Ollendorff, Fanny (née Baer)

Hebrew-Name
פאני/פני אולנדורף
Biography
Fanny Ollendorff was born on 7.9.1893 in Halberstadt, Germany and died in 1983 in Jerusalem. Her parents were Joseph Baer, who was connected to the ‘Messingwerke’ in Eberswalde, near Berlin, and Rosalie Baer, née Dessau. They were a family with eight children. Among them were Helene Barth (1891–1982), who emigrated in 1924 to Palestine and was also a teacher and a social worker. The children grew up in a strictly traditional community and family. Fanny led the Jewish day-care centre in Halberstadt during World War I and attended a Red Cross course. She devoted herself to family and infant care. In 1918 she attended the Soziale Frauenschule in Munich under Frieda Duensing, before completing her ed-ucation at the Soziale Frauenschule in Berlin-Schöneberg under Alice Salomon. From 1921, Fanny worked at the ‘Jüdisches Volksheim’ in Berlin, first as a youth leader and later as its manager. There she met Friedrich Ollendorff, a leading Jewish social worker in Germany and later in Palestine/Israel; they married in 1923. For a short time, she worked at the ‘Zentrale für private Fürsorge’, Berlin. Between 1926 and 1929 she was a social worker at Dr Neumann's children's home and attended courses at the ‘Hochschule für Politik’, Berlin. In 1934 she immigrated to Palestine and began working as a social worker in the Lishkat Sozialith of the Va'ad ha-Kehillah, establishing social work in Jerusalem together with the director and with Henrietta Szold. Then, she became deputy manager and later took over the management. In 1947, she went to the United States with Friedrich and con-tinued to train in social work there. After their return and after the end of the war in Israel, social work became part of the city administration. After the death of her hus-band in 1951, she ended her work on the municipality and started her work at the min-istry of welfare (Misrad ha-Sa'ad). She led a group of students in Beth Shemesh, and later in Haifa. Then she headed the welfare office (Lishkat Sozialith) in Kiryat Gat. As in Beth Shemesh, she mainly worked with new immigrants. Later, she led a course for ac-ademically trained social workers, after which she left work and volunteered in the so-cial field. In the 1960s, she was involved in community projects in Jerusalem for youth and the elderly with Hilde Lotan.
Mother
Rosalie Baer (born Dessau)
Father
Yossef (Joseph) Baer, co-founder of the metal company "Samuel Baer's Sons"
Siblings
Klara Dinner (born 1884)
Julie Schlessinger (born 1885)
Siegfried Baer (1886 - 1907)
Louisa Baer (1887 - 1919)
Helene Barth (1891 - 1982), a social worker who emigrated to palestine in 1924
Hanni Baer
Marriage/Children
Was married to Friedrich Ollendorff, a leading Jewish social worker in Germany and later in Palestine/Israel, since 1923
Year of Migration
1934
Archival Materials
Jerusalem archive; Federal Archives, Berlin (12 WGA 15/69); Leo-Baeck-Insitute, Berlin/New York/Jerusalem (Friedrich-Ollendorff-Collection); Central Zionist Archives, Jerusalem (A70 8/)