Gerta Stern

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Gerta Stern (* October 24, 1915 in Vienna as Gerta Lagodzinsky ; † May 28, 2018 ) was an Austrian actress and beautician who fled the National Socialists as a Jew in 1938 and her husband, the football player Moses Stern, was released from the concentration camp Sachsenhausen obtained. In 2016, the German author Anne Siegel published a book about her life story.

biography

Gerta Stern was born in Vienna in 1915 as the third child of Sofie, née Singer, and Bernhard Lagodzinsky. Her two brothers had died before Gerta's birth. Gerta's uncle Siegfried Translateur , a half-brother of her father, was a successful composer. Another uncle, her mother's twin brother, ran the Vienna Westbahnhof .

In 1923 Gerta won a competition entitled "Who's the next Jackie Coogan ?" She then appeared in plays and took acting lessons. In 1927 her father died unexpectedly of a heart attack.

In 1931, the composer Hermann Leopoldi (then 42 years old) courted 16-year-old Gerta, which her mother disgustedly rejected. At this time Gerta gave up acting and trained as a beautician. After completing her training, she worked as a teacher at her cosmetics school, now of legal age. After six months she was released because she was Jewish.

A little later she met the professional footballer from SC Hakoah Vienna, Moses "Munio" Stern, whom she married on October 8, 1938. The Jewish ceremony had to take place in secret, as Jewish religious practice was no longer tolerated. Even before the wedding, the couple had decided to emigrate to South Africa , where Moses' sister Lola already lived. The visas were from Lola to Hamburg sent as South Africa not in Vienna consulate had.

The couple took the train to Hamburg, where they stayed with relatives. They went to the South African consulate almost every day, but the visas did not arrive. On the night of November 9th to 10th , Moses was arrested by the SA in the apartment and taken away; their host and his sons had already been arrested that morning - Moses and Gerta had hidden in the bathroom.

Gerta now had a double goal: to free her husband and to get visas. After being turned away at many consulates, she was finally able to apply for a visa for Panama . Shortly afterwards, she achieved the liberation of her husband through a hussar act : she resolutely entered the Hamburg Gestapo headquarters, played the resolute, slightly confused Austrian with an almost incomprehensible dialect and claimed that her husband's arrest was an accident as they were only passing through and had visas for South Africa. In fact, the release of Moses, who had meanwhile been brought to Sachsenhausen, was arranged.

One condition of the release was that Moses had to leave Hamburg within 24 hours. He traveled again to Vienna, while Gerta in Hamburg organized the departure with the help of Otto Dettmers .

Gerta, Moses and his younger brother Siegfried traveled to Panama on the MS Cordillera, a modern passenger ship. Gerta had to borrow the money for the passage from one of her unfamiliar fellow travelers, which she wanted to repay in Panama. They boarded the ship in Brittany , where they went by train after Moses and Siegfried had come to Hamburg from Vienna.

Gerta opened a cosmetic studio in Panama, Moses was successful as a jewelry dealer. In addition, Moses worked as a football manager; During his time as manager, the Panamanian national team won the Central American Championship in 1951 .

In 1958 Gerta and Moses had a daughter who died at the age of 13 from an incorrectly given injection . From 1973 Gerta and Moses drove from Panama to Bad Hofgastein every summer , where they performed together in the Grand Park Hotel: Gerta as a singer and Moses with a comedic magic show. Moses died in Vienna in 1991 while watching a football game on television.

The German author Anne Siegel happened upon the life story of Gerta Stern while doing research in Panama and published a widely acclaimed biography in 2016.

Gerta Stern died on May 28, 2018 at the age of 102.

literature

  • Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta - How a Viennese Jew who escaped to Panama tricked the Nazis. Europa Verlag , Munich 2016

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 43
  2. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 46
  3. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 59
  4. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 63
  5. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, pp. 69–70
  6. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 72
  7. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 79
  8. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 84
  9. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, pp. 95-106
  10. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, pp. 149–153
  11. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 158
  12. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 164
  13. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 188
  14. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, pp. 196-208
  15. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, pp. 209–210
  16. ^ Anne Siegel: Señora Gerta, p. 213
  17. ↑ Escape from the Nazi Empire . In: westfalen-blatt.de. Westfalen-Blatt , June 23, 2018, accessed October 5, 2019.
  18. ↑ Anne Siegel / Author , May 29, 2018, accessed October 5, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Stern, Gerta
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lagodzinsky, Gerta (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian actress and beautician
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 2018