Stop The Arms Race! STAR – Campaign: Personal Memories by Irene Eckert

„The Arms Race or the Human Race? A Choice for Mankind“ (UN-Brochure 1981¹)

STAR – Campaign: Be one in a million: Stop The Arms Race!² Tribute to Edith Ballantyne by Irene Eckert 

It all began in Cartigny

It was in August 1981 when my colleague and friend Susanne Tillner³ had discovered the WILPF group in Bremen, Federal Republic of Germany. She wanted me to join her for a UN-related summer school, organized by this historic women's peace alliance. It was there that I met first with WILPF secretary Edith Ballantyne, re-animator of this traditional pre WWII summer event. In those “golden“ days celebrities like professor Einstein and writers like Romain Roland would participate.Why not pay a visit to the beauty spot Cartigny near Geneva in Switzerland. I was on my way back home from a wonderful trip to the Theater Festival in Avignon and had been meeting with friends in the French Alps. It suited me well to drive my car via Geneva. Susanne and myself had been cooperating on peace education while majoring for Political Science. Already feeling uneasy about US-imposed German re-armament programms in the Fifties we were alarmed in 1979 about latest NATO plans to deploy nuclear missiles⁴ on German and European soil. Such lethal weapons of mass destruction were bound to make us a target for eventual Soviet response. A study class to round up our holdays might help us understand better the whys and the hows.

Study the Root Causes of War

Meeting with educated and politically astute WILPF affiliated women from different parts of the world would shake up my life. Women as insightful, experienced and devoted to the humanitarian cause like Edith Ballantyne from Bohemia, Ruth Gleissberg from Hamburg and Ruth Sillman from New York City, the North American conference attendants altogether would challenge me to see the world from a different angle. Sudeten German by birth, made homeless by the NAZI take over of the beautiful forest of Bohemia in Czechoslovakia 1938 Edith's story drew my attention to the plight of the millions of human beings that had been desplaced by the War not only in Europe but throughout the world. Encouraged by the conference participants I began to study more and comprehend that I personally had to take on responsibilities for what happened in the past. Although born five years after World War II had ended, I could not escape the consequences of fascism and war. I felt soon that contributing to the struggle against fascism and war, terrorist sibblings, the greatest evil mankind has ever created was the destiny of my generation. 

Edith and her WILPF colleagues recommended us to study more to understand the root causes of such man made monsters in order find ways to combat them. 

Value of UN Documents and Classical knowledge

As devoted Wilpfers they referred us to early founding documents of this antiwar organization that was born amidst conflict in 1915 and WILPF resolves of the early post war years. We understood soon that WILPF was an extraoridnary political body, a truthful women's peace organisation. Accordingly the elderly conference attendants also urged us to work with UN documents, UNESCO teaching kits for peace education, the UN Charta as tool for disarmament work. The Social Democratic minded Edith Ballantyne, born as daughter of the union organizer Mueller, reminded us of Willy Brandt's phrase: „Peace is not everything, but without peace everything is nothing.“ This spirit was also the fundament for the creation of the UN. 

Two years later I would have the opportunity to personally listen to Ex-Chancellor Brandt when he talked to a Congress Committee in the White House in Washington D.C. Willy Brandt strongly advised US Congressmen against the deployment of the 'Euro-Nukes'. His speech was impressive and I remember him quoting German 18^th century poet Friedrich Hölderlin with the forwardlooking sentence: „Where there is danger, the healing forces are growing, too“. 

Healing forces: Encouragement to Work for Peace

Edith's story carries both messages for me: Healing is possible as long as there is life. The human committment and straight forward strength of resistance remains an encouragement for survivors and progeny, but contains also an obligation for the human race to carry the struggle on, the struggle for peace, justice and total disarmament.

Edith's family, so I learnt was among the lucky ones who had been able to escape fascism and the war in Europe. Her family's story was that of Labor and union struggle. Campell Ballantyne, her husband, a Canadian, once blacklisted journalist had brought her back to Europe as his wife. Cam was fortunate to become employed by the International Labor Office who needed his skills as a former sports reporter, writer and proof reader. As a Canadian citizen in Switzerland, Edith bore him four children. The family did well. 

