Krämer, Clementine.

Clementine Sophie Cahnmann was born in 1873 in the town of Rheinbischofsheim in Baden. She was the second child of the merchant Gustav Cahnmann and his wife Augusta (née Levi). Her childhood and schooling took place in Rheinbischofsheim and in Karlsruhe, where the family moved when she was seven. In 1891 Clementine Cahnmann married Max Kraemer, a businessman and banker of Munich and a distant relation by marriage. The couple never had any children.

It was in Munich that Clementine Kraemer became active in Jewish social and educational work. Her early efforts in this area included teaching German language and literature to immigrant women in evening classes at the B'nai B'rith Muenchen Loge . This brought her into contact with similarly-minded individuals, most notably Erna Feuchtwanger, who would become a close friend and led to Clementine Kraemer's introduction to the Juedischer Frauenbund . She was among the first members of the Munich branch of this organization, as well as a member of the national Board of Directors. Traveling to meetings on behalf of the Juedischer Frauenbund led to her acquaintance with women such as Henriette May, Ottilie Schoenwald, and Bertha Pappenheim; in addition she developed a close friendship with Paula Ollendorff. Clementine Kraemer was also present at the founding meeting of the Munich branch of the Verein fuer Frauenstimmrecht . During World War I, as part of her work for the Juedischer Frauenbund, she worked to solicit assistance from Jewish business in supplementing rations for those who had lost family members during the war.

Following the economic difficulties of the interwar period, the business of Clementine Kraemer's husband, Max Kraemer and Co., went bankrupt. As a result she sought and received a position at the textile store S. Eichengruen and Co. in 1929.

Clementine Kraemer was also a prolific writer of poetry, vignettes, short stories, and novellas. Only one of her novellas was published on its own, Die Rauferei (1927). Some of her other significant longer works were published serially in newspapers, including Der Weg des jungen Hermann Kahn ; Erinnerungen ; and Der Grossvater und der Hofbauer . Numerous shorter pieces were also published in newspapers. Her written work often featured themes such as Jewish family life in the early half of the twentieth century, the relationship of German Jews to their religion, and her reactions to World War I. The six children of her brother Sigwart Cahnmann are frequently mentioned in her published work; she was known to them as 'Tante Clem.'

Like her brother and his wife, Clementine Kraemer made several attempts to secure emigration from Germany. Although she received an affidavit of support from a family member in the United States, she was not able to leave before the outbreak of the Second World War and the closing of the American consulates in Germany; efforts to immigrate to Denmark, Shanghai, and Cuba also fell through. In the spring of 1942 Clementine Kraemer was sent to Theresienstadt, where she died on November 4th of that same year.

(Further details on Clementine Kraemer's life will be found in the extensive biography written by her nephew Werner Cahnman, located in Series III of this collection.)

From the guide to the Clementine Kraemer Collection, 1894-1963, bulk 1913-1926, (Leo Baeck Institute)