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Lotta Hitschmanova in her trademark Unitarian Service Committee Canada uniform with the flaming chalice badge on the cap posing with refugee children in 1950
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If
you live this side of the border to the Land
of the Great White Grandmother, chances are that you never heard of Lotta
Hitschmanova. But you should learn about her. She was awesome.
Canadians
of a certain age will remember her for her once
ubiquitous annual fund raising appeals on radio and television and in smartly
produced short films for the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada which
she served as Executive Director for many years.
Her story begins in Prague when the Czech city
was still a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on November 28,
1909. Her birth name was Lotto Hitschmann. Her father was a
prosperous malt merchant and the
secularized Jewish family lived in
modest wealth and comfort.
She
was a gifted student who excelled at the progressive and co-educational Stephans Gymnasium. She studied philosophy and mastered several European languages at the University of Prague and then went on
to study political science and journalism at the Sorbonne in hopes of entering a career in international diplomacy.
In
1935 Lotte returned to Prague where she completed her Ph.D. studies and launched a successful career as a free lance
journalist often contributing material to Czechoslovakian,
Rumanian and Yugoslavian newspapers. As
the menace of Hitler and Nazism rose she became noted for her
outspoken anti-fascist beliefs and articles.
By 1938 she changed her name to the Slavic
Lotta Hitschmanova as a protest to
German hegemonic ambitions.
When Germany annexed the Sudetenland
Hitschmanova learned that she was on a list of “hostile journalists” to be
detained. She was forced to flee her
homeland leaving her parents and a younger sister behind.
She first fled to back to Paris and from there she
went to Brussels, Belgium, where she resumed her journalistic
career. But the war kept catching up
with her and for the next few years she alternated between a variety of
journalism and humanitarian jobs while often finding herself a stateless
refugee. By late 1941 she was in Marseilles in Vichy France where she worked as a
secretary at charity for refugees. It
paid next to nothing and the tiny woman fainted on the streets of starvation
after which she was taken to a clinic run by Unitarian Service Committee.
It
was a fortuitous match. Soon she was
volunteering her services with the USC as a translator and then as a liaison
officer with the Czech relief agency, Centre
d'Aide Tsechoslovaque. Her work was
valued by the USC, but officials recognized that she was still in danger. In 1942 they arranged her escape from Europe
via Lisbon on a converted freighter
crammed with other refugees and headed to New
York.
Like
many Jewish refugees even with the help of the USC, Hitschmanova could not gain permanent refuge in the U.S. After stopping in Boston to deliver
highly sensitive documents detailing the dangerous work of the USC in Europe,
she went to Canada, which offered her asylum.
She
later recalled “exhausted, with a feeling of absolute solitude in an entirely
strange country...I came with $60 in my pocket. I had an unpronounceable name.
I weighed less than 100 lbs, and I was completely lost.” Yet relentlessly resourceful, within two days
she found employment as a secretary and three months later was in Ottawa where she worked as a Department of War Services postal censor. She read the letters of German Prisoners of War and scoured them for
useful military intelligence.
Still
deeply impressed by the selfless work of the USC, Hitschmanova joined the Unitarian Church of Ottawa. She also continued her work for refugees
with the Czechoslovakian National
Alliance and by raising money for Czech
War Services in London. She regularly contributed articles to the
Canadian press and made speeches on behalf of her causes. Toward the end of the war she went to work
for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
All during the war she never gave up a desperate search
for her parents and sister Lilly. She learned that for a while her parents were
held at Terezin, a model concentration camp used as a showplace
for the Red Cross and international
diplomats. Then she got the devastating news
that they had been taken from that relative comfort and safety and had died in
the ovens of Auschwitz. Eventually she located her sister living
in Palestine with her husband. Both eventually joined her in Canada.
With
no family to return to, Hitschmanova
decided to remain in Canada. She turned
down several excellent job offers.
Instead, she determined to serve the uprooted refugees still in Europe. In July 1945, she helped to organize
the Canadian branch of the Unitarian Service Committee, which was affiliated
with both American Unitarian Association
and the Unitarian Church in Canada. Senator Cairine Wilson, a liberal icon in
Canada, was named the Honorary
Chairwoman, but as Executive
Director, Hitschmanova ran the show
with systematic energy and efficiency.
At first registered under the War Charities Act the Canadian committee was restricted
to fund raising only through Unitarian congregations and to individual Unitarians. When the law changed in February 1946 Hitschmanova energetically began her public
appeals citing the great need. At first
funds were directed to Czechoslovakia and France.
That spring she made her first annual tour to
inspect the work in the field. She
adopted a military style uniform modeled after that worn by American WACs. She found the outfits useful in gaining
admission to even restricted areas.