When I met Edith first 38 years ago, she spoke English better than German. She then represented not only WILPF at the UN, but was also spokesperson for CONGO⁵, an alliance of NGOs with special status at ECOSOC and the Human Rights Council of the Unted Nations. The world was at home in her little WILPF office in 1, Rue Varembe, opposite the 'Palais des Nations' in Geneva. The later was also an open space for the general public in those days. One had easy access to the UN library, valuable documents wereavailable for little money at the UN shop and first and foremost you would meet with people from around the globe and learn from them. 

1981 Massmovement for Disarmament and Peace Connects with UN

Edith helped us greenhorns to get in touch with the UN-community in Geneva, in no time. Her good contacts had helped her to engage high profiled speakers for the Cartigny event. We learnt quickly. Let's keep in mind that those days marked also the groundswell of a European mass movement for disarmament and peace. On October 10^th 1981 the West-German capital Bonn alone saw hundreds of thousands of protesters forming the largest rally in West German history to that date. And this was only the beginning. For the women in Cartigny, however, the „Euromissiles“ were not the only prominent issue. We newcomers from Germany heard then for the first time of the UN-Women's Decade devoted to „Women-Development-Peace“ which had already started in 1975 . We heard for the first time of the tragic plight of the Palestinian people. Ex-Israeli general Matti Peled and his Palestinian colleague Issam Sartawi⁶ informed us about this ongoing and even worsening humanitarian tragedy. US-trained medical doctor Sartawi had jointly received the Austrian Kreisky prize with an Israeli citizen in 1979 for seeking an end to the 'Arab-Israeli Conflict'. Both men gave us an outstanding example for cooperation between alleged enemy lines. But they also helped us see Germany's and the world's historic repsonsibilty for this ongoing Conflict. By closing one eyes one cannot escape historical nor present day wrong doings. 

We learnt a lot in this short week in August also about exotic subjects like the 'Law of the Sea'. It was late UN General secretary's daughter Waldheim, who spoke to us about this important topic. Only much later with the heavily disputed island conflict in the South China Sea we understand the serious implications of the issue. 

The vital need to seek peace with 'Russia' was brought home to the attendants by formidable then International WILPF president Carol Pendell⁷. Carol spoke about the Soviet Union of course. The Methodist minister's wife had visited the UdSSR often and was co-founder of the U. S.-Soviet Citizen's Conference. It was from her lips that I had heard first nobel laureate Thomas Mann's quote on the foolishness of 'Anticommunism', the sin of the century. With her blond hair and her delicate charm Carol was the epitome of a US-American woman. To hear her cite Russian poet Jewgeni Jewtuschenko „Do you think the Russians want a war?“⁸ would send tears to my eyes .

Second Special UN Session on Disarmament in New York 1982

Carol also spoke about the first UN Special Session on Disarmament in 1978 and the forthcoming second one in New York in 1982. She underlined that WILPF would invite women and men from all over the world to join in for parallel NGO conferences inside the UN buildings in Geneva and in New York. I attended them both. My principal and the school inspector granted me a leave of absence for the date. Both men were good Social Democrats of the old school. The official invitation I received through Edith Balantyne and Ruth Gleissberg⁹from Hamburg. Ruth Sillmann¹⁰ from New York, like Gleissberg of Jewish background and with the same devotion to the cause of peace and socialism had helped in New York.

Great WILPF Women as Educators

Through mediation of these wonderful women and with financial aid of US-WILPF it was possible for me to attend the Second Special UN Session on Disarmament (SSDII) in New York¹¹ and participate in the historical Peace „March of a Million“ in New York City. It was there, when I met first with legendary Quaker Woman Mildred Scott Olmsted¹²

At the UN palace and beyond I would make friends with many more unforgettable WILPF ladies, some of German origin. Christine Friedlander, offered me a place to stay, introduced me to her family and showed me New York. UN liason persons Ethel Panken and Ann Florant¹³, helped me to get know their friends and families, showed me the country side, arranged for speaking engagements. Many progressive women (and sometimes men) of Jewish and non Jewish origin, would help in many ways. Maths professor Bets Ferrer would offer her typewriter and space to work. Wonderful catholic nun organizer and Marge Tuite from the 'Church Women United' would invite me to speak at their great conference in Chigago „Pieces to Peace“in 1985. 

It was also in New York that I would learn much more about Ediths work. She was highly respected not only as peace worker, but as a diplomat on related affairs while the letters 'NGO'¹⁴ still had a positive reputation as control organs, relatively independent from governments and coorporate interests.

