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Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen is a Berlin native, having studied Music and Languages in Berlin, Perugia, and Rome. She has worked as a journalist for radio, TV, and the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. She has also published books and short stories, such as Zwei Bäume in Jerusalem (“Two Trees in Jerusalem”), which tells the story of her parents who saved some hundred Jewish lives. Yad Vashem honored her parents as “Righteous among the Nations” by planting a tree for each of them. In the late 1960s, she started her political career in the German Liberal Party (FDP). Ms. Schmalz-Jacobsen started as a member of the City Council of Munich and was later appointed Senator of the City of Berlin’s Government. In 1990, she was elected to the Bundestag. A year later, the federal government appointed Ms. Schmalz-Jacobsen as a Commissioner working on immigrant and refugee issues. She left Parliament in November 1998. Since that time, she has held a variety of positions in several public organizations, including serving as chairworman of Humanity in Action Germany for many years. She is the Honorary Chair of Humanity in Action Germany and is also an honorary board member of Humanity in Action, Inc.
Updated May 2019
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