Hirsch, Hannah (née Krayn)

Hannah Hirsch (née Krayn) was born on 16.12.1902 in Berlin to Ida and Phillip Kreyn and died on 02.07.1975 in Israel. Although her family was assimilated, at the age of 12, Hannah joined the Blau-Weiß Zionist youth movement. Deeply influenced by the Russian revolution, she became an active member of the Communist Party and only the rise of Hitler's brought her back to Zionism. Hannah had hoped to become a kindergarten teacher but this was not possible for financial reasons. Instead, she became a typist. From 1924, she worked as a housekeeper and as a caretaker for children. In 1926, she completed a three-month course to become a baby nurse in Dr. Neumann’s Kinderhaus in Berlin while also attending evening courses in psychology in at the Berlin Association for Individual Psychology with Fritz Künkel and Manes Sperber. In addition, she studied special education at Horst/Ostsee and volunteered in Annemarie Wolff’s individual psychological orphanage in Berlin. After her work at this orphanage, she decided that she wanted to establish an orphanage in Palestine together with Sophie Kahan-Nagler Faiöled. Hannah had already completed her hachshara, or training in 1923 and wanted to immigrate to Palestine in 1926 but was not able due to an error in her name on her training certificate. Finally, Hannah was able to immigrate to Palestine in 1933. She first lived in Tel Aviv, where she worked as the secretary of Chaim Arlozorov. She then lived on Kibbutz Merchavia for a year and a half, after which she left the kibbutz to open an office for administrative work. Around 1934, Hannah married Hermann Hirsch, a German-Jewish agronomist, and they had three daughters, Yehudith, Rachel Rochberg and Miriam, and 12 grandchildren. Hannah succeeded in her office work but her health suffered from living in the city. As a result, the family moved to a small farm in Haifa Bay, where they did agricultural work and ran a restaurant. Even this environment became increasingly urban, so the family decided to join Kibbutz Kinneret near the Sea of Galilee as part of "From the City to the Village" movement. There, Hannah worked in different jobs, especially on the knitting machine. Hannah applied for a social work position in 1934 but never officially worked in this capacity. She was a good psychologist and graphologist and worked in these areas unofficially and voluntarily at her home with her daughters and with youth from the Youth Aliyah organization. She also adopted two boys who were Holocaust survivors.