Edith's confidence in younger women would shovel me into responibilities I could not have dreamed of. She would soon encourge WILPF's internship program, understanding young talents quickly and handing over responsible jobs to them. So in the twinkling of an eye I had my frist speaking engagement. Not much later and without much adoo Edith would have sent me to Brussels as international STAR-Disarmament Coordinator.

In New York it was Edith Ballantyne who suggested that I speak publicly about the German and European peace movement¹⁵ . She brought me in touch with remarkble Ann Ivey from Philadelphia, who arranged a three month speaking tour for me in fall 1983. This engagemnt would sent me right across the North American continent.

Peacework Must Overcome Artifcial Bounderies

Ever since I set my footh on US territority I was impressed by the friendlyness of the people. During the SSDII and far beyond I experienced, that people and peoples, when allowed to meet freely, peace is the most catching, the most unifying idea ever. I learnt exactly the same when travel through Latin America on WILPF business years later.

Having the chance to work within the framework of the UN related NGO community was something very special in those days. During the Cold War epoch almost only there it seemed possible to cross artificial borders between nations from East and West. Women as peace building force was a catching idea, although good willing men, husbands, brothers, sons were always on our side. Enormous support came from Non-Alligned Nations and from behind the „Iron Curtain“. This propaganda metaphor of an invisible steel monster had devided the world ever since Churchill gave his vicious Fulton speech in 1947. It was meant to deter citizens from the Western hemisphere. We were not to cooperate with the 'Others' the 'Aliens' . Nations or citizens alike who had accepted the shelter of the 'Evil Empire' Soviet Union were regarded as mere puppets. Anyone living in the 'socialist block' was believed to be unfree and unable to speak her own mind. Only parrots of the official propaganda would be allowed to leave the country and travel beyond the Soviet bloc. Ironically those 'Eastern Bloc' participants of the UN conference who had received entrance visas to New York were denied the right to travel beyond UN premises by US authorities. The same restrictions were imposed on most of the Hibakushas, victims of the US nuclear bomb dropping in Japan of summer 1945. Many of the latter were denied entrance visas to begin with.

Red STAR Yes! Red Scare No! Edith Ballantyne and Caroll Pendell united for Anti-Racism and Peace Efforts

But again, it was Edith Ballantyne who was not discouraged by the Red Scare. She always urged everybody:„Disarmament - Development -Peace“ demand cooperation. No confrontational approach would get us there. She encouraged women and men alike, to convene and discuss issues openly. She had congenial partners in this endeavour. Carol Pendell from California and Janet Bruin, editor of „Pax et Libertas“ ¹⁶ supported her efforts for diplomacy and peace full heartedly. 

In those early New Yorker days I understood that the US WILPF section and even more so the New York branch represented a very special group of highly educated, highly concerned and forward looking women. They came from all kinds of ethnical, political, social, religious or non-religious backgrounds, mostly white, yes and middle class professionals, but up-keeping good relations with all racial communities. Many had strong positive leanings towards courageous Cuba, the small island that dared to challenge the US Empire. The glue that kept these historic women together was anti-war, not anti-communism. These WILPFERS strongly believed that development in all aspects of society demanded disarmament. Disarmament was seen as the path to peace among nations. Such convictions enabled them to stretch out to the Women's International Democratic Federation, the WIDF. Australian Freda Brown, a communist and a devoted supporter of Anti-Apartheid and Anti-Race programms and Edith Ballantyne, her US and European colleagues and of course her Non-Alligned African and Asian supporters could work together on an anti-racist and anti-war platform. They had a common cause. A cause for Peace and Human Rights alike . The cause for the oppressed and for the colonized, the cause for the Palestinian and other indigineous peoples rights was theirs. 

The focus of the days in New York in summer 1982, however, was Disarmament with a capital D. It seemed to somehow connect all other concerns. „Disarmament or annihilation“ was the scaring slogan of the season. The doomsay clock of the scientific community had been set very close to midnight. In fall 2019 when I am writing these lines, we hear the echo of Greta Thunbergs „We don't have time“ and her accusative: 'I want you to panic. We „women of the world“ felt very strongly, too, that we had no time to lose. But panic would certainly not be a good adviser. We assembled to look for ways out of the nuclear threat, the nuclear age was be ovecome! We had to therefore give birth to a constructive, forward looking strategy.

