Irena Dodalová

Irena Dodalová (born November 29, 1900 in Ledetsch an der Sasau (cz. Ledéc nad Sázavou), Austria-Hungary as Irena Rosnerová ; † July 1989 in Buenos Aires , Argentina ) was a Czechoslovakian theater and film director , screenwriter , educator and film producer .

Life

Irena Dodalová grew up in an Orthodox Jewish rabbi family. Her first marriage was to Leo Leschner and was then called Irena Leschnerová. In 1933 she founded the first Czech studio for animated films "IRE film" with Karel Dodal , her second husband since 1935. The productions of this company included, among other things, the short films The Game of Soap Bubbles and The Idea Seeks Light . During this time a total of 30 short advertising and avant-garde films were made by “IRE film”. In 1938 the couple tried to make short films in Paris , but failed. While Dodal left for the United States at the end of 1938 , his wife returned to the Czechoslovak capital, where the German Wehrmacht invaded in March 1939 (see Destruction of the rest of the Czech Republic ). Irena Dodalová found employment in a photo studio in Prague.

After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich Irena Dodalová was arrested by the German occupying forces on suspicion of spying for the United States and in the on 20 June 1942 Theresienstadt ghetto deported . There she worked in agriculture and mica processing. In October / November of the same year she received an order from the camp administration to produce a pseudo-documentary film under the title “ Theresienstadt 1942 ”. On the NS side, SS-Hauptsturmführer Herbert Otto was entrusted with the management. The Czech actor Hans Hofer , who was also interned in Theresienstadt, helped her . The film fragments that have survived include the actor Karel Švenk , the puppeteer Otto Neumann, the draftsman Bedřich Fritta and the dancer Kamilla Rosenbaumová. The entire film is considered lost, however, scenes from the strip were discovered in 1994 in the Filmoteka Narodowa in Warsaw . Other fragments are in the Národní filmový archiv (National Film Archive) in Prague. As Dodalová wrote in a letter to her husband after the war, when she was released in 1945 she was able to smuggle a number of photographs out of the camp and later hand them over to someone in Switzerland.

Irena Dodalová also gave readings on the subject of animation film production during her imprisonment and also staged theater plays. She worked with the composer Viktor Ullmann and the later deported to Auschwitz son of the film manager Julius Außenberg , who fled to England , Adolf Außenberg. Irena Dodalová was released on February 5, 1945 under an agreement negotiated by the Red Cross and was allowed to leave for Switzerland as one of around 1200 prisoners .

Irena Dodalová went to the United States that same year, where she wrote The Black Book , published in New York in 1946 . The Nazi Crime against the Jewish People processed their experiences in Theresienstadt. Until 1948 she produced other cartoons in New York. In the same year Irena Dodalová emigrated to Argentina. In Buenos Aires she made films about ballet and folklore, gave lessons and led theater seminars.

Filmography (selection)

• 1936: Hra bublinek ("The Game of Soap Bubbles", short film, director, camera)
• 1938: Myšlenka hledající světlo ("The Idea Seeks Light", director, short film)
• 1942: Theresienstadt 1942 (pseudo-documentary film, direction, script collaboration, performance)

literature

• Kay Less : Between the stage and the barracks. Lexicon of persecuted theater, film and music artists from 1933 to 1945 . With a foreword by Paul Spiegel . Metropol, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-938690-10-9 , p. 385.
• Eva Strusková: The Dodals. Pioneers of Czech Animated Film . (NFA, 2013)

Web links

• Biography of Dodalová
• Irena Dodalová in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Theresienstadt film in cine-holocaust.de