Helga Schmid

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Overview

Helga Schmid born Dachau, Bavaria, Germany December 8, 1960. Top German and European diplomat. Executive Secretary-General of the European External Action Service, 2010-current. Credited by UN women's report with successful nuclear treaty with Iran, 2015. Actively promoted peace in Colombia, Palestine, Ukraine, Libya.

Quotations

“When it comes to the solution to the Syria crisis, the EU position is clear: a lasting solution to the conflict can only be achieved through a Syrian-led political process leading to a transition. Which means obviously that you also talk to the representatives of the Assad regime.” (Interfax interview, April 17, 2015; photo vebidoo.de)

Katharina Schuddekopf

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Overview

Katharina Schüddekopf born Magdeburg, Germany February 8, 1916. Member of White Rose, nonviolent Hitler resistance movement. Disabled university student; sentenced to year in prison for knowledge of intentions to spread anti-Nazi writings, 1943.

Quotations

"The war has hardly spared a person, without consideration for good and bad, poor or rich, condition or class, Christian or heathen. Gone are our homes, possessions, cultural properties; professional prospects are hopeless, health is ruined; humans, who once stood near, are dead in far places." (sermon "Christian Experience of Life in Modern Times")

Irma Schwager

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Overview

Irma Schwager (née Wieselberg) born Vienna, Austria May 31, 1920. Pacifist and anti-nuclear protester, nominated for Nobel Peace Prize 2005; visited Vietnam during US bombing 1971; exiled 1938 she resisted Nazis in France, seeking German soldiers to desert.

Quotations

"Resistance is necessary—Resistance will be necessary in the future." (photo klahrgesellschaft.at)

Alice Schwarzer

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Overview

Alice Schwarzer born Wuppertal, Germany December 3, 1942. Leading German feminist; lifelong pacifist; journalist; controversially advocated women’s military service to break “male craziness” of power, but "if she were a man, she would refuse to serve," she would be a conscientious objector, and hoped other women would join her. (Belinda Davis, “The Gender of War and Peace:”, p. 104; EMMA July 1978 ff.)

Quotations

On the Iraq War: "The world superpower USA no longer seems accustomed to anyone contradicting its views, not even on issues about life and death, the death of others." (SFGate, March 15, 2003; photo aliceschwarzer.de)

Gudrun Schyman

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Overview

Gudrun Schyman born Tãby, Uppland, Sweden June 9, 1948. Feminist politician; Member of parliament; led Socialist Left Party 1993-2003; founded Feminist Initiative Party 2005; opposed NATO militarization of North.

Quotations

“It is therefore high time to redefine the concept of security—security must be about human security and not national security. . . Sweden can and should instead focus on conflict prevention and peace-mediation institutions.” (Feminist Initiative, Aug. 8, 2010)

“[W]e have had a long period of majority looking upon the budget as a goal in itself that should be used to traditional things like the military, and we have to cut that budget and I think that when you see the feminist movement, a strong feminist and peace movement, you see that feminists are antimilitarists and that’s why we have to get into the rooms where the decision is made about the money.” (Dec. 15, 2015, Reconstruction Women’s Fund; photo alchetron)

Molly Scott Cato

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Overview

Molly Scott Cato born Wales May 21, 1963. British Green Economist; Member European Parliament for SW England 2014; opposed Iraq War, nuclear weapons, arms trade; welcomes refugees; Professor of Strategy & Sustainability.

Quotations

“[O]ur responsibility towards refugees from war zones is clear under international law.” (New Statesman, Aug. 15, 2015)

“Western foreign policy has for decades supported tyrants who have oppressed the peoples of oil-producing states across the Middle East. Our interventions in the region have been driven almost entirely by self-interest, taking little account of the wish for self-determination of the people who live there.” (The Independent, Dec. 15, 2015; photo groucestercitizen.co.uk)

Julia Scurr

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Overview

Julia Scurr (née Sullivan) born Limehouse, East London, England February 17, 1873 (d. 1927). British labor leader and suffragist. Led deputation to prime minister representing 1000 women protesting unemployment, 1905. Fed 7,000 dock workers' children in dock strike, 1912. Opposed World War I; marched in women’s East End peace march, broken up by patriots, 1917. Arrested as Poplar councilor for tax refusal, 1921; in response, declared: “No Surrender”; six weeks in Holloway prison led to her death.

Quotations

“We are happy about going to prison for a principle. We expect all working women to carry on the fight.” (Labour Research, Oct. 2009; photo spartacus.org)

Ingrid Segerstedt-Wiberg

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Overview

Ingrid Segerstedt-Wiberg born Lund, Sweden June 18, 1911 (d. 2010). Swedish internationalist journalist; 12-year member of parliament 1958-70 quit when party wanted to join NATO; anti-Nazi; biographer of Hammarskjöld; headed Swedish UN Association; defended refugees; won suit in European Court of Human Rights against her government for US spying, 2006.

Quotations

"During the war I myself was involved in helping refugees. . . it was no easy task." (Guido Knopp, Hitler's Women, p. 248, 2003; photo sverigesradio.se)

Anna Seghers

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Overview

Anna “Netty” Seghers (née Reiling) born Mainz, Germany November 19, 1900 (d. 1983). Anti-fascist author; Jewish; Communist. Co-founder of East German freedom movement. Arrested by Gestapo for anti-fascist novel Die Gefährten, 1932; exiled, 1933. Her novel The Seventh Cross was one of few contemporary pieces of art to depict concentration camps, 1939. The Outing of the Dead Girlsillustrated futility of both World Wars, 1946. Awarded Stalin Peace Prize, 1951. Wrote unpublished story “Stone Age” about Vietnam veteran.

