Angelica EisenhardtMay 8, 1925 - July 8, 2017Angelica Eisenhardt (nee Benndorf) passed away peacefully in her home in Oakland, CA on July 8th, 2017. She was surrounded by her loving family.

Angelica was born on May 8th, 1925 in Freiburg, Germany, and lived in Hamburg until she fled Nazi persecution with her mother and sister at the age of twelve. Thus began Angelica's remarkable story of survival and her immersion in different cultures and languages, which were great passions in her life. After brief stays in Switzerland and Italy, Angelica and her family went to Uruguay, where she spent her adolescence. In her early twenties, she joined her mother and aunts in San Francisco, and soon after began her studies at UC Berkeley. Angelica was an active resident of International House at Cal and met her husband Rudolf, also a Jewish refugee from Germany. They moved from Berkeley to Chicago, where they had their first child, and then settled in Philadelphia where Angelica lived for decades and raised her three children. She completed her graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania and was a high school language teacher for many years, though her dream was to work with the United Nations. She was an ardent supporter of public schools, the teachers' union, the civil rights movement, and a member of Women Strike for Peace. Upon her retirement from full-time teaching, Angelica moved back to Berkeley to be close to her children and grandchildren.

Angelica truly loved people and was passionate about travel, language, music, and the outdoors. She was fluent in German, French, Italian, Spanish, and English. She traveled throughout her life and remained internationally connected in Berkeley by working as an interpreter and teaching English to visiting scholars and their families. Angelica loved music and was devoted to the arts. She regularly attended concerts, plays, and art exhibits and sang in the Berkeley Community Chorus for 25 years.

Angelica is survived by her three children, Miriam, Peter, and Monica, and their spouses Edward, Mary Ellen, and Jonathan. Angelica was "Omi" to Marina, Kate, Luke, Nicholas, Eric, and Zohe, her grandchildren, who were her great joys. She will be greatly missed by her family as well as the community she cultivated locally and across the world. A celebration of Angelica's life will take place in September. In lieu of flowers, she asked that donations be made to the American Friends Service Committee (http://www.afsc.org)to support their efforts in promoting world peace.