Ilse Koehn

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Ilse Koehn (* August 1929 in Berlin-Hermsdorf ; † May 8, 1991 in Greenwich , Connecticut , USA) was a German-American graphic artist and writer .

Life

Koehn was the only child of a "half-Jewish" electrical engineer from the Berliner Elektrizitätswerke and a " full Aryan " mother from the working class . After the war she studied at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin and then worked as a freelancer for various magazines. In 1958 she emigrated to the United States and initially worked as an art director for a New York advertising agency .

In 1968 she went into business for herself, moving to Greenwich with her husband John Van Zwienen and his daughter Kyle. Koehn and Van Zwienen worked as illustrators and graphic designers and dedicated themselves to writing. The author's first autobiographical work was published in 1977 : "Mischling, Second Degree" (German title: "Mischling second degree"), and in 1981 her second book, "Tilla" (German: "Who knows what tomorrow is").

plant

In "Mischling second degree" Koehn describes her childhood in the years 1937–1945. She came from a social - democratic , anti-Nazi family. Her family always tried carefully to hide the fact that she was a Jewish mixed race through her paternal grandmother - Ilse herself did not know at the time. Since the First Ordinance on the Reich Citizenship Law of 1935, the "half-breeds" have been denied access to a higher education as well as numerous offices and privileges. According to the family's wishes, the girl should therefore "swim along" in the system as inconspicuously as possible, for example to go to the Association of German Girls . After her parents separated, Ilse Koehn grew up with her father and her Jewish grandmother, and the father was accepted into the lyceum . She then moved in with her non-Jewish grandparents. With a lot of luck, Ilse Koehn survived the Nazi era and the Second World War, including hunger, hail of bombs, evacuations - while her 80-year-old Jewish grandmother was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp . The book was published in the USA in 1977 and - partly translated - in six other countries. In 1979 it came out in German.

"Who knows what tomorrow is" as a book for young people tells the fictional story of the war orphan Tilla, who - bombed out in Dresden - met the 16-year-old Hitler Youth Rolf in February 1945 while fleeing from the approaching front . In the turmoil of the last weeks of the war, the young protagonists are looking for relatives in Berlin . Tilla finds accommodation with her aunt in Hermsdorf and loses sight of Rolf. But in the post-war period they meet again in the occupied city .

Awards

In 1980, "second degree hybrid" was on the shortlist for the German Youth Literature Prize . The book has won several awards in the USA: the Boston Globe Hornbook Award, the Jane Addams Peace Foundation Award for nonfiction and, as a recommended book for young readers, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://spartacus-educational.com/Ilse_Koehn.htm
  2. ↑ Richard Schmid: "As a Jewish child in Germany", "Die Zeit", December 5, 1978, https://www.zeit.de/1978/51/als-judenkind-in-deutschland/komplettansicht
  3. ↑ http://www.der-halbe-stern.de/literatur/lit_koehn.htm
  4. ↑ http://www.der-halbe-stern.de/literatur/lit_koehn.htm
  5. ^ "Ilse Koehn, 61, Dies; A Writer and Artist", "The New York Times", May 16, 1991, https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/16/obituaries/ilse-koehn-61 -dies-a-writer-and-artist.html
  6. ↑ http://www.djlp.jugendliteratur.org/datenbanksuche/jugendbuch-3/artikel-mischling_zweit_grades-3475.html
  7. ^ "Ilse Koehn, 61, Dies; A Writer and Artist", "The New York Times", May 16, 1991, https://www.nytimes.com/1991/05/16/obituaries/ilse-koehn-61 -dies-a-writer-and-artist.html
personal data
SURNAME Koehn, Ilse
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American graphic artist and writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Hermsdorf
DATE OF DEATH May 8, 1991
Place of death Greenwich , Connecticut , USA