Quotations

“In the very first month of the Hitler régime hundreds of our leaders had been murdered. . . A whole generation had to be annihilated. . . if we were to be destroyed on that scale, all would perish because there would be none to come after us. . . If we fight and fall, and another takes up the flag. . . and falls too. . . —that is natural, for nothing can be gained without sacrifice.” (The Seventh Cross, p. 140; photo wikipedia)

Margarethe Lenore Selenka

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Overview

Margarethe Lenore Selenka (née Heinemann) born Hamburg, Germany October 7, 1860 (d. 1922). German peace leader; ethnologist; archaeologist; suffragist. Organized first worldwide women's peace demonstration and million signatures for arms control, 1899; protest against Boer War, 1901; founder of WILPF. Women's and peace movement fought "for the law against the practice of violence."

Toni Sender

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Overview

Toni Sender (née Sidonie Sender) born Biebrich, Wiesbaden, Germany November 29, 1888 (d. 1964). German Jewish socialist pacifist. Actively opposed World War I. Editor-in-chief Frauenwelt, 1927. Socialist member of Reichstag, 1920-33. Exiled 1933; fled to US. Actively involved with UN, serving on Commission on the Status of Women and the Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). (photo toni-sender-akademie)

Severine

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Overview

Séverine (née Caroline Rémy de Guebhard) born Paris, France April 27, 1874 (d. 1929). French journalist, radical feminist, pacifist, anarchist and human rights advocate; opposed World War I and conscription; worked for rights of Algerian women; called Europe her fatherland; "Queen of the Dreyfusards" against anti-Semitism; led denunciation of Armenian massacre.

Quotations

"I am always on the side of the poor, in spite of their mistakes, in spite of their crimes." (portrait by Renoir, Wikipedia)

Karin Holmgrunn Sham Poo

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Overview

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Karin Holmgrunn Sham Poo born Oslo, Norway December 18, 1943. Norwegian banker; Deputy Exec. Director UNICEF, 1987-2004; special representative of UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, 2005.

Quotations

"We see children dying amidst conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, DRC, Burundi, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Sudan, and many more. We see them being killed in Gaza, Tel Aviv, Madrid, Nairobi, New York, Riyadh, Istanbul, and Bali. And we know that the conflicts that bring about this suffering cannot be separated from the overall state of the world’s children." (Barcelona Forum 2004; 2011 photo dagbladet.no)

Evelyn Jane Sharp

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Overview

Evelyn Jane Sharp born Denmark Hill, London, England August 4, 1869 (d. 1955). British author and suffragist. Tax resister; pacifist against WWI. Twice imprisoned and force-fed, 1911, 1913. Barred from Hague Women's Peace Congress, 1915. Took part in postwar Quaker relief to Russia, 1920, and Germany, 1921. World Committee Against War and Fascism, 1933.

Quotations

“I sometimes think that the art of politics consists in the provision of ladders to enable politicians to climb down from untenable positions.” (Wikipedia; 1933 port. by Rothenstein)

Anna Howard Shaw

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Overview

Anna Howard Shaw born Newcastle-on-Tyne, England February 14, 1847 (d. 1919). Leading suffragist; internationalist; physician. First American female ordained Methodist minister. Inducted into National Women's Hall of Fame, 2000.

Quotations

"Preparedness for war is an incentive to war, and the only hope of permanent peace is the systematic and scientific disarmament of all the nations of the world." (June 21, 1915; photo Wikipedia)

Mary Sheepshanks

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Overview

Mary Sheepshanks born Bilton, Yorkshire, England October 25, 1872 (d. 1960). Pacifist; Socialist; suffragist; feminist; strongly opposed World War I which she called "organized international suicide." WILPF founding member; WILPF International Secretary, 1927-31; Fight the Famine Council Secretary, 1918; lobbied for disarmament.

Quotations

"Each nation is convinced that it is fighting in self-defence, and each in self-defence hastens to self-destruction. The military authorities declare that the defender must be the aggressor, so armies rush to invade neighbouring countries in pure defence of their own hearth and home, and, as each Government assures the world, with no ambition to aggrandise itself. Thousands of men are slaughtered or crippled. . . art, industry, social reform, are thrown back and destroyed; and what gain will anyone have in the end? In all this orgy of blood, what is left of the internationalism which met in congresses, socialist, feminist, pacifist, and boasted of the coming era of peace and amity. The men are fighting; what are the women doing? They are, as is the lot of women, binding up the wounds that men have made." (Jus Suffragi, Oct. 14, 1915; photo c. 1907 NYPL Schwimmer Col.)

Kate Sheppard

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Overview

Kate Sheppard (née Malcolm) born Liverpool, England March 10, 1847 (d. 1934). Leader of world's first successful suffrage campaign, bringing voting rights to women of New Zealand, 1893.

Quotations

“There were people who would say that there must be fighting, and probably they were right in a sense because so long as greed and hatred were in men's hearts there would continue to be war, but it was up to women to make sure that in time the combative element would be used to fight for great moral reforms rather than for any other reason.” (NCW conference, 1900, in Megan Hutching, “’Mothers of the World’: Women, Peace and Arbitration”, New Zealand Journal of History, 1993, p. 174; photo Wikipedia)

Clare Frewen Sheridan

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Overview

Clare Frewen Sheridan born London September 9, 1885 (d. 1970). Pacifist sculptress and writer. Made bust of Gandhi (1951); sculpture Woman Leading a Blind Soldier.

Quotations

"I love humanity, with its force and its weakness, its ambitions and fears, its honesty and its lack of scruples, its perfection and deformities." (Mayfair to Moscow, p. 12, 1921; 1922 photo by Genthe, Wikipedia)