As a young woman, Essinger had funded herself through several years of study at the University of Wisconsin and believed that through education, humanity could progress. All this was in jeopardy when Hitler came into power in 1933. After reading Hitler’s autobiography, “Mein Kampf,” in the 1920s, Essinger believed Germany would plunge into an abyss under him. Well before the first racial laws were introduced in April 1933, she could see that the hatred and violence openly promoted by the Nazi Party stood in opposition to everything she was trying to show her pupils about tolerance, respect, justice and compassion.
University Communications