Edith Oppenheim-Jonas
Born in 1907.
Died in 2001.
Edith Oppenheim-Jonas is documented as an artist working across several media—watercolour, oil painting, and the execution of murals—and her name is associated in the sources with the character “Papa Moll”, to whom a retrospective exhibition was devoted under the title “Frau Papa Moll”. The notices also state that the “Papa Moll” books sold more than one million copies, a wording reproduced verbatim from the sources consulted.
Several notices report Baden as her place of death, while the Historical Dictionary of Switzerland specifies Ennetbaden. From a family that had left Germany for Switzerland in 1910, she was raised between Alsace and Baden and completed commercial training, earning a Handelsmatura. In 1932, she married J.
Eric Oppenheim, a British national; she had three children and, according to the sources, being of German origin, was subsequently naturalised as a Swiss citizen.
Her public career began early: her first exhibition is dated to 1929, a collaboration with the satirical publication Nebelspalter is recorded from 1938 onwards, and regular exhibitions are mentioned from 1950. During the Second World War, the family unsuccessfully attempted twice to emigrate to England—via Geneva and via France; Edith Oppenheim-Jonas then remained in Baden and was naturalised after the war.
In artistic terms, the sources specify works in watercolour and oil, as well as murals designed for public buildings.
Local recognition also forms part of the record: in 1985, the city of Baden awarded her the “Humororden”; according to the notices, she was the first woman to receive this honour. On the occasion of her centenary, the Historisches Museum Baden devoted a commemorative exhibition to her under the title “Frau Papa Moll”.
