Stellingen ter verkrijging van den graad van Doctor in de Rechtswetenschap aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam - Willekes MacDonald, Ina Elisa 1886-1979 (1911)
Ina Elisa Willekens MacDonald (1886-1979) was an educational innovator and activist in the women's movement, the peace movement, and the Communist Party in the Netherlands. She was the daughter of François Willekes MacDonald, lawyer and attorney, and Pauline Johanna Reijnvaan, chairwoman of the local chapter of the Vereeniging voor Vrouwenkiesrecht for (eight years, city council member for the Vrijheidsbond and columnist for the Haarlemsch Dagblad. Encouraged by her mother, she campaigned for Montessori education in public schools. In Naarden-Bussum she started the children's home Vrijheid-Blijheid (1915). She was involved in the foundation of the Nederlandsche Montessori Vereeniging (1917) and the magazine 'Montessori opvoeding' (1918), and advised Kees Boeke in the establishment of his Werkplaats. She was head of several public Montessori schools. According to her, this method of education contributed to the formation of free people.Passionate about the Russian Revolution and what was happening in the young Soviet state, Ina Prins and her husband founded the Netherlands New Russia Society in 1928. In the organ of the society Culture (from 1929 New Russia) she wrote mainly about women's movement and educational renewal. In the 1930s, the struggle against advancing fascism came to the fore. She was editor of 'Women', the magazine of the communist-inspired World Women's Committee Against War and Fascism (1935-1939). For her, education was the key to the struggle. In 1932 she was appointed course director at the Zuider Volkshuis in Rotterdam. When the Communist Party in the Netherlands (CPN) also founded a Marxist Workers' School (1933) in Rotterdam, she taught statecraft, economics and history there for mostly unemployed workers. She did a lot of translation work for Pegasus, and this communist publisher also published her book 'De vrouw en de maatschappij' (The Woman and Society) in 1939. After the bombing of Rotterdam in 1940, Ina Prins moved to Bilthoven. In 1941 she and her daughter Sonja were arrested. Ina was released after six weeks, but her daughter was transferred to Ravensbrück concentration camp. Ina earned a living for herself and her daughter's three still-young children, whom she also cared for completely. After the war, she remained active in the CPN, the Dutch Women's Movement and the Dutch Peace Council until a very old age. In 'De Waarheid' she maintained a column entitled "Tactics in Education. After 1956 she continued to take sides with the Soviet Union. When the CPN turned away from it, this caused her increasing difficulties in party life. At ninety, this left her outside the CPN. In 1970 she was the only member of the older generation invited by the Dolle Mina's to speak at their first congress. Rightly so because until a very old age she remained remarkably young in spirit and young people felt attracted to her.
op gezag van den Rector-Magnificus Dr. J. te Winkel, Hoogleeraar in de Faculteit der Letteren en Wijsbegeerte, voor de Faculteit te verdedigen op dinsdag 4 juli 1911, des namiddags te 3 uur, door Ina Elisa Willekes MacDonald, geboren te haarlem
Keywords: 20th Century (1901-2000); Feminism; Law