Lemke, Antje Bultmann.

Antje Bultmann Lemke (b. 1918) is a German-American librarian and Schweitzer scholar. In addition to her long career as a librarian and teacher, she has worked for many years to ensure the preservation and documentation of Schweitzer's work.

Lemke's father, noted theologian Rudolf Bultmann, was a friend and admirer of Schweitzer's, and Lemke herself intended to become a doctor. However, acceptance to medical school in Germany at that time required membership in the Nazi Party, which Lemke refused to consider. Instead, she earned a degree in Library Science from the University of Leipzig, all the while using her position as librarian to assist those escaping Germany and passing information between members of anti-Nazi resistance organizations, putting her life in jeopardy on more than one occasion.

In 1949 she came to the United States, and shortly thereafter was hired as Art and Music Librarian by Syracuse University (SU). She remained at SU for more than thirty years, as librarian and later as a teacher in the university's School of Library and Information Science. In addition to her teaching, she translated into English two of Schweitzer's books: Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography and The Albert Schweitzer-Helene Bresslau Letters, 1902-1912. The Antje Bultmann Lemke Seminar Room, located in SU's Special Collections Research Center, is named for her.

In 1973 Lemke met Erica Anderson, creator of the 1959 Oscar-winning documentary "The Life and Times of Albert Schweitzer." The two became friends, and Lemke became involved in Anderson's work with the Albert Schweitzer Friendship House, eventually serving ten years as President of its Board of Directors. When the ASFH sold its house and property in the 1990s, Lemke was instrumental in the transfer of Anderson's photographic archive to Syracuse University. She also donated her father's correspondence with Schweitzer to Syracuse University, and persuaded her long-time friend Rhena Schweitzer Miller, Schweitzer's daughter, to deposit Schweitzer's own papers there as well.

[Portions of this biographical sketch adapted from "The Antje Lemke Endowed Fellowship," on the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship website at http://www.schweitzerfellowship.org .]

From the guide to the Antje Bultmann Lemke Collection Relating to Albert Schweitzer, 1907-circa 2003, (Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries)