Roelfsema Anna

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Biografie:
Anna Roelfsema 1909-1992
Anna Roelfsema, Holland's most prominent woman climber, died in August 1992. She started to climb at the age of 15 and, with her brother Johan, was one of the first guideless climbers in Holland at a time when climbing without a guide was criticised by the Dutch Alpine Journal. Nevertheless, Anna and Johan (whose portrait is in the Alpine Museum in Zermatt) climbed many mountains together, amongst others the Breithorn Younggrat.
Working as a physiotherapist in a Hague hospital, Anna only had a fortnight's holiday, which she always spent in the Alps. She usually went to Zermatt, where she did the classic climbs including the Zmutt and Furggengrat on the Matterhorn. To her great'grief, her brother - having joined the Resistance - was shot in 1943. After the war, Anna returned to Zermatt and climbed with the well-known guides Knubel, Bernhard Biner and, later, with Bennie and Gottlieb Perren. Her climbs included the Zinal Rothorn E face and the Obergabelhorn S face. In 1969 she climbed the Riffelhorn with Tenzing Norgay.
In 1968, when she was on the Titlis in Engelberg with a group of top women climbers, inter alia Nea Morin, Esme Speakman and Eileen Healey, they founded, there and then, the 'Rendez-vous Hautes Montagnes' (RHM) in an attempt to open the climbers' world more to women. They also wished to seek contact with women climbers behind the Iron Curtain and invite them to the 'Free Alps'. This resulted in 24 years of meetings on rock and on ice with old and new friends, in different countries, including the former Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. Anna never missed a meeting.
Although she also climbed in the Dolomites, Wales, Scotland and France (Mont Blanc at the age of 61), Zermatt was her 'home' - usually as a guest of Hotel Monte Rosa. The Seilers, the Biner family, Pickelschmied Taugwalder, they were all close friends of hers. In 1969, after 33 years, she returned to the Breithorn, this time to climb the N face.
In various countries and in more than one generation, Anna had a large circle of friends, and she cherished them. The Bishop of Leicester and his wife (Cicely Williams), who spent their summers in Zermatt, invited her to their home. She was a warm-hearted person, full of interest in the climbing of the younger generation, who visited her and told her of their experiences. Her favourite saying was: 'The mountains give you so much happiness.'
Bernina de Mol van Otterloo
Quelle: Alpine Journal Vol. 98, 1993, Seite 324-325


Geboren am:
29.01.1909
Gestorben am:
08.1992