Giving Birth to a STAR or How to Collect a Million Signatures for Disarmament in one Year

This was the international atmosphere, the 'Zeistgeist', into which the STAR-campaign was born. It was charming and influential US quaker woman Kay Camp¹⁷ forwarded the first impulse to the STAR-symbol. The Acronym stood for „Stopp The Arms Race“ and was printed and explained in card form and pressed into buttons to be purchased for one Dollar, one German Mark, one Franc Francais and so on, according to each country involved. WILPF's signature campaign goal was the collection of one million voices for global and comprehensive disarmament the world over in order to to raise awareness for the issue and to build up pressure on decision makers to act accordingly. Among our printed demands were: A call for a FREEZE¹⁸, a moratorium on nukes development. We asked for a comprehensive test ban treaty on nuclear arms, CTB and we demanded a clear „No to the deployment of Cruise and Pershing Missiles on European soil“.

10 000 STAR marchers on March 8^th 1983 in Brussels 

Without Internet or even a functioning telephone landline at the beginning of our campaign the STAR was to go viral. The STAR abreviation was used in many languages, spreading the same call: Stop the Arms Race now! everywhere! Launched March 8th 1982 on International Women's it was to culminate one year later in Brussels with a gathering and march of 10 000 women from all corners of the planet. The most famous participant and speaker at the Brussel's event was arguably British actress Julie Christie¹⁹. Holy Near, the feminist US singer joined hands with her. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul from the SPD (Labor), later State Secretary for Economic Cooperation and Development²⁰ in Germany had approached us and proposed to speak at our Brussles Ralley. We accepted this as it politically added importance to our cause. Wieczorek-Zeul was then just a German Bundestag deputy. She was one in a million. The Women's Peace Encampment of Greenham Common had also joined in with considerable means. Monika Nur from the West Berlin WILPF branch had established good contacts to them, so did our British section. The Quaker community in Brussles helped us out with free rooming. The theologian Adrianne van Melle and Dutch Portuguese Carlota Lopez da Silva would devote endless time and energy. US silk work artist Pamela Saffer from New Haven jumped in as a volunteer. The US-section had sent her to assist us with secretarial skills. Christian communities, unions and all kinds of women's associations sent their help: furniture for the office, a heating device, women and men power. We were given free office space by both Federal Belgium Women's Associations in their house in Brussels. Lily Boykens representing the Flemish and Fanny Fuchs the French speaking part of the Belgium's women alliances would support us and speak at the ralley on March 8th. 

Beginning with 1982 I personally had taken leave from my obligations as a high school teacher at West-Berlin's Carl-von Osietzky²¹-Comprehensive School in order to work first with Edith Ballantyne and Janet Bruin²² , longterm editor of „Pax and Libertas“ in Zürich and Geneva. The small international publication would help enormously to spread the word about the ingenious and catching STAR-Campaign. Edith, Janet Bruin, Genie Silver²³ and Kay Camp had proposed to the WILPF Executive Committee that I be appointed 'international STAR coordinator' as we eventually kicked off the campaign in Europe. We called for a special press conference in Helsingör/Denmark where our gathering took place in summer 1982. From then on things went very fast. All the sections were actively involved. We put out a regular special STAR news letter from the Geneva office, posters with different languages were printed. We contacted all kinds of women's alliances and women of fame. We opened our STAR office in Brussles in January 1983.

The feedback we received from all corners in Belgium and the world over was considerable.

March and International Conference in Brussles March 83 

March 8^th in 1983, the year when the new Nukes were to be deployed, we assembled 10 000 women in Brüssels, we organized an opening supper ceremony on March 7th, we had prepared for a well attended conference with workshops of all kinds. The Catholic University of Leuven²⁴ had offered space.

Delegations to all NATO and to all Warsaw Pact Embassies in Brussels were sent out. The reception for our women was quite different at the various places, NATO not being in favour of our endeavour, Eastern European countries quite open and friendly. The news coverage of the event was astounding, 'we hit the news' as our press liaison officer put it. We were able to establish precious contacts. Actually our newly aquired „fame“overwhelmed the small organisation. We did unfortunatelly not have the financial means nor the woman power to upkeep the momentum. And those very potent forces who are opposed to disarmament as it wouldn't pay for them were neither neither amused nor sleeping. Some of our very supporters were disappointed that we had not been able to ship the huge amount of signatures physically to the NATO office in Brussels. Logistically we could not have done that. 

Follow up?

