “The loss of my practice as a lawyer and my professional independence was a severe blow to me … I missed law very much.” Hart passed away on December 30th, 1976 in London, England at the age of 73.
Marie Munk
Marie Munk was born on July 4th, 1885 in Berlin, Germany. With many of her family members practicing law, Munk studied law in university, in addition to philosophy, psychology, and logic. Munk was one of the first women to be admitted to the state law examinations in the Weimer Republic and was admitted to the bar in 1924. In 1930, she was appointed a district judge in Weimer Republic and in Berlin. Munk was released from judicial service in 1933. In 1936, she permanently left Germany and settled in the United States, gaining her American citizenship that same year. In 1943, Munk was admitted to the American Bar and, from 1945 on she devoted her legal interests to family law and reparation law for National Socialist injustices. Marie Munk completed her collegiate studies in Berlin, Freiburg im Breisgau, Bonn, and Heidelburg. She received her doctorate in law in 1911 from Heidelberg University; her dissertation covered blackmail and coercion in relation to § 123 of the German Civil Code. Munk co-founded and held leadership roles in associations advocating for women in Law and women in the work force, including the German Association of Women Lawyers. Her work on non-marital law, divorce and marriage law, and reform of marital property law (in collaboration with Margaret Berent) impacted German law decades after their composition. After fleeing to the United States, Munk was a visiting scholar at various American colleges and held an associate professorship at Harvard University in 1953.
Lilly Melchoir Roberts
Lilly Melchior Roberts was born on April 19th, 1903 in Hamburg, Germany. She attended Law School at the Universities of Friedburg and Hamburg, passing her state law examinations “with distinction.” Roberts worked in the higher and lower courts of Hamburg from 1928 to 1931, in the civil, commercial, and criminal departments. From 1933 to 1939, Roberts practiced law in Berlin before fleeing Germany with her husband Gerald Richard Roberts. In 1940, Roberts began working as a Research Assistant at the University of Michigan Law School. She was appointed bibliographer in the Law Library in 1945 and served in that position until her death in 1966. From 1933 to 1939, in addition to practicing in Berlin, Lilly Melchior Roberts completed legal work in Stockholm, The Hague, and London. After her emigration from Germany, Robert’s work at the law library of the University of Michigan advocated for increase of foreign law materials in American law library collections. She also wrote articles about Legal Festschriften and their importance of with regards to international and comparative law. Roberts’ tenure at the University of Michigan Law School was fondly remembered. Professor Beverly J. Poorly’s memoriam encapsulates Roberts’ devotion and expertise in legal scholarship, but also Roberts’ love for her German heritage and the students, faculty, and staff at the University of Michigan Law School.
Helen Silving Ryu
Helen Silving-Ryu was born on March 8th, 1906 in Kraków, Poland. She attended University of Vienna, where she began her studies auditing classes in political theory. By the end of her academic training, she had received a JD and PhD in law from the University of Vienna. Silving-Ryu is the only female scholar to be mentored by Hans Kelson, Austrian legal philosopher and jurist. She emigrated from Europe in 1939 to the United States. Helen Silving-Ryu was one of the first female law professors in the United States and wrote scholarly articles over a variety of topics including comparative law and mental incapacity regarding criminal conduct. An excerpt from her autobiography (left) details her experiences as an American lawyer after escaping the Nazi regime.
Kate Wallach
Kate Wallach was born on May 17th, 1905 in Krefeld, Germany. She studied law at Berlin, Freiburg, Würzberg, and Bonn Univeristies. Wallach passed her first state examination in 1930 at Cologne University, and her second state examination in 1933, but was prohibited from working in civil service due to the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service Act”. She immigrated to the United States with a temporary visa in 1935 and worked as secretary and teaching German. Wallach enrolled in University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1938, earning her LL.B. in 1940 and a B.A. in Library Science in 1942. Kate Wallach was a member of the Wisconsin State Bar Association and practiced law in Washington D.C. with the Office of Price Administration and the National Labor Relations Board. In 1947, Wallach began her tenure at Louisiana State University and by her retirement she increased the law library’s collection from 75,000 volumes to 205,464 volumes. Wallach’s academic writings include Bibliographic History of Louisiana Civil Law Sources Roman, French, and Spanish as well as articles covering the topics of logistical complications regarding acquisition of foreign law materials and the effects of library equipment during the postwar era. Wallach was an active member of the American Association of Law Libraries where she served on the executive board from 1966-1967 and served as the president of the A.A.L.L.