Barbara Levinger

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Barbara Levinger (born December 26, 1904 in Mannheim , † December 10, 1944 in Wiesbaden ), pseudonym Barbara Lee , was a German actress and writer . According to the Nuremberg Race Laws passed in 1935, she was “ half-Jewish ” because her father Hermann Levinger was Jewish , her mother Maria was of Christian origin. As a victim of National Socialism , she chose to commit suicide by poison on December 8, 1944 .

Life

Barbara Levinger worked as an actress in the 1920s. She was considered gifted and was temporarily employed at the Konstanz City Theater. Later she devoted herself to writing. She took the stage name "Barbara Lee". In 1931 her only novel was published with the title Johann Zundler .

In 1930 the family moved to Wiesbaden. There it was hoped that a healing spring would provide relief for her mother Maria Levinger, who had gout, but she died in 1933.

During the "Third Reich" , father and daughter were undoed by their Jewish origins. In December 1944, they poisoned themselves in their Wiesbaden apartment after learning that their family was about to be deported.

Commemoration

tomb

Today a memorial stone on the cemetery chapel in Überlingen cemetery commemorates the Levinger family. The family's graves are cared for by the city as graves of honor .

Literary commemoration

It is thanks to the Überlingen authors Oswald Burger and Hansjörg Straub that the Levingers are preserved in literary memory. In her documentary volume Die Levinger. For a family in Überlingen , the authors tried to reconstruct traces of this destroyed existence and to trace the life of the former Überlingen district administrator, his wife Maria and daughter Barbara using traces that can still be found.

Stumbling blocks

The fully researched book on the fate of the persecuted Levinger family serves as the basis for laying three so-called “ stumbling blocks ” in front of the former official residence of Hermann Levinger and his family. The former district office, which later became the district office, is now part of the city administration.

The stones were laid on September 8, 2005 and have a brass plaque on the top, on which the heading “Here lived” and the date of death are inscribed with a hammer and stamped letters. The text says:

LIVED HERE / COUNTRY COUNCIL / HERMANN LEVINGER / born 1865 / TOT / 8 December 1944 - LIVED HERE / BARBARA LEVINGER / BARBARA LEE / born 1904 / TOT / 10 December 1944

  • Stumbling block for Barbara Levinger

  • Stumbling block for her father Hermann Levinger

  • Stumbling block for Barbara and Hermann Levinger

Novel "Johann Zundler"

content

The novel Johann Zundler tells the story of the servant Johann Zundler, who is accused of being an arsonist because of his name and red hair. The tragic story takes place in a rural community in the hinterland of Überlingen.

The novel did not get a great response. It was not until Manfred Bosch , a writer from Bad Dürrheim, made his award-winning Bohème on Lake Constance in 1997 . Literary life at the lake from 1900 to 1950 again attracted his attention.

review

Why the upper-class Lee chose a subject "that had little to do with her own milieu, we do not know exactly," says Hansjörg Straub. Your hero in the novel is a poor boy who has suffered from his fiery red hair and the fatally matching surname “Zundler” from childhood. Later he changed his surname, but Johann did not escape his lot. Oswald Burger and Hansjörg Straub recall parallels to Levinger's own fate. “She also tried to change her name. And those around her forced exactly the fate from which she wanted to flee. ”Just as Zundler's hair happens to be red, two of Barbara Levinger's grandparents happen to be Jews. “This placed a burden on them that had to crush them. Ultimately, both were not allowed to be anything other than what society ascribed to them. "

Lee tells the story in a no-frills style. Although their language is conventional, their style "stands out from kitschy images of nature, even from the blood and soil prose of some contemporaries."

Lee describes the new schoolhouse that the boy Johann visits and the pictures on the walls, including a scene that is supposed to depict the coronation of Charlemagne, particularly memorable. Zundler is deeply impressed by the purple splendor. He is all the more excited for the current emperor's short visit to the village. But only a prosaic gentleman in uniform rushes past.

When the students were asked to write an essay about their flying visit, the shy Zundler stood up for the first time without being asked and said stubbornly: “That wasn't the emperor.” He experienced his first disappointment, “The large, colorful garden of his imagination was destroyed for life. "A Swiss critic thought this was exaggerated, but he attests to Lee" the gift of empathy ... a clear observation of the village people and their circumstances and ... a captivating gift of storytelling. "

Poetry

Poems by Barbara Levinger have appeared in the following books and magazines:

  • Norbert Jacques (Ed.): Das Bodenseebuch , 10th year 1923, Konstanz (1922), pp. 59–60 ( poems )
  • Badische Heimat , Karlsruhe, 11th year 1924, p. 51 ( The white dinghy ) and 60 ( The butterfly )
  • Bruno Goetz (Ed.): Überlinger Almanach , Überlingen: Benz 1925

literature

  • Kürschner's German Literature Calendar 46.1932, column 1630; 47.1934, col. 489; 48.1937 / 38 no longer recorded
  • Manfred Bosch : Bohème on Lake Constance. Literary life on the lake from 1900 to 1950. Libelle, Lengwil am Bodensee, 2nd edition 1997 ( Jüdische Literatur am Bodensee , pp. 59–75, on Barbara Levinger p. 64) ISBN 3-909081-75-4
  • Oswald Burger, Hansjörg Straub: The Levingers. A family in Überlingen. Edition Isele, Eggingen 2002, ISBN 3-86142-117-8

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b Warning stumbling blocks . In: Südkurier from April 6, 2005
  2. ↑ Hanspeter Walter: Against forgetting . In: Südkurier from September 9, 2005
  3. ↑ Hanspeter Walter: Stumbling blocks only symbolically relocated . In: Südkurier of April 11, 2005
  4. ↑ Tobias Engelsing: Traces of an extinguished existence . In: Südkurier of April 8, 2003
  5. ↑ Levinger family . In: Südkurier of November 18, 2008
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Sylvia Floetemeyer: Tragic hero with fiery red hair . In: Südkurier of September 17, 2002
  7. ↑ The Levingers return to Überlingen. In: Südkurier of September 10, 2002.
personal data
SURNAME Levinger, Barbara
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lee, Barbara (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German actress and writer
DATE OF BIRTH December 26, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH December 10, 1944
Place of death Wiesbaden