Women's Portraits

Hildegard Neufeld

Childhood, youth and escape

Hildegard Neufeld is born in 1924 on her father’s farm near Danzig, Prussia where she spends a wonderful childhood. She wants to become a steward when she grows up; but in the winter of 1945 during the turmoils of the war, she has to leave her country. On board of a ship overloaded with fugitives, she arrives in Denmark. Together with 250 000 German fugitives she is kept in a camp behind a barbed wire fence. After two and a half years of imprisonment she is allowed to travel to the Eastern part of Germany that is occupied by the Soviet soldiers.

Education and occupation

Soon she moves to Münster in Western Germany, where she can start and realize a new professional goal. She studies for the final examination, Abitur. At the university she enrolles to study political economy. In 1956 she starts her professional life as an editor for economies in a publishing house in Bad Homburg, where she stays for thirty years.

Retirement and new responsibilities

During her retirement, she starts editing a senior’s journal. In the beginning it is published in Hessen, in the middle of Germany, and later published all over the Federal Republic. As she didn’t want to continue with her former job, she matriculated in „Social Gerontologie“ at the University of the Third Age, Universität des dritten Lebensalters U3L. After her final examination she is asked to lecture at the U3L. She developes plans for projects which have been published.

The studies show that nowadays the older generation is taking a more active role in society. Family life and housing have led to a more independent living in older age. Healthcare has improved, a more vital generation has grown up. The many activities of seniors have an increasing impact on the social and economic development. Later Hildegard Neufeld publishes the study: New Chances for a self determined life and living by new technologies. The many new activities committed her to the U3L and inspired her for a period of ten years. Participants in the projects have thought themselves to be pioneers for a successful life in older age.

Seniors‘s activities in Bad Homburg and online

Forum Info 2000 was created by support of the Federal Republic. It should help with Germany’s entry into the information society. For Hildegard, it was very important that seniors are enabled to use the new information technologies without fear. As a member of the board she is involved in the foundation of the society Seniors in Science Communities, (Verein der Seniorinnen und Senioren in der Wissensgesellchaft, VSiW.) The aim is to impart to seniors the qualification for the use of the internet. In her residence Bad Homburg she helpes to open the Internet Café 50 plus.

The new media leads Hildegard to the University of Ulm for further scientific training in special working groups of the centre (ZAWiW, Zentrum für allgemeine wissenschaftliche Weiterbildung), where the same aim as in Frankfurt was followed.

When in 2002 the society ViLE, (Virtuel and real learning network, Virtuelles und reales Lern- und Kompetenz-Netzwerk) was set up, Hildegard was present. In this society real and virtual meetings are organized. Participants can exchange their experiences and get a new understanding of certain facts.

The online journal LernCafé, LC, another initiative of ViLE, is created within the society. It is the first German online journal developed for old and young people who are interested in participating. Hildegard Neufeld is trained to be an online editor. Ever since she publishes her texts online.

The virtual literary circle Gemeinsam Lesen is founded as well with Hildegard’s assistance. The actual meetings take place in Frankfurt. The books to be discussed are presented on the world wide web. The participants‘ commentaries can be read all over the world.

Reminiscences and prospects

Today when Hildegard, 87 years old, looks back, she says that it has been the many new activities which have enriched her life and made it interesting. She does not want to live with but to create with. The dream of her childhood has come true: the wish to achieve.

When I asked her if she sometimes thinks about her nearing death, she answers „I’m prepared. I have organized everything, my inheritance and my burial. For the moment I‘m happy to live.“

Erdmute Dietmann-Beckert, September 2011