Besides they were comfortable and made packing for her extended trips
easy. She wore the uniforms at home and
abroad for the rest of her life. They
became her trademark as she rose as a public figure in Canada.
Despite her affection for the Boston based USC, it
didn’t take long for her to come into conflict with its leadership. They insisted that all field operations be
headed by an American. She felt that
those on the ground and familiar with the situation knew best. She preferred to empower local partner organizations
and their leadership by providing them with needed funds and perhaps technical support. Her secondary goal was to make those partner
organizations self-sustaining and independent as quickly as possible. “There are three basic principles in the
field of the art of giving aid. To come as an open-minded friend and good
listener, when offering help; to say goodbye to a project when it can continue
on its own; to serve with a personal touch, because a relationship of
confidence must lift your aid beyond the realm of a simple business proposition
and prove that you really care.”
To
accommodate that philosophy in 1948 she re-organized the Canadian Committee
completely independent of not only the Boston based USC, but of the Canadian churches
as well. Despite its independent status,
the USC Canada continued to draw support and volunteers from Unitarian
congregations and most proudly considered it “ours.”
In
the first full year of operations in 1946, Hitschmanova set a pattern which she would repeat yearly—three
months of intense fund-raising in Canada, four months overseas to supervise programs
and investigate possible new partners, and months at home reporting on her
findings and producing an annual film about the Committee’s achievements. That first year she raised $40,000 and
collected 30,000 kg of clothing for distribution in the refugee camps.
She
particularly honed in on the needs of children, making a project to supply prosthetic
limbs to maimed victims a high priority and establishing one of the first “adopt
a child” sponsorship programs that became a model for many others.
At
first she envisioned a program that would last maybe four years, but she kept
expanding her lists of partners and projects and soon engaged all over
Europe. As the refugee problem slowly
abated, she had no problem find new humanitarian needs around the world. By the late ‘70’s the USC Canada had
supported over 170 in Korea, India, Nepal, Vietnam,
Lesotho,
Indonesia
and twenty
other countries.
Her
appearances in public service announcements and fundraising appeals on radio
and television in her distinctive, bright red hair and with her charming
eastern accent made her instantly identifiable to Canadians, who responded
generously to her appeals regardless of their religious affiliation. In fact, because the UUC never proselytized or tried to interfere with local customs
or religion, many preferred it to the charities by their own denominations
which came with all sorts “missionary” strings.
Drawing
on her experience as a journalist and not inconsiderable charm, she was
legendary for getting great press for her organization and projects. Editors nicknamed her the Atomic Mosquito for her ability to get
huge coverage for her relatively tiny organization.
In
1970 Hitschmanova celebrated the
silver anniversary of the USC Canada with the publication of her book, The USC Story: A Quarter Century of
Loving Service by the Unitarian Service Committee. Two
years later the organization released the USC
Story, a feature length documentary drawn from clips of the annual short
films she made of USC projects in the field.
Hitschmanova never married or had a family of her
own. She considered the children around
the world helped by the USC Canada as her own.
She found herself showered with honors. According to a biographical sketch in the Dictionary
of Unitarian and Universalist Biography by Joyce Thierry:
Dr. Hitschmanova
received numerous awards, including the 1975 Woman of the Year for India by Prime
Minister Indira Gandhi. By this time, grateful governments around the world
had acknowledged her work in their countries in a variety of ways: the Chevalier of Public Health from the Government of France and the Gold Medal from the Red Cross of France, 1950; the Medal of St. Paul from Greece, 1952; Public Service Medal from the Government
of South Korea, 1962; Athena
Mesolora Gold Medal from the Government
of Greece, 1967; Officer of the
Order of Canada, 1972; the Royal
Bank of Canada Award, 1979; and Companion
of the Order of Canada, 1980. In 1983, she received Officer of Meritorious Order of Mohlomi, Lesotho, and was only the third person to be given the Rotary Award for World Understanding.
She refused to accept honourary doctorates from universities, saying she had
worked hard enough in Paris and Prague to earn her own doctorate.
In
1982 after 37 years at the helm, ill health finally forced Hitschmanova to
retire. Sadly in her remaining years she
suffered increasingly from Alzheimer’s
Disorder. She died of cancer on
August 1, 1990 at the age of 79. She was
widely mourned across Canada and by the hundreds of thousands whose lives she
touched around the world. Her memorial
service was held at her beloved Ottawa Unitarian Church.
In
perhaps an even more profound tribute to her vision the modern Unitarian Universalsist Service Committee, heir
to the old Boston based organization, now follows Hitschmanova’s model of
partnering and nurturing organizations on the ground.
