The Zonta Club Trier is presenting its first perpetual women’s calendar for International Women’s Day 2024. He portrays courageous and well-known Trier women from different eras.
The twelve sheets of the first perpetual Trier women’s calendar are real eye-catchers. Students from the design department at Trier University have created portraits of twelve extraordinary women from Trier.
A calendar page shows Loretta von Sponheim. In the Middle Ages it prevailed against the Trier Elector Baldwin of Luxembourg.
Trier Women – From Antiquity to the Present
From Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, to the popular Trier innkeeper Leni Krause, who made French fries popular in Trier as “Mutti Krause” in the 1950s – the range and versatility of Trier’s female portraits is great. What they have in common is their courage to dare to do something that was not a given for women in their time.
Women who were special and still give us inspiration today.
Helena, the mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, is also depicted in the calendar. Alina Beck’s lithograph was created in a seminar on book illustration at Trier University.
Women were ahead of their time
Mathilde Theyssen, who was born in Trier in 1838, managed to study medicine at the Sorbonne in Paris against all odds and to receive her doctorate in Lisbon in 1865. She is considered the first licensed female doctor in Europe. She is one of the twelve women that Hildegard Müller from the Zonta Club Trier selected for the women’s calendar and for whom she wrote texts.
“They were women who were special, who did something special, who were important in their time and who still give us an impulse today,” said Hildegard Müller about her selection.
Mathilde Theyssen was the first woman in Europe to be licensed as a doctor at the end of the 19th century. At that time, almost all universities still refused to allow women to study medicine. This lithograph by Caroline Schwab is one of other depictions of women in the Trier women’s calendar.
Women writers from Trier
Clara Viebig (born 1860), Gerty Spies (born 1897) and Gertrud Schloß (born 1899) were writers. Clara Viebig was one of the most successful authors in German-speaking countries around 1900 with her books such as “The Weiberdorf”, which is set in the Eifel.
Gerty Spieß and Gertrud Schloß were deported by the Nazis as Jews. Gerty Spies survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp and later wrote about it. Gertrud Schloß was murdered in the Kulmof concentration camp (Chelmno).
Rhineland-Palatinate
On International Women’s Day These women from Rhineland-Palatinate have made history
Writers, politicians, scientists and racing drivers – all closely linked to Rhineland-Palatinate. We show strong women from RLP in a picture gallery.
Fri.8.3.2024 0:00 a.m. The night SWR1
The resilience of Trier women
Anna Olevian (1513 to 1596), the mother of the reformer Caspar Olevian, lived in Trier in the 16th century. Even after people of Protestant faith were expelled from Trier, she ran her bakery on Grabenstrasse and helped women with health problems.
Jenny Marx (1814 to 1881) did not follow the path prescribed for higher daughters from aristocratic families, but married the revolutionary Karl Marx and followed him into exile from Paris to Brussels to London.
The Zonta Club Trier
The Zonta Club Trier belongs to a global association of working women in responsible positions. The club in the Trier region says it focuses on the following areas:
- Help for women on their way out of difficult life situations
- Prevention of violence and discrimination
- Supporting the education and professional development of women and girls
The twelve Trier women featured in the perpetual wall calendar lived in different eras and can be real role models for young women today. The Zonta Club Trier, an association of working women, came up with the idea.
The painter Martina Diederich, born in Mayen in 1962, lives and works in Trier. Your painting with a view of the Moselle in Trier was created during the corona pandemic. The Simeonstift City Museum in Trier bought the picture and is showing it in the exhibition “Tel me more”.
Presentation in the Trier City Museum on International Women’s Day
On International Women’s Day there will be a guided tour on the topic of “Women in the Museum” at the Simeonstift City Museum in Trier at 2 p.m. Portraits of women are shown, but also paintings by painters such as Martina Diederich from Trier.
From 3:30 p.m. the Trier women’s calendar of the Zonta Club Trier will be presented. The Zonta Club Trier wants to use the proceeds from the calendar to support women in emergency situations.