Esther Hautzig
Esther R. Hautzig (née Rudomin) (born October 18, 1930 in Vilnius , † November 1, 2009 in New York ) was an American author and translator.
Live and act
Esther Rudomin was born in Vilnius, Poland at that time . Her childhood was interrupted by World War II and the occupation of eastern Poland by the Soviet Union. Her family was uprooted and deported to Rubtsovsk in Siberia . There she lived in rough exile for the next 5 years. Her book The Endless Steppe is an autobiography about the years in Siberia. After the war, she and her family moved back to Poland, when she was 15 years old. Hautzig wrote to presidential candidate Adlai Steverson , who had written an article about his visit to Rubtsovsk . She used this as a drive for her book "The endless steppe", which was published in 1968.
At that time, Hautzig saw no future for himself in Poland and went to Sweden. There she got a student visa in 1947 and was able to travel to the United States on the passenger steamer “ Drottningholm ”. During this trip she made the acquaintance of the concert pianist Walter Hautzig , whom she married three years later in New York. The couple had two children: Deborah (* 1956) and David.
In New York, Hautzig attended James Madison High School in Brooklyn to qualify for studies in the United States. She then attended Hunter College ( City University of New York ). She broke off her studies without a degree because it was predicted that with her pronounced accent she would not find a job as a teacher. The publisher George P. Putnam (1887–1950) brought them to his publishing house "GP Putnam's Sons" and entrusted them with the children's books to be published there.
In 1993 Hautzig visited Vilnius again and helped with the discovery and finally with the publication of her uncle Ela-Chaim Cunzer's (1914–1943 / 44) master's thesis in mathematics, which he had written in 1937 at the University of Vilnius . He died in a labor camp.
Hautzig died on November 1, 2009 in New York-Presbyterian Hospital of heart failure and Alzheimer's disease .
Honors
- 1968 Sydney Taylor Book Award for The Endless Steppe
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hautzig was the first recipient of this award.
Web links
- Literature by and about Esther Hautzig in the catalog of the German National Library
- Joseph Berger: Obituary . In: The New York Times of November 3, 2009 (English)
- Christia Mahler: Searching for my German great-grandfather in Siberia (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Skiny, Esther |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hautzig, Esther R .; Rudomin, Esther R. (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 18, 1930 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vilnius |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 1, 2009 |
| Place of death | new York |