Gerti Elias

Gerti Elias at a reading in the Anne Frank Center in Berlin , 2012.

Gertrude Elias , née Gertrude Wiedner (born May 8, 1933 in Oberhaag ) is an Austrian-Swiss actress and author .

Life

Gerti Elias grew up in Austria. After her training as an actress, she had engagements on major stages in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In 1965 she married Anne Frank's cousin and Swiss actor Buddy Elias . In 1986 they moved to Basel, where Gerti took over the antique business of her mother-in-law Leni Elias.

Gerti Elias is still an active member of the foundation board of the Anne Frank Fund in Basel. She looks after donations and requests for funding - above all, she formulates recommendations to the Board of Trustees in line with Anne and Otto Frank's ideas. The goals of the support from the Anne Frank Fund are educational and unifying people (e.g. to bring Jewish and Arab students together), against racism, for understanding between religions, projects in schools, etc.

Gerti Elias was also in charge of the ethics chair at the University of Basel , which was donated by the Anne Frank Fund.

publication

Gerti Elias discovered more than 6000 documents, letters and some photos of Anne Frank's family and ancestors in the attic of Buddy Elias 'parents' house. In the Anne Frank Fund it was decided to have the entire collection processed by an archivist and historian. Peter Toebak took over this work. All of the material was then sent to the Anne Frank House archive in Amsterdam (where it is now) to be digitized. This resulted in more than 10,000 pages. Gerti Elias then worked for two and a half years on the origin research, documentation, transcription and processing of the documents.

Mirjam Pressler could be won over to edit a book from this material. Mirjam Pressler interviewed Buddy and Gerti Elias several times for a long time. The book Greetings and Kisses to All was created. The story of the family of Anne Frank , Fischer Verlag, 2009.

Gerti Elias, 2009

In the interview

Gerti Elias in an interview with Katharina Sperber:

“Over time I found it irresponsible that this treasure should rot on our screed. It was always very hot up there. It is a miracle that the letters and documents were still in this good condition at all. The Anne Frank Fund hired a historian to catalog the things on our screed. He came to see us twice a week for almost two years. In the end, he had packed the letters, pictures, photos and documents in boxes that, when put together, were eleven meters. Everything was brought to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and digitized there. I was later commissioned by the fund to write a book about the family. For this I worked on a total of ten thousand pages in order to filter out the most important and essential items chronologically. The writer Mirjam Pressler then wrote the book Greetings and Kisses to All with the material I had compiled and our support . "

Awards

• In 2007 Gerti Elias was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Basel.

Web links

• Publications by and about Gerti Elias in the Helveticat catalog of the Swiss National Library
• Interview by Gerti Elias in the Frankfurter Rundschau on October 21, 2009
• ANNE FRANK Fund, Basel

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gerti Elias, honorary doctorate from the Medical Faculty. Archived from the original on October 16, 2014 ; Retrieved December 29, 2009 .