Edith Bán-Kiss

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Edith Kiss 1945 in front of her exhibition 'Deportation'
Edith Kiss in 1943 at work on the bust of her sister Alice

Edith Bán Kiss (born November 21, 1905 in Budapest , † October 27, 1966 in Paris ) was a Hungarian sculptor and painter .

Life

Edith (originally Hungarian: Edit) Kiss was the youngest of 4 daughters of the couple Dr. Frigyes and Melitta Rott in an assimilated Hungarian-Jewish family. In the twenties she studied sculpture at the art academies in Budapest and Düsseldorf . and painting with István Réti in the artists' colony of Nagybánya (Transylvania). In the 1930s, Edit Rott sympathized with a group of socialist artists. First marriage with Tivadar Bán. Chief Secretary at Dr. Sándor Kiss, the director of the Hitel Bank in Budapest. At the end of October 1944, forced labor in Hungary and deportation via Austria to the Ravensbrück women's concentration camp . On December 6, 1944, together with around 80 Hungarian Jewish women, transferred to forced labor at the Daimler-Benz Motoren GmbH plant , a Daimler-Benz subsidiary, in Genshagen near Ludwigsfelde. 1100 women from Ravensbrück had to assemble Daimler-Benz aircraft engines there . Towards the end of the war, returned to Ravensbrück, where the Jewish women from Genshagen were supposed to be murdered in the gas chamber, which was prevented by the advance of the Red Army . With her friend Ágnes Galambos (later Ágnes Bartha) they managed to escape from the death march near Strasen / Havel on April 30th . On adventurous routes via Berlin, Prague, Bratislava, return to Budapest on July 1, 1945.

In the weeks immediately after his return, Kiss painted the 30 gouaches for the “Deportation” cycle, first exhibition on September 22, 1945 in Budapest. Divorce and marriage with Sándor Kiss, with whom Edit emigrated to the West. In July 1948, when Sándor and Edit Kiss had already left, their main sculptural work was inaugurated at the synagogue in Budapest-Újpest: 4 large stone relief panels with depictions of the deportation march from Budapest to Austria, the forced labor, the extermination camp, the liberation. One of the earliest and most impressive artistically designed places of remembrance of the Holocaust, in memory of the more than 16,000 Jewish residents of Újpest who did not return from deportation.

Ousted and forgotten in Hungary after her departure, the later pictures by Edith Kiss often reflect the suffering from the deportation, and Edith finds no connection with art and artists in the West. After stays in Switzerland , Casablanca , Paris and London , Edith Kiss committed suicide in a hotel in Paris on the night of October 26-27, 1966.

plant

Her main sculptural work are the four relief panels on the outer wall of the synagogue in Budapest-Újpest.

Scattered are individual sculptures in Budapest museums and in private ownership. Approx. 50 gouaches and oil paintings have been found in the years since 1992. They are privately owned. Her main graphic work consists of a cycle of 30 gouaches about her experiences during the deportation. Reproductions of these images can be found in the biography of Edith Bán Kiss by Helmuth Bauer in his book “Inner images cannot get rid of. The women in the subcamp Daimler Benz Genshagen ”(2011) in Chapter 1:“ Nobody is to blame for my death ”.

Exhibitions after the artist's death

  • 1994: House Hungary Berlin
  • 1995: Ravensbrück Memorial and Memorial
  • 1995: Landtag Potsdam
  • 1995: Paris "La Déportation 1933 - 1945"
  • 1996: Budapest - Jewish Museum
  • 1997–1999: Ravensbrück Memorial and Memorial
  • 2010: Holocaust Memorial Budapest HDKE
  • 2013: Ravensbrück Memorial and Memorial
  • 2014: Budapest - Bálint ház

Honors

In the debate about the naming of a street in Berlin-Friedrichshain , the pirate faction Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg proposed to the memorial plaque commission that the street be named after Kiss. This proposal was followed on December 19, 2012 by a majority of the district assembly, with the CDU abstaining.

Since the road leads past the new nationwide sales center of Mercedes-Benz , the group wanted a representative address with a company connection. Suggestions for this were a name after Bertha Benz or Mercédès Jellinek . In a statement by the group after the decision it says:

“It is important and right to commemorate the victims of National Socialism. Therefore, we also support the decision of the district assembly. "

Edith-Kiss-Straße was officially named on February 13, 2014.

literature

  • Helmuth Bauer: You can't get rid of inner images. The women in the Daimler-Benz Genshagen satellite camp . Metropol Verlag, Berlin 2010 (series of publications by the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation , Volume 30), ISBN 978-3-940938-88-6 . (In it Chapter 1: Biography Edith Bán Kiss (1905–1966), pp. 20–147 and Figures 1–153)

Movie

  • Helmuth Bauer: "Kiss Edit: Elveszett kepék (Lost Pictures)". 1. Hungarian TV MTV1, 1997, 60 min

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Working Group Confrontations Berlin: Edith Kiss
  2. ↑ Minutes of the meeting of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Memorial Plaque Commission on September 27, 2012, 4:00 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. ( Memento from May 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 66 kB)
  3. ↑ Berlin snubs Daimler. In: The daily newspaper of December 21, 2012
  4. ↑ Statement from Mercedes-Benz Sales Germany on the renaming of the street in front of the new sales center in Berlin's Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg district after the forced laborer Edith Kiss. ( Memento from February 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 56 kB)
  5. ↑ An Edith-Kiss-Strasse for Berlin!
personal data
SURNAME Ban-Kiss, Edith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bán Kiss, Edith; Kiss, Edith
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian sculptor and painter
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1966
Place of death Paris