Dukas, Dr. Rosa

Biography
Dr Rosa Dukas was born on 2.2.1889 in Sulzburg, Germany and died on 15.1.1967 in Jerusalem. Initially, Rosa trained as a journalist. She worked as a teacher, and as a journalist at the Ullstein publishing company, both positions being in Berlin. She studied at the Universities of Freiburg and Berlin and earned her PhD in 1915. Between 1922 and 1933, Rosa lived in Berlin with her sisters and worked as a freelancer, e.g. on the ‘Jüdisches Lexikon’ (Enzyklopädisches Handbuch des Jüdischen Wissens). Between 1926 and 1931, she was the senior secretary at ‘Jüdische Waisenhilfe e.V.’, where she organized a large circle of sponsors for building Ben Shemen, the youth village founded by Siegfried Lehmann in Palestine. She attended lectures at the Academy for Social and Pedagogical Women's Work and took an external exam at the Soziale Frauenschule in Berlin-Schöneberg in 1932. She was politically active in the left wing (had relations to the KPD) and worked together with the Einstein family. Rosa Dukas immigrated to Palestine via Switzerland in June 1933. There, she probably worked in Ben Shemen. Between 1934 and 1939, she led a home for abandoned Oriental Jewish children in Mekor Chajim (closed in around 1939). Later, she worked privately as a teacher and in special needs education, and did free research work (e.g. a study about the habits and customs of south German Jews who lived in the countryside, which was funded by the German department of Sochnut, the Jewish Agency for Israel).
Mother
Hannchen Dukas (born Liebmann)
Father
Leopold Dukas
Siblings
Helene Dukas, secretary of Albert Einstein, immigrated to Princeton, USA; Luise Dukas; Bertha Ruschin (born Dukas), Stockton on Tees, U.K
Age at Migration
44
Year of Migration
1933
Archival Materials
Alice-Salomon-Archives, Berlin, C2.17, C2.19, C2.20; Yad Vashem archives (testimony), Albert-Einstein-Archives; Federal Archives, Berlin, 8 WGA 1852/50; tate Office for Residents' and Regulatory Affairs, Berlin, 257867