Bertha Pappenheim was born in Vienna. Following her father’s death, she suffered from a psychosomatic paralysis, which was treated by the psychoanalyst Joseph Breuer. Sigmund Freud described her case in one of his most celebrated studies, in which she is identified as ‘Anna O’, and regarded her case as a major breakthrough in psychoanalysis.
In 1888 she arrived as a healthy young woman in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where her mother lived. Becoming involved in social work, her passion for social justice was aroused and she founded a national federation for Jewish women, the Juedischer Frauenbund, affiliated to the German women’s movement.
Pappenheim headed an orphanage for Jewish girls and founded a home for disturbed Jewish girls and unwed mothers. She fought the white slave trade and the selling of Jewish girls into prostitution. She traveled throughout Europe propagating her views.
Pappenheim translated into German the memoirs of her ancestor, Glueckel of Hameln.