Illinois General Assembly - Full Text of HR0338
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Full Text of HR0338  94th General Assembly

HR0338 94TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY


 


 
HR0338 LRB094 11871 HSS 45232 r

1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2     WHEREAS, The members of the House of Representatives of the
3 State of Illinois learned with sadness of the death of Lisa
4 Fittko on March 12, 2005; and
 
5     WHEREAS, Lisa Ekstein was born in 1909 in Uzhgorod in what
6 was then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire; most of her
7 childhood was spent in Budapest and Vienna; she was evacuated
8 and sent to the Netherlands with other children for a year
9 during World War I; after the war, her family moved to Berlin;
10 and
 
11     WHEREAS, She emerged from a leftist, artistic family to
12 become active in the resistance to Hitler in the early months
13 of his rule, then fled to continue the fight in other European
14 countries for seven years; during her time in Europe, she met
15 and married another leftist activist, Hans Fittko; for seven
16 tense months in 1940 and 1941, the Fittkos escorted refugees on
17 a tortuous path over the Pyrenees mountains so they could go on
18 to Spanish and Portuguese ports to seek passage to safe havens;
19 and
 
20     WHEREAS, Many of the people she helped were intellectuals,
21 artists, and anti-Nazi organizers; the first refugee she helped
22 was Walter Benjamin, a Marxist literary critic and philosopher
23 whose work has drawn new interest in recent years because of
24 his provocative insights on subjects from consumerism to
25 surrealism; she had earlier helped the philosopher Hannah
26 Arendt, who had been her friend in Paris, get out of a prison
27 in France; and
 
28     WHEREAS, Together, the Fittkos became part of the rescue
29 mission of Varian Fry, an American who is credited with saving
30 about 2,000 people, many of them artists and intellectuals,
31 including André Breton, Marc Chagall, and Max Ernst; and
 

 

 

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1     WHEREAS, The Fittkos eventually escaped to Cuba, then went
2 on to Chicago, where Ms. Fittko's brother lived; Mr. Fittko
3 preceded her in death in 1960 and was posthumously awarded
4 Israel's Yad Vashem Medal, an honor reserved for gentiles who
5 risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust; and
 
6     WHEREAS, Ms. Fittko became well known in postwar Germany,
7 and in 1986, the president of West Germany awarded her the
8 Distinguished Medal of Merit, First Class; in the United
9 States, her story was eventually documented in several novels
10 and films, including the 1998 documentary "Lisa Fittko: But We
11 Said We Will Not Surrender"; and
 
12     WHEREAS, She wrote two books about her experiences; "Escape
13 Through the Pyrenees" was first published in West Germany in
14 1985 and won that country's award for the political book of the
15 year; it was translated into French, Spanish, Italian,
16 Portuguese, Japanese, and in 1991, into English; in 1993, her
17 book, "Solidarity and Treason: Resistance and Exile,
18 1933-1940", was published; and
 
19     WHEREAS, After settling in Chicago, Ms. Fittko worked as a
20 secretary to support relatives who survived the Holocaust but
21 were shattered by the experience; she was always highly
22 involved with IVI-IPO, including the campaign of the late Mayor
23 Harold Washington, and was a strong supporter of independent
24 politics; she was an active member of the Hyde Park Peace
25 Council and always brought issues of peace to other
26 neighborhood organizations; she worked with the Hyde
27 Park-Kenwood Interfaith Council to get temples and churches
28 involved in peace issues and was very involved with the nuclear
29 freeze movement; and
 
30     WHEREAS, Lisa Fittko had phenomenal energy; she was
31 creative and had amazing knowledge and a sense of history and

 

 

HR0338 - 3 - LRB094 11871 HSS 45232 r

1 remembrance of the past; and
 
2     WHEREAS, The passing of Lisa Fittko has been deeply felt by
3 many, especially her nieces, Evelyn Marsh, Catherine
4 Stodolsky, and Marlena Ekstein; therefore, be it
 
5     RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
6 NINETY-FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
7 we mourn the passing of Lisa Fittko, who will be remembered for
8 the amazing work she did to save the lives of many; and be it
9 further
 
10     RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
11 presented to the family of Lisa Fittko as an expression of our
12 deepest sympathy and our true respect for the life that Ms.
13 Fittko lived.