The STAR-campaign was followed up by our participation in a enormous International Peace Conference in Prague in summer 1983. WILPFer Pamela Saffer had joined the international secretariat in Prague and helped prepare the event there directly after the STAR March in Brussles was done. I cleared our little 'attic office', went for a holiday in Sri Lanka for which WILPF paid. In Sri Lanka I visited local WILPF branches with different concerns. Back in Europe I helped Janet Bruin and Edith with the evaluation process and the putting together of a STAR-brochure documenting our past efforts.

In September 1983 I went for a three months speaking tour to North America, that WILPF USA had organized, with key strategic and logistic input from Ann Ivey and the Philadelphia branch. I spoke at all kinds of premesis, at people's homes, at pot lucks, in public libraries, in schools and universities. The largest audience I could reach was at a huge peace ralley in Los Angeles with many thousand participants in Octobre 1983. This assembly took place parallel to the German mass events that fall against the impending deployment of the „Euromissiles“. A decision of the German Bundestag was forthcoming soon. The majority of deputies voted against the publicly expressed sentiment of the people. 

In Los Angeles I had of course spoken of our very popular organising efforts to turn the vote against the deployment. I spoke of the need for cooperation instead of confrontation. Such an approach could well do without stuffing the world with more nukes. A policy based on mutually assured destruction we would call MAD²⁵ or insane. 

Politicians versus the people's voice

The nuclear missiles were deployed. The Cold War was to continue until the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, which was supposed to open a new chapter in human history … But instead it brought about more wars an a new cold war against Russia.

Creative WILPFers in 1984 would design follow up campaigns to STAR. Concepts like the „Women's Budget“, „Feed The Cities – not the Pentagon“, „Listen to Women For a Change“ were developed to continuously raise pubplic conciousness against the arms build up. But with the fall of the alleged „Evil Empire“ in the 90s the international peace movement was weakened considerably. Organisations were ruined financially. The one and only remaining Empire would invest heavily in shaping public opinion for their cause, which supposedly was FREEDOM of the indivual. For a short moment in history the world would believe that with the end of the Cold War, eternal peace could be secured on earth. WILPF tended to become more and more feminist, then more Gender oriented, eventually more mainstream and less politically aware. The urgent need to focus on halting the miltiary industrial complex of which Eisenhower had warned so strongly in his farwell address in 1961 got lost.

Personally, I married, became a mother and housewife and had to support my then husband who was an artist and who was still studying. With a full time teaching job I had no spare time for peace work left.. One woman's destiny, circumstantially driven ...

My last effort to politically influence the traditional women's peace organisation WILPF was years later in 2007. I tried then to help awake a younger generation of WILPF affiliated women to reflect upon the origins of WILPF as a peace and disarmament oriented creation. The scene was set in Bolivia at WILPF's Triannual Congress in 2007. Edith Ballantyne helped me to get there, to represent her. She supported me as an international delegate, financially helped with my transport and up bringing costs.

My path to Latin America in 2007 was certainly paved with good intentions, but it was not accompanied by a good STAR. The tides had changed, WILPF had changed, our partner organisations existed no longer, Edith's life long experience could not be replaced with a person who lacked not only her experience but also her diplomatic skills..

New generations will have find new ways to saveguard peace and to focus on the ever more essential need to overcome enemy images coined for us. They will find ways to protect Mother Earth and to saveguard the human species. They will eventiúally cut through the myths of misunderstandings and lies have been blindening generations up to the 21^st century. I am sure they will come up with solutions in time. New international partners have evolved of whom we could not have dreamt yet by the end of the last century when hopes in socialism as a christalizer for peace had faded away.

The sun is rising in the EAST and BRICS to BRICS a new future will be constructed.

__________

Footnotes

1„The Arms Race or the Human Race? A Choice for Mankind“ Title of UN- brochure, Department of Public Information, United Nations, New York, 1981 „It is essential that not only Governments but also the peoples of the world recognize the dangers in the present situation .. removing the threat of a world war - a nuclear war - is the most acute and urgent task of the present day. Mankind is confronted with a choice: We must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament or face annihilation.“ Gender was not an issue yet, but nations and peoples were concerned about the human species . The bomb would surely not differentiate between sexes

2 Unfortunatelly the impressive WILPF educational campaign under this slogan lastet for only one summer. But it was very successful in terms of reach out and international support, so it says in a German historical overwiew „Ein großer Erfolg der IFFF ist die im internationalen Rahmen getragene STAR-Kampagne, um gegen die Stationierung neuer Waffen und Waffensysteme zu protestieren. Eindrucksvoller Höhepunkt dieser Kampagne ist eine große Demonstration von Zehntausenden von Frauen aus Westeuropa und den USA in Brüssel, um im NATO-Hauptquartier die gesammelten Unterschriften zu überreichen.“ Brochure on German WILPF branch https://www.wilpf.de/die-liga/geschichte/ See more on the STAR campaign: Launched officially on International Women's Day March 8th 1982 and culminating in Brussels March 8th 1983, Harriet Hyman Alonso. Peace as a Women's Issue: A History of the U.S. Movement for World Peace and Women's Rights. (Syracuse Studies on Peace and Conflict Resolution.) Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press. 1993. 

