Cohn, Eva

Eva (Chava) Cohn/Cohen was born on 5.11.1903 in Berlin and died in 1971 in Jerusalem. She was the daughter of Oskar Cohn (1869–1934), a member of the German Reichstag who was both a socialist and a Zionist. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, he left Germany for Palestine, but only got as far as Switzerland, where he died in 1934. Chava's sister was Magda Cohn, also a social worker who also immigrated to Palestine. Chava graduated as an after-schoolcare provider (Hortnerin), was trained as kindergarten teacher and baby’s nurse at the Pestalozzi Fröbel House, and later in social work at the social women’s school Berlin-Schöneberg (1925-1927). Chava did her training in family and youth welfare and planned to work at Ahawah, the Jewish child welfare association in Berlin-Auguststr. Eventually she worked at the health centre for Jewish child refugees from eastern Europe, at the health department of Berlin city council, and she supervised children placed with foster families. She also worked for one year in the Bureau for the Protection of Young Girls. Fränze Rähmer, who was a chief German social worker in Prenzlauer Berg, was in a relationship with Eva's father, and Eva was in close contact with her before and after her immigration to Palestine. Eva also worked in Prenzlauer Berg until 1933. Another colleague of her was Vera Pulvermacher (married name Shiffman), who also immigrated to Palestine at that time. In 1933 Chava immigrated to Palestine. She started to work in Jerusalem with families and spent one year in an orphanage for Oriental children. In 1934 she started to work for the social work department of the Va'ad Leumi (Jewish National Council), in the field of child placement. In 1939 she was placed in Haifa, working under the children's immigration bureau of the Va'ad Leumi. She met child immigrants at ports, found suitable foster families and supervised the process. She became the leading social worker in Alyat Hanoar (the youth aliyah), and later worked in foster home monitoring in Jerusalem. In the spring of 1948, she returned to Berlin to organize children's immigration to Palestine/ Israel, mainly from a Jewish orphanage in the Soviet sector of Berlin, near Fränze Rähmer's home. Chava was impressed by the communist environment and atmosphere in East Berlin, which – as a deeply convinced socialist, just as her father had been – she admired.