Marie Simon

Marie Simon (; (Janašec); 26 August 1824 – 20 February 1877) was a Sorbian nurse who co-founded the , a precursor to the German Red Cross, following her experience as battlefield nurse during the Austro-Prussian War. She later became one of the principal German nurses of the Franco-Prussian War, organizing the nursing staff and food distribution at the military hospital in Nancy. Simon later established several medical facilities in Dresden and devoted the rest of her life to the training of new nurses. She was highly regarded in Germany, with a contemporary physician referring to her as the "Saxon Florence Nightingale". Biography Marie Jannasch was born on 26 August 1824 in the predominately Sorbian village of in the Kingdom of Saxony. Born out-of-wedlock to Anna Jannasch, her father was allegedly a shepherd from Göda named Johann Haucke. She was primarily raised by her maternal grandfather Johann Jannasch, a local innkeeper, and was Protestant. She attended elementary school in Gnaschwitz, where she learned German; prior to this, Sorbian was the only language she spoke. Orphaned at age 11, she spent much of her adolescence in the neighboring Austrian Empire. Sometime around this period, she was married to a man surnamed Rohseck, though they later divorced. In 1852, she moved to Dresden in Saxony and married Friedrich Anton Simon, a white goods merchant, the following year. Together they ran a lingerie store on the , and their daughter Olga Eugenie later married Saxon court photographer . She received a nursing education through internships at the and the , and was granted Saxon citizenship in 1863. Simon was a volunteer nurse during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and was present in the aftermath of the Battle of Königgrätz, where over 900 wounded soldiers had been left in the field without medical care. Returning several days later with a large stock of supplies, she tended to the wounded for 17 weeks. In 1867, Simon and Carola of Vasa co-founded the , a precursor to the German Red Cross named for Carola's husband Crown Prince Albert. Carola personally appointed Simon to the board of directors, where she was tasked with supervision over the nursesreferred to as "Albertines" – and management of treatment for the poor. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Simon and twelve other Albertines were embedded with the German army.