Aria Goral-Sternheim

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Arie Goral-Sternheim (born October 16, 1909 in Rheda (Westphalia); † April 23, 1996 in Hamburg ; also Arie Goral ; born Walter Lovis Sternheim ) was a German painter and publicist .

Life

Youth in Germany

Sternheim was born to German-Jewish parents. He was a nephew of the consumer cooperative and Hamburg Senator Max Mendel . The family soon moved to Hamburg, where shortly after the First World War he was involved in Zionist youth organizations. The confrontation with the growing anti-Semitism led him to the "Young Jewish Wandering Association" of socialist Zionism .

From 1925 Sternheim completed a commercial apprenticeship in Hamburg and at the same time systematically prepared for emigration to Palestine (" Alija "). Martin Buber visited his youth group several times in Heppenheim .

From 1928 to 1932 Sternheim trained as a member of the Cheruth kibbutz on agricultural farms in the Hamelin area in the sense of the Hachschara .

emigration

At the beginning of 1933, Sternheim experienced the seizure of power in Germany and in May 1933 first emigrated to France , from where he was finally granted permission to immigrate to Palestine in 1934.

In Palestine, Sternheim adopted the name " Arie Goral ". (Aria = Hebrew for "lion"; Goral = Hebrew for "fate" '). He worked in various professions, but soon discovered his artistic interests. Goral began to write poetry, met Arnold Zweig and Else Lasker-Schüler in Jerusalem , and opened a children's painting studio in Rehovot .

After participating in the War of Independence in 1948, Goral decided in 1950 to study in Italy, which lasted until 1953. In 1951 Goral became a German citizen again .

Living in the Federal Republic of Germany

Goral initially stayed for a short time in Munich , where he had been invited by Erich Kästner to present his collection of Israeli children's pictures in the local international youth library . The IJB was founded by the Jewish writer Jella Lepman on behalf of the US military authorities after the war. There he met Leonhard Frank , Alfred Polgar , Fritz Kortner , Max Steffel , Luise Rinser and the former US officer Stefan Heym , who had moved to the GDR .

Goral then returned to his hometown Hamburg in October 1953, where he initially sublet lived with the Wohlwill family. After that he moved into a small chamber in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel for a short time , in the building of the “Association of Municipal Children's Homes”, for which he worked. He set up the young studio in its basement . He then moved to the Hamburg-Eppendorf district , where he set up the uhu gallery . The main focus of his life was the Grindel , which before 1933 had been the center of Jewish life in Hamburg and whose chronicler he was to become in the following years.

From 1956 Goral returned to literary activity and soon became a sharp critic of the superficial ritualized philosemitism of the Adenauer era (“ Week of Brotherhood ”), which at the same time brought about the rehabilitation of people like Hans Globke and Theodor Oberländer . Despite their involvement in National Socialism, these rose to high state offices without any problems. At the same time, Goral was committed to the peace movement in Germany, and at the end of the sixties increasingly against the resurgent right-wing extremism .

Arie Goral-Sternheim married Eva Peters (1925–2020) in 1968, who after the marriage under the name Eva Sternheim-Peters wrote the book 'Did I cheer alone?' brought out. Goral made a name for himself in Hamburg through his numerous actions in the art scene (1975 controversy about the Hamburger Kunstverein ). He stood out in particular through his commitment to a new Heinrich Heine monument and the naming of the state and university library after the Hamburg publicist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky .

Gravestone Arie Goral, Walter Lovis Sternheim , Ohlsdorf Jewish Cemetery (Ilandkoppel)

In 1979 Goral published an article in the anthology "Fremd im Eigen Land" edited by Henryk M. Broder . There he calculated u. a. self-critically with his own role as a “philosemitic fictional character” (quote from Goral) in the 1950s. In the 1980s, Goral criticized the fact that Jewish topics and Jewish culture were increasingly being used as a trendy entertainment item for the German intelligentsia. In this context, he repeatedly attacked both Broder and the Hamburg theater director Peter Zadek .

Arie Goral remained true to both his pacifist beliefs and his Jewish identity until his death. For example, he protested against the US intervention in Iraq in 1991 , at the same time he vehemently rejected calls for a boycott against Israel during the “ First Intifada ” in 1988 and diagnosed increasing left anti-Semitism.

In 1982 he received the Biermann Ratjen Medal from the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg for his artistic services to the city.

Goral died on April 23, 1996 in Hamburg. He was buried as Walter Louis Sternheim in the Ilandkoppel Jewish Cemetery. With the exception of the pictures, almost all of the estate lies in the Hamburg Institute for Social Research . The pictures are distributed between the Jewish Museum Rendsburg and the Jewish Museum Frankfurt .

With a Senate resolution of June 12, 2019, the Grindelhof / Hartungstrasse / Rutschbahn intersection in the Grindelviertel in Rotherbaum was given the name Arie-Goral-Platz .

Works

  • Arie Goral: I am a Jew, therefore I am . In: Henryk M. Broder and Michel R. Lang (eds.): Strange in their own country. Jews in the Federal Republic . Foreword by Bernt Engelmann , Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 1979, 373 pages, ISBN 3-596-23801-3 , (Fischer-Taschenbücher; 3801), pp. 203-221; 18. – 19. Th., 1987
  • Walter Lovis Arie Sternheim Goral: At midnight . Hamburg: Verlag Neue Presse, 1983, 84 pp. (Collection of poems from the years 1942–1982 as well as “Review of our own cause”)
  • Arie Goral-Sternheim: Jeckepotz. A Jewish-German youth 1914-1933 . VSA-Verlag, Hamburg 1989, 201 pages, ISBN 3-87975-457-8 ; 2., unchanged. Ed., Supplemented by a foreword by Jan Philipp Reemtsma . Hamburg: LIT Verlag, publishing house for scientific literature, 1996, ISBN 3-8258-3168-X (adaptation, self-assertion, resistance; 10)
  • Arie Goral: At the borderline. No way as a Jew and a German? LIT Verlag, Münster, Hamburg 1994, II, 200 pages, ISBN 3-8258-2143-9 (adaptation, self-assertion, resistance; Volume 6)
  • Arie Goral-Sternheim: In the shadow of the synagogue , Hamburg, reprint in 2002 of the extended new edition from 1994, State Center for Political Education, ISBN 3-929728-58-3

literature

  • No way as a Jew and a German? The painter, publicist and poet Arie Goral . Ed. Raphael Gross and Erik Riedel, Frankfurt 2007, ISBN 978-3-9809814-7-9 Catalog of the Jewish Museum of the City of Frankfurt for the exhibition of the same name.
  • Arie Goral: paintings, gouaches and etchings from the estate . Editing Frauke Dettmer + Christian Rathke, Jewish Museum Rendsburg and Dr.-Bamberger Haus, Rendsburg 1998

Exhibitions

  • Frankfurt: February 15 to May 20, 2007. Jewish Museum Frankfurt, Judengasse: approx. 100 paintings, works on paper, prints, essays and poems. (Review: Frankfurter Rundschau February 16, 2007, Kultur Rhein-Main)
  • Hamburg: September 7th to December 9th, 2007 in the Museum of Hamburg History : Fled from Germany. Hamburg artist in exile. 1933-1945 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Grave register of the Jewish cemetery Ohlsdorf
  2. ↑ Senate resolution of June 12, 2019, published in Official Gazette No. 48 of June 21, 2019, accessed on November 30, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Goral-Sternheim, Aria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sternheim, Walter Lovis; Sternheim, Walter A.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH October 16, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Rheda
DATE OF DEATH April 23, 1996
Place of death Hamburg