Gertrud Isolani

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gertrud Isolani , actually Gertrud Isaacsohn , married Gertrud Sternberg-Isolani (* February 7, 1899 in Dresden , † January 19, 1988 in Riehen , Canton Basel-Stadt ), was a widely read journalist and writer in the left-liberal press of the Weimar Republic and the Newspapers of exile .

Live and act

Gertrud Isolani was the daughter of the journalist and theater critic Eugen Isaacsohn, pseudonym Eugen Isolani. At the age of 17, Gertrud successfully finished secondary school and followed her father in choosing a career. She started u. a. Writing for the Berliner Tageblatt in Verlag Mosse, for Die Woche in Verlag Scherl and for the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung in Verlag Ullstein. At first there were feuillontist essays , later also theater reviews and book reviews.

In 1918 Isolani made her debut as a writer with a study of the writer Christian Morgenstern . She signed her first works with “Ger Trud”; later she took over the pseudonym from her father , who had chosen it because of the increasing anti-Semitism . In Berlin she married the factory owner Berthold Sternberg. The couple had a daughter named Ursula, who was friends with authors like Arthur Silbergleit who wrote humorous letters.

Isolani was a member of the board of the “Association of German Translators”, which existed from 1928 to 1933, alongside Erwin Magnus as chairman, Ida Jacob-Anders (1871–?), Käthe Miethe , Friedrich von Oppeln-Bronikowski , Lothar Schmidt (actually Lothar Goldschmidt 1862 –1931) and Paul Wiegler to the board.

Already insulted by the right-wing press as an “asphalt literary” before 1933, after the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933 , she faced a writing ban and emigrated to Paris with her family . There Isolani wrote for the German-language exile newspaper Pariser Tageblatt and after it was closed, forced by the editorial team's putsch, from 1936 for the German-language exile newspaper Pariser Tageszeitung and for French newspapers. She was also a correspondent for several Swiss newspapers. She wrote journalistic works as well as novellas and short stories. She also translated many articles by French authors into German.

By order of the French government, Isolani was imprisoned with her daughter and many others in 1940 as hostile foreigners in the Paris Vélodrome d'Hiver . From there she was taken to the Camp de Gurs internment camp , from which she escaped. She then stayed illegally in unoccupied Vichy France . In November 1942, after several attempts, she managed to transfer to Switzerland, where she was again interned in a camp for over a year. The experiences of her stay in the camp formed the basis of her autobiographical novel "City Without Men", which was published at the end of 1945.

In 1944 she settled in Binningen . After the Second World War Isolani worked again as a journalist and was also able to publish some literary works. However, it was not granted to her to build on earlier successes. She spent the last years of her life in the Jewish retirement home “La Charmille” in Riehen .

Works (selection)

  • Letters, conversations, encounters - Part 1 of the memoirs: Berlin, France, Switzerland. Linen edition, Böhlau, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-412-01683-3 . - Of two planned volumes, only this one has appeared. This volume is entitled Don't mince your words : Letters, Conversations, Encounters - Part 1 of the Memoirs: Berlin, France, Switzerland. Again: Basileia-Verlag, Basel 1985
  • The donor. Novel; the problem of artificial insemination. JG Bläschke, Darmstadt 1969 (reprint of the Biel 1949 edition).
  • Golda Meir . Israel's mother courage. 2nd edition. Verlag Peter, Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1970.
  • The disciple of Rabbi Jochanan. Stories. Foreword by Max Brod . Starczewski, Munich 1967.
  • The last Havana. Detective novel (= The Green Criminals. 11) Fraumünster, Zurich 1944.
  • Maîtressen. Narrative. Hegereiter, Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1962.
  • Painting heritage. Study of Christian Morgenstern's life's work. Pfeil Verlag, Berlin 1919.
  • Night of all nights. Roman of the patriarch Abraham. Herbert Reich Verlag, Hamburg 1957.
  • Mothers-in-law, mothers-in-law. A psychological, cultural-historical, sociological and humorous study. Gissler, Basel 1975.
  • City without men. Novel. Falken Verlag, Zurich 1945. Multiple new editions, most recently Basler Zeitung , Basel 1979 ISBN 3-85815-052-5 . Translated in 7 languages. It contains the description of their experiences in the women's camp Gurs in southern France.

literature

  • Anja Clarenbach: Gertrud Isolani and Heinrich Eduard Jacob: Correspondence about "City without men". In: EXILE. Research - Findings - Results. 16. Vol., No. 2, 1994, pp. 37-50.
  • Lisa A. Bilsky: Adrienne Thomas, Gertrud Isolani and Gabriele Tergit. German Jewish women writers and the experience of exile. Dissertation, University Press, Madison, Wisconsin 1995.
  • Gabriele Mittag: There are only damned people in Gurs. Literature, culture and everyday life in an internment camp in the south of France, 1940-1942. Attempo, Tübingen 1996 ISBN 3-89308-233-6 .
  • Renate Wall: Lexicon of German-speaking women writers in exile. 1933-1945. New edition Haland & Wirth, Giessen 2004 ISBN 3-89806-229-5 pp. 165-167.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The company is proven at least from 1910 to 1933 by porcelain brands: "Aerozon-Fabrik" Georg and Berthold Sternberg, Berlin, manufacture of air purifiers, atomizers and smoke consumers made of porcelain; 1933 Change of ownership, the company was now called "Schwarz & Co." pottys.xyz
  2. ^ Equation of Schmidt (pseudonym) with Goldschmidt according to the German National Library
personal data
SURNAME Isolani, Gertrud
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Isaacsohn, Gertrud (maiden name); Sternberg-Isolani, Gertrud (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist, writer and translator
DATE OF BIRTH February 7, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Dresden
DATE OF DEATH January 19, 1988
Place of death Riehen