3Susanne and myself were both unionized high school teachers; we had graduated in 1978 from progressive universities in Marburg and Bremen

4  „NATO Double-Track Decision is the decision of NATO from December 12, 1979, to offer the Warsaw Pact a mutual limitation of medium-range ballistic missiles and intermediate-range ballistic missiles combined with the threat that in case of disagreement NATO would deploy more middle-range nuclear weapons in Western Europe, following the so-called "Euromissile Crisis".[1]“ this is how Wikipedia depicts it falsly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Double-Track_Decision

5Congress of Non Governmental Organisations 

6 Assassinated on April 10^th 1983

7In the 1970s Carol served as International President of WILPF, the Women's International League for Peace & Freedom, and travelled frequently abroad in that capacity. She was nominated for the office of Secretary of Peace in an article for Redbook magazine "44 Women who could save America". In the 1980's Carol participated in meetings of the International Committee for Security in Europe, at the highest levels of the United Nations N.G.O., and was co-creator of the U. S.-Soviet Citizen's Conference.
https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/deseretnews/obituary.aspx?n=carol-embree-pendell&pid=174984059

8 I cannot find the English version of the text, which Carol used to quote. Here it is in German, the Russian original (Хотят ли русские войны!) is also available

Meinst du, die Russen wollen Krieg?

Meinst du, die Russem wollen Krieg?

Befrag die Stille, die da schwieg

im weiten Feld, im Pappelhain,

Befrag die Birken an dem Rain.

Dort, wo er liegt in seinem Grab,

den russischen Soldaten frag!

Sein Sohn dir drauf Antwort gibt:

Meinst du, die Russen woll’n,

meinst du, die Russen woll’n,

meinst du, die Russen wollen Krieg? 

Nicht nur fürs eig’ne Vaterland

fiel der Soldat im Weltenbrand.

Nein, daß auf Erden jedermann

in Ruhe schlafen gehen kann.

Holt euch bei jenem Kämpfer Rat,

der siegend an die Elbe trat,

was tief in unsren Herzen blieb:

Meinst du, die Russen woll’n…

Der Kampf hat uns nicht schwach gesehn,

doch nie mehr möge es geschehn,

daß Menschenblut, so rot und heiß,

der bitt’ren Erde werd’ zum Preis.

Frag Mütter, die seit damals grau,

befrag doch bitte meine Frau.

Die Antwort in der Frage liegt:

Meinst du, die Russen woll’n…

Es weiß, wer schmiedet und wer webt,

es weiß, wer ackert und wer sät -

ein jedes Volk die Wahrheit sieht:

Meinst du, die Russen woll’n,

meinst du, die Russen woll’n,

meinst du, die Russen wollen Krieg?

(1961)

9 Als Tochter eines jüdischen Arztes wurde Ruth Eichwald am 04.05.1912 in Hannover geboren. Nach dem Abitur machte sie eine Ausbildung zur Kindergärtnerin, die sie 1933 mit dem Examen abschloss. Parallel zur Ausbildung engagierte sie sich im Internationalen Sozialistischen Kampfbund (ISK). Von 1933 bis 1936 arbeitete sie als Kinderfrau bei einer jüdischen Familie, mit der sie 1936 sie nach London emigrierte. „1946 kehrt sie nach Hannover zurück und beginnt bei der Arbeiterwohlfahrt mit dem Aufbau der Kindergartenarbeit. Sie wird Mitglied der SPD – und heiratet 1950 Gerhard Gleissberg, Chefredakteur des sozialdemokratischen „Neuer Vorwärts“. Mit dem SPD-Vorstand ziehen die Gleissbergs 1951 nach Bonn, doch bringt die Frage der Bewaffnung der jungen Bundesrepublik Deutschland unüberbrückbare Differenzen und die Distanzierung von der Partei mit sich – und so wechseln die Gleissbergs 1955 nach Hamburg, wo Ruths Mann das sozialistische Wochenmagazin „Die Andere Zeitung“ herausgibt. Mit dem Umzug wird Ruth in der Westdeutschen Frauenfriedensbewegung aktiv und wird 1961 wegen ihrer Mitarbeit in der Deutschen Friedensunion aus der SPD ausgeschlossen.“ Anne Ley-Schalles https://www.wilpf.de/ruth-gleissberg-1912-2011/

