Gertrude Blom - Europe 1901-1940

Europe 1901-1940

Gertrude Blom was born in the Swiss Alps, in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. She grew up in the village of Wimmis, where her father Otto Lörtscher was a minister and much of her childhood play was influenced by the wild west tales of Carl May. After completing a horticulture degree in 1918, Blom attended a school for social work in Zurich. There she became a member of the Socialist Party and developed an interest in journalism and politics. She left school and traveled throughout Europe, speaking and organizing on behalf of the Socialist Party. In 1925 she got married with Kurt Düby (1900–1951). Blom ended up in Germany during Adolf Hitler's early years as chancellor and reported on the growing Nazi brutality for Swiss newspapers. Her work as an anti-fascist organizer, speaker, and journalist led her to Paris, where she joined the international movement against Nazi Germany. In 1939, after Blom was arrested and deported back to Switzerland, she planned to travel to New York and raise funds for war refugees, but a sudden change of heart led her to join the mass emigration of pacifists, communists, labor leaders, artists and Jews welcomed to Mexico by President Lázaro Cárdenas.