Metadata: Estate of Reinhold and Martha Schmälzle-Serkin
Collection
- Country:
- Switzerland
- Holding institution:
- Archives of Contemporary History at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiv für Zeitgeschichte der ETH Zürich
- Postal address:
- Hirschengraben 62, CH-8092 Zurich
- Phone number:
- +41 44 632 40 03
- Web address:
- https://www.afz.ethz.ch/
- Email:
- afz@history.gess.ethz.ch
- Reference number:
- NL Schmälzle-Serkin
- Title:
- Estate of Reinhold and Martha Schmälzle-Serkin
- Title (official language):
- Nachlass Reinhold und Martha Schmälzle-Serkin
- Creator/accumulator:
- Schmälzle-Serkin, Reinhold; Schmälzle-Serkin, Martha
- Date(s):
- 1885/2004
- Language:
- German
- English
- Extent:
- 0.25 shelf metres
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection contains school reports of Reinhold and Martha Schmälzle-Serkin, biographical sketches of Reinhold Schmälzle-Serkin as well as documents from ancestors of the Schmälzle and Serkin families and documents concerning the death and estate of Martha Schmälzle-Serkin and Reinhold Schmälzle-Serkin. The collection also contains family chronicles and correspondence concerning the family’s escape from Germany and Reinhold Schmälzle-Serkin’s employment as a pastor in Switzerland. It also includes typescripts of sermons by Reinhold Schmälzle-Serkin as well as published articles on religious subjects, including Judaism.
- Archival history:
- The collection was donated to the Archives of Contemporary History (AfZ) in 2014 by Gertraut Merz-Schmälzle, a daughter of Reinhold and Martha Schmälzle-Serkin.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
Reinhold Schmälzle-Serkin, a Protestant pastor, was born in Balingen on 25 July 1901 and died in Korntal on 14 March 1969. He was the fifth of ten children of Johannes Schmälzle and Gertrud, née Goes. In 1905, the family moved to Korntal near Stuttgart, where Schmälzle attended the local Latin school. Afterward he attended Protestant theological seminary schools in Maulbronn and Blaubeuren, graduating in summer 1919. From 1919 to 1923, he studied theology at the universities of Tübingen and Marburg. Between 1923 and 1928, he had his first and second theological service examinations and between them several vicariates. Starting in 1928, he worked as pastor in Neuweiler, Calw district. He married Martha Serkin, who had Jewish parents, on February 4, 1929. They had six children named Gerhard (Gerd, 1930), Ursula (Ula, 1931), Magdalena (Leni, 1932), Gertraut (Traute, 1934), Katharina (Kathi, 1939) and Andreas (Dres, 1944). In 1938, the family left for Switzerland and Schmälzle was employed as a pastor with the Protestant Society of St. Gallen until 1954. From 1954 to 1956, he was pastor with the Swiss Protestant Jewish Mission in Basel. During this period, increasingly severe bouts of depressions occurred, leading to his termination of employment in Basel. In 1957, he returned to Germany.
Martha Schmälzle-Serkin was born in Eger (now in Hungary) on 5 February 1906 and died on 12 February 1954 in St. Gallen. She was the seventh of eight children of Mordko (Max/Marcus) Serkin, a Russian Jew, and Auguste, née Schargel, also Jewish, from Austria. Around 1914, the family moved to Vienna, where her brother Rudolf (Rudi), later a famous concert pianist, received piano lessons. During the First World War, Serkin stayed at least once in the Netherlands for recreation. Until 1921, she attended general elementary school and secondary school in Vienna. From 1923 to 1925, she completed an apprenticeship as a potter at the Wienerberger Werkstättenschule für Keramik (ceramics school) in Vienna and graduated with a master craftsman's diploma. Her first employment was in the majolica factory in Schramberg, where she presumably also met Reinhold Schmälzle. In 1928, she left the Jewish religious community in Vienna and stayed for four weeks in the house of a priest friend to be introduced to Christianity and "Swabian parish housekeeping". She was baptised the same year. After her marriage to Reinhold Schmälzle, she was widely accepted in the parish and was particularly committed to young people. In 1938, the family fled to Switzerland; her mother, Auguste, stayed with them in St. Gallen until her death in 1944. From 1951 she became ill and her health deteriorated.
- Access points: locations:
- Switzerland
- Subject terms:
- Personal records
- Access, restrictions:
- Partially restricted. Subject to application.
- Finding aids:
- An online finding aid is available.
- Links to finding aids:
- http://onlinearchives.ethz.ch/
- Yerusha Network member:
- Jewish Museum Hohenems
- Author of the description:
- Severin Holzknecht; Jewish Museum of Hohenems; 2020