10 Ruth Sillman's pictured together with Carol Pendel on a seminar in Moscow in the midseventies of the last century in „Soviet Life, Seventieth Anniversary of the Russian Revolution“ https://books.google.de/books?id=maYaAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA39&lpg=RA1-PA39&dq=Ruth+Sillmann,+New+York+City&source=bl&ots=G_bGuem6M&sig=ACfU3U05NeCAYkLV0MX17ui_xyDWQfF_Mw&hl=de&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi8hrnXouTlAhWUfMAKHS7nCZIQ6AEwDHoECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=Ruth%20Sillmann%2C%20New%20York%20City&f=falsSee also: Peace as a Woman's Issue: A History of the U.S. Movement for … Harriet Hyman Alonso, 1993 

„I would also like to thank Anne Florant, Ethel Panken, ... and Ruth Sillman for participating in the 1990 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women Panel“

11    From June 7 t o July 9, 1982, the United Nations General Assembly will convene in New York for a Second Special Session on Disarmament (SSOD-11 The successor to the First special Session on Disarmament held in 1978), largely at the initiative of the so-called non-aligned majority in the General Assembly

12Born in 1890, she was 91 when she attended the New York peace march, she was a supporter for the STAR campaign, for her biography see. Margret Hope Bacon, „One Woman's Passion For Peace and Freedom – The Life of Mildred Scott Olmsted“ Syracus University Press 1993

13 The Australian Wilpfer Felicity Hill writes about Ann in her obituary „Anne Florant was the backbone of the New York Metro branch - ... this has traditionally been the most radical, outspoken and courageous branch in the United States.  Anne fit right in here, because she was a radical woman, with deep insights and a hope for change that did not leave her. ...  Anne was one of the representatives to the United Nations and I was lucky enough to get to know her. Although extremely frail looking, Anne was also a picture of style and grace“ see:https://search.proquest.com/openview/d514e0722c32d8b3c1eac8cb20676232/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=41517

14NGO: Non Governmental Organisations, supposedly acting independently from governmental obligations, but also not yet financed heavily and directed accordingly by multinationals and forces related to the MIK (Military Industrial Complex). They changed their charater decisevely after the 'Fall of the Berlin Wall' in 1989 and in the context of the UN- Environmental Conference also named EARTH-Summit at RIOde Janeiro, Brasil, 1992

15My first speaking engagement, I was honoured to replace Ruth Gleissberg for the German Wilpf section, was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Friends of the local WILPF branch took me there by car. It is a six and a half hours trip. Later, in fall 1983, I would travel for three months across the USA from coast to coast by Greyhound, sometimes I would be offered train or even plane fare. I remember Dolores Taller/San Francisco, Ruth Hunter and Lucy Hassler/Santa Cruz, Mariie Hashegawa/Virginia as being instrumental, but there were of course many more formidable women. I also went to Canada where I was sent to talk about the need for Disarmament and Detente with the Soviet „Bloc“. Morna Ballantyne, Edith's daughter, a union organizer was instrumental to get me there.

16'Pax et Libertas' was the traditional international 'round letter', a small publication, put together in Zurich and later in Geneva, to keep up the connection between the different WILPf sections in times were no internet existed and telephoning was very expensive, time consuming and difficult. 

17 According to the Kay Camp collection at Swarthmore Peace College Kay devoted 50 years to the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. She investigated human-rights violations in Chile; toured villages in Vietnam; addressed the United Nations; and walked hundreds of miles in demonstrations. In 1980, she spent four days in jail for protesting the nuclear power plant at Limerick.
From 1967 to 1971, she was president of the Women's International League's U.S. sector and was international president from 1974 to 1980. In the 1990s, she helped reorganize the league's Main Line chapter and led a chapter protest against nuclear weapons outside the Bryn Mawr post office in1996, on the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. She had worked as a cryptographer for the War Department in Washington during the Second World War. Katherine Lindsley Camp was born in1918 [1919?], Mt. Kisco New York. She was graduate of Swarthmore College

18 The demand for freeze, meant a memorandum and was popular. The Nuclear Freeze movement was initiated by Randall Forsberg, a young American who worked at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Freeze_campaign

19Julie Christie *1941 was a real STAR the, she had become an icon of the film industry in 1965 +performing as Lara in Dr. Schiwago, partnering with Omar Sharif and Geraldine Chaplin.

