Lotta Hitschmanova

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Lotta Hitschmanova (November 28, 1909 - September 1, 1990) was a Canadian humanitarian. In 1945, She founded USC Canada as the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada. USC Canada is an International development organization that started as a small group of aid workers sending supplies to war-torn Europe for relief and reconstruction.

In 1968 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada and was promoted to Companion in 1979. Dr. Lotta, as she was known, became a venerated symbol of how one person can make a difference in the lives of many, making 56 Sparks Street a household name through her numerous radio and television ads.

Attired in an army nurse's uniform and military-style hat, she travelled yearly to strife-torn and poverty-stricken parts of the world searching out towns and villages in need of Canadian assistance to recover from drought, war, disease and poverty.

At home, in Ottawa, she set off each September for a three-month trek across Canada to tell audiences about the hunger and destitution in other countries, to furnish particulars about how Canadian contributions in previous years had been employed and to renew her appeal for funds and clothing.

The petite, iron-willed woman who undertook these far-flung travels each year was Lotta Hitschmanova who founded the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada in 1945 and then directed it for 38 years, establishing 150 aid programs in 20 countries.

Lotta, as she was known, was Czech not Canadian by birth. She was born in Prague on November 28, 1909, to Max Hitschmann, who came from a poor Bohemian family, and Else Theiner, a socially ambitious and elegant woman, fluent in several languages. Lotta would be joined by her only sibling, Lilly, fifteen months later.

By the time the sisters arrived their father had become a successful malt merchant with factories located beyond Prague's suburbs. The children were therefore raised in privileged surroundings with a cook, parlour maid and live-in nanny.

Both parents were determined that their daughters would be well-educated, with the result that Lotta graduated with honours from a coeducational high school, Stephans Gymnasium, and then, in 1929, enrolled in the faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prague. There, she immersed herself in the study of languages, but, after completing three terms, she persuaded her father to let her take the two middle years of her four-year course at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Over the next six years Lotta would scoop up diplomas in five languages from Prague University as well as a diploma in French studies, awarded by the Sorbonne through the Institut Français Ernest Denis in Prague. She would also manage to earn a scholarship that led to her completing a PhD from Prague University.

Enamoured of the intellectual life in Paris, young Lotta began studying political science and journalism at the Sorbonne in 1933. At this juncture in her life she entertained hopes of becoming a journalist and then eventually taking up a career in diplomacy. Accordingly, after obtaining a journalism diploma, in 1935, she returned to Czechoslovakia to pursue a career as a freelance journalist.

In turbulent, pre-war Europe, overworked Lotta poured her energies into writing for several newspapers as well as the Yugoslav government's news agency. Although she didn't belong to a political party, she pulled no punches in expressing anti-Nazi sentiments in her articles. This, not surprisingly, made her persona non grata to the Germans after Hitler seized a third of Czechoslovakia following the Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938.

Heeding the advice of Czech government officials, Lotta fled her homeland, joining a stream of fellow Czechs headed for Paris. There, she registered for a literature course at the University of Paris, but finding the capital's atmosphere too pro-Munich and too collaborative, she soon left the city for Brussels. It was about this time that she also began to employ the Slavic version of her surname --- Hitschmanova rather that Hitschmann --- to demonstrate her dislike of things German.

In Belgium, Lotta worked as a journalist, but when the Germans invaded that country she escaped to France, eventually ending up in Marseilles, where she was able to obtain employment with an immigration service that assisted refugees. One day, while queuing in Marseilles's market over lunch hour, she keeled over from fatigue and hunger.

After regaining consciousness, Lotta made her way to a medical clinic run by the Boston-based Unitarian Service Committee. This, claims her biographer, Clyde Sanger, would be her first contact with the organization. She would come even more familiar with it in January 1942 when she was appointed liaison officer with the Czechoslovak relief agency, Centre d'Aide Tsechoslovaque, but not until 1945 would the USC become her life's major work and mission.

In 1942, Lotta was able to escape from Europe by sailing from Lisbon to New York on a refugee-packed twin-screw steamer designed to carry bananas rather than passengers. After delivering a USC report to Boston, she quickly departed for Canada, which, unlike the United States, had granted her a visa.

Lotta later claimed she reached Montreal "exhausted, with a feeling of absolute solitude in an entirely strange country...I came with $60 in my pocket. I had an unpronounceable name. I weighed less than 100 lbs, and I was completely lost."

She was not lost for long for on her fourth day in this country she managed to obtain a secretarial job with a Montreal firm. Within three months she was in Ottawa working as a postal censor for the Department of War Services.

After the ending of hostilities, Lotta was offered several jobs, including one involving the rehabilitation of children in Czechoslovakia. When she learned, however, that the war had claimed the lives of her beloved parents, she decided to stay in Canada.

Lotta remained in Ottawa as she had already begun, in July 1945, to organize a Canadian branch of the USC to undertake relief and reconstruction work in war-ravaged Europe. In 1948, American insistence that every program be run by an American led her to reorganize this committee as a completely independent organization, USC Canada.

By 1949, Lotta Hitschmanova was logging 17,000 km on her annual cross-Canada tour, speaking 96 times in 36 locations and raising $50,000. And Canada was responding enthusiastically. In fact, from 1945 on, this tireless, single-minded worker for mankind persuaded generations of Canadians to aid destitute children in post-war Europe, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, independent Bangladesh and India.

Thanks to her own journalism background, Lotta knew what was needed to make a story and used this expertise to full advantage. Reporters and editors dubbed her "The Atomic Mosquito" because of her continuing success in getting good media coverage.

Throughout the years, Dr. Hitschmanova received countless awards, including the Gold Medal from the Red Cross of France (1950), the Medal of St. Paul from Greece (1952), Officer of the Order of Canada (1972) and Companion of the Order of Canada (1980).

Although this passionate, articulate woman spent the final years of her life suffering from Alzheimer's disease, she succumbed to cancer. She died September 1, 1990, unmarried, having devoted her life to the service of others