Eliška Kleinová

Eliška Kleinová (born February 27, 1912 in Přerov , Moravia , † September 2, 1999 in Prague ) was a Czech piano teacher of Jewish origin.

biography

Eliška Kleinová was born as the second daughter of the married couple Helene Klein. Ilona Marmorstein and Jindřich Klein were born in Prerau as Elisabeth ("Lisa") Klein. She received her (actually incorrectly translated) Czech name when she started school. After her first music lessons with Karel Mařík in 1922, she moved to Prague in 1929 at the local conservatory a. a. to study piano with Jan Heřman . There she met Erik Adolf Saudek and Rafael Schächter . From here she also made sure that her brother Gideon was also taught in Prague. Gideon came to Prague once a month, but later moved in with her. Her mother followed in 1934. In 1935 she completed her studies with Jan Heřman with the Mozart Piano Concerto in D minor KV 466.

In the same year her sister Edita, born in 1909, came back from Palestine via France , to which she had emigrated in 1929. Her sister was forced to return because she had been arrested several times as a member of the Communist Party . Upon arrival in Prague, the sister continued to work for the Red Aid and also included Eliška Kleinová, who was still traveling to Vienna as a secret messenger in 1937 .

persecution

In November 1939 the Czech universities were closed. Her brother-in-law was arrested in May 1940 and her sister Edita was arrested in August of the same year.

After her brother Gideon was deported to Theresienstadt as "AK" (construction command) from December 1st to 4th, 1941 , she was deported on July 16, 1942. With the help of Gideon, she was brought to an attic of a house with her mother the barracks below. She could work in a children's home and later in a bakery.

She took an active part in the compositional work of her brother, who dedicated the works to her. In contrast to her brother, however, she did not take part in the cultural life in Theresienstadt. When there was a risk that single women would be deported, Eliška and the composer Hans Krása, who was a friend of her and her brother, formally married on August 22, 1943 - but later divorced.

From October 12 to 14, 1944, she was deported to Auschwitz together with her mother and aunt . During the selection, she was separated from her mother and aunt. In Auschwitz, she learned of the execution of her brother-in-law in Munich in 1942 and the death of her sister in Auschwitz in 1943 during a typhus epidemic. After a few weeks she was sent to the Kurzbach satellite camp near Opole . On January 21, 1945, she was able to flee with Gertruda Sekaninová and six other women on a multi-day withdrawal march in Wohlau and arrived in Prague on January 29. Here Erik Saudek helped her to hide in the Smíchov district until the uprising on May 5, 1945.

She also received a last letter from Erik Saudek from her brother Gideon, which Fritz Gratum was able to smuggle out of Fürstengrube. The composer Vojtěch Saudek , son of Erik Saudek, dedicated a piano concerto to Gideon Klein .

Commitment to Gideon Klein

After the war she worked as a piano teacher and fought to make the works of her murdered brother and Hans Krásas known . In 1946, Pavel Štěpán gave the world premiere of Gideon Klein's piano sonata .

But it wasn't until the 1970s that she was able to initiate a musicological review of the documents. When a suitcase with previously unknown manuscripts was discovered by Gideon Klein in 1991, her brother was so well known thanks to this work that the works found were performed in a short time. In 1993 the complete works of Gideon Klein appeared in print.

Piano teacher

In the 1950s she too suffered from political developments and was kicked out of the conservatory in 1952. It was not until 1954 that she was able to rehabilitate herself to such an extent that she could work in music education again. She later published collections of studies. Her piano school of sight reading, published together with Fišerová and Müllerová, is well known . In October 1993, when she was almost 82 years old, she was invited by the EPTA (European Piano Teacher Association) to give a lecture in Mainz , the popularity of which moved her very much.

literature

• Peter Ambros: Life played from sight . ISBN 3-935712-21-9 (life story based on a tape interview from 1994)

Web links

• Nadace Gideona Kleina - The Gideon Klein Foundation
• Anna Hájková , The Piano Virtuoso Who Didn't Play in Terezín, or, Why Gender Matters , Orel Foundation, May 6, 2011.