20 Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul ist eine deutsche Politikerin. Von 1998 bis 2009 war sie Bundesministerin für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung. She served in this office under Chancellor Schröder and Angela Merkel

21Nobel Peace Prize Laureate of 1936, Carl-von Ossietzky was a German journalist, anti-fascist and pacifist. He died 1938 due the maltreatment he had received in several NS concentration camps. 

22  Janet Bruin of Jewish and US origin was an always busy health worker and international peace activist; she contributed a lot to WILPF's educational programs and to the STAR-campaign, spoke on the conomic implications of disarmament issues and devoted herself to the cause of hte Hibakushas. There is hardly any trace of to be found in the internet, but a beautiful photo" Janet Bruin, internationale Frauen Friedensliga, 21.01.1983" - sprechend und rauchend, den Kopf auf die rechte Hand gestützt, mit Button "Stop the arms race / Stoppt das Wettrüsten" https://www.bild-video-ton.ch/bestand/objekt/Sozarch_F_5107-Na-26-066-004 As a close friend of Edith's she eventually moved to Geneva. 

23 Genie Silver Receives Peace and Justice Dove Award

The Greater Philadelphia Branch presented Genie Silver, a WILPF member since 1973, with its 2019 Peace and Justice Dove Award at a reception on June 9, 2019.

Genie is a member of WILPF’s National Middle East Committee and has also served on WILPF’s Board and as a Vice President of the US Section. An activist for 55 years, Genie chaired WILPF’s Eurostrategic Committee in the 1980s to stop US cruise and Pershing-2 missiles from being deployed across Europe. Genie and her WILPF colleagues in the US and Europe organized a demonstration of 10,000 women held in Brussels on March 8, 1983. Genie addressed the demonstration and was part of a WILPF delegation that met in Brussels with the US ambassador to NATO to discuss the dangers of deploying new nuclear medium range missiles in Europe. She also testified before Congress speaking against these missiles.

Genie was on the STAR Committee (Stop The Arms Race) that met its goal of gathering a million signatures, delivered to the UN Secretary-General on March 8, 1984. She gave papers on nuclear disarmament at local, national and international WILPF conferences as well as speaking to other organizations on behalf of WILPF. She was a member of a delegation of six WILPF women who traveled to the Soviet Union to meet with the Soviet Women’s Committee. Genie, with four WILPF colleagues, committed civil disobedience at the White House in May, 1983, to bring attention to the extreme dangers of new US nuclear weapons being deployed in Europe.

Photo. From left, Dan Silver, Genie Silver, and Libby Frank. Libby, a member of the Greater Philadelphia Branch, founded WILPF’s Middle East Committee and served as the US Section’s Executive Director in the 1980s. In 1983, Genie, Libby, and four WILPF colleagues traveled to the USSR to meet with members of the Soviet Women’s Committee to discuss and take action on detente and nuclear disarmament. Photo by Michael Silver.

In the last 20 years, Genie has turned her attention to the plight of the Palestinian people. For the Middle East Committee, Genie has written many articles about the need to protect Palestinian children from being detained and tortured at the hands of Israel’s security and defense forces, in violation of International Humanitarian Laws. She also wrote about Israel’s codification of apartheid laws in July 2018. She’s written letters calling for the protection of Palestinian prisoners of conscience.

Genie’s work goes beyond WILPF—she’s a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and was an elected commissioner of her local township, Lower Merion, where she also co-chaired the township’s Open Space Preservation Commission. Genie wrote her PhD dissertation on Jane Addams’ political and peace work. As a professor of women’s and peace and conflict studies, Genie taught classes at Bryn Mawr College and in the Honors Program at Villanova University.

Marta Guttenburg, from the Philadelphia Jewish Voice for Peace, spoke at the reception, noting how the work of WILPF and JVP share common goals.

Libby Frank, longtime WILPFer and also a recipient of the Peace & Justice Dove Award, attended the event. Genie was joined at the reception by her husband, Mike, and son, Dan.

• 24 Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven

25 Mutually Insured Destruction! We called for SANITY, together with many other peace organisations