Not many people can take something as tragic as the Holocaust and turn it into an opportunity to teach tolerance, love and acceptance, but that's what Martha Ollendorff did.
Ollendorff helped her husband create the Council of International Programs USA, an international work-exchange program based in Cleveland to bring social workers and young leaders together to spread peace, religious and racial tolerance and a respect for humanity.
Ollendorff, 101, died March 21 at Horizon Bay Assisted Living in Carollton, Ga. "She was active and energetic," said her son, Frank. "She had been skiing and hiking when she was a little girl, and at the age of 90, she was named swimmer of the year at Golds Gym in Carrollton."
"She continued walking up until a week before she passed away. She stopped swimming at 99."
Ollendorff was born Martha Burge Nov. 23, 1909, in Magdeburg, Germany. In 1938, Ollendorff and her husband, Dr. Henry Ollendorff, escaped Nazi Germany and came to the United States. He was of Jewish ancestry. She was a gentile. The Ollendorffs' first stop was New York. Henry earned a doctorate from Columbia University Graduate School of Social Work.
In 1940, Martha and Henry Ollendorff moved to Cleveland. She became a U.S. citizen in 1944.
In the 1940s when Henry managed the Friendly Inn Social Settlement, a neighborhood center that offered social services to immigrants and later black migrants from the South, one of the interns was Coretta Scott, the future wife of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Ollendorff cooked for Scott and the other interns and staff. They all shared the third-floor residential quarters of the settlement house, once located on East 37th Street and Woodland, with the Ollendorff family.
Ollendorff always minimized her role in establishing CIPUSA, which was created in 1956. She insisted that she was just a "volunteer." She remained a "volunteer" until 2000.
Ollendorff and her husband had a great effect on those who took part in the program. By 1960, participants established the Council of International Fellowship with the goal of creating cultural experiences and understanding on a international level. Over 30 countries have fellowship branches.
To be closer to her daughter Monica Ann, Ollendorff moved to Carrollton in 2000. Her husband died in 1979. Frank Ollendorff and his wife, Jane, said that they have received condolences from all over the world. "Words to describe her are sweet, elegant, intelligent, positive, warm, loving, incredible," they read from sympathy cards. "She always wanted to engage you," Jane said. "She always wanted to know what you were doing and for you to tell her about your life. Some focused on illness and inabilities, and she was the opposite of that."
One day the children came to visit Ollendorff, Jane remembered. Each child sat in front of her and politely greeted her. Jane said that the children seemed to be in awe of meeting someone Ollendorff's age. Even though she was feeling bad at the time, Ollendorff went out of her way to make each child feel special. "Everyone that met her felt that she really cared about him or her," Jane said. "She was positive and encouraging."