Margarete Schurgast was born August 3, 1871 in Berlin. She was a Jewish feminist and pacifist, and ran two separate boardinghouses in Berlin: the Boardinghouse Ludwig, and the Hotel-pension Kurfürstenheim. Schurgast fled Nazi rule in 1941, moving to Cincinnati, Ohio, where she lived until her death of stomach cancer. She was co-founder of the Aid Society for Educated Women (Hilfsverein für gebildete Frauen), and an active member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) and the League for Human Rights. Schurgast befriended and corresponded with Carrie Chapman Catt, the Danish writer Karin Michaëlis, and Rosika Schwimmer.
From the guide to the Margarete Schurgast papers, 1918-1945, (The New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.)
