Professor emerita in the iSchool dies
Daily Orange File Photo
Antje Bultmann Lemke taught undergraduate and graduate students in the iSchool from 1952 to 1986.
UPDATED: May 23, 2017 at 10:18 p.m.
Antje Bultmann Lemke, a professor emerita in Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, died earlier this week at the age of 98, the university announced on Thursday.
Courtesy of Syracuse University
Lemke taught undergraduate and graduate students in the iSchool from 1952 to 1986. She also tutored and taught at SU programs in Germany and Puerto Rico, according to an SU News release.
In 1952, Lemke was hired by the university to be its art and music librarian. She received a master of library science degree from the iSchool — then called the School of Library Science — in 1954.
According to the SU News release, Lemke moved from West Germany to the United States in the late 1940s.
Growing up, Lemke dreamed of becoming a doctor, but membership in the Nazi Party was required to attend medical school in Germany in the 1930s. Lemke became a librarian instead because the profession did not require Nazi Party membership.
As a librarian, Lemke helped hide people fleeing Nazi persecution. As a courier for the German Resistance, she also delivered papers and documents that helped people gain freedom and safety, according to the news release.
After World War II, Lemke helped found “Informationen fur die Frau,” a journal with a mission to help women achieve equal status in society and safeguard democracy, international understanding and international solidarity.
In 1998 Lemke was named a Righteous Gentile by the Temple Society of Concord.
Throughout her career, Lemke worked to preserve and document the works of Albert Schweitzer, a theologian, philosopher and physician, according to the SU News release. She translated two of Schweitzer’s books into English and helped SU acquire Schweitzer’s papers.
A room in SU’s Special Collections Research Center and a conference room in Hinds Hall are both named after Lemke.
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, Antje Bultmann Lemke was misnamed in a photo caption and the preview text. The Daily Orange regrets this error.
Published on May 19, 2017 at 7:49 pm
Contact Jordan: jmulle01@syr.edu | @jordanmuller18
