Irene Janetzky

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Irene Janetzky (born May 13, 1914 in Duisburg ; † July 19, 2005 in Brussels ) was a Belgian journalist and pioneer of Belgian broadcasting who, as the first editor, speaker and broadcast manager, played a major role in broadcasting in German ("Emissions en langue allemande" ) of the " Institut National de Radiodiffusion " (INR) for the German-speaking population of East Belgium .

Live and act

The daughter of a port engineer from Ratibor / Silesia and his wife, who was born in the Rhineland, lost her father just a few months after she was born, who died on the western front in the First World War . A little later, her mother met the Belgian historian Bernhard Willems, with whom she lived in Malmedy after the war . With her daughter she took Belgian citizenship. After visiting the Royal Athenaeum in Malmedy, Irene Janetzky made study trips to England and Italy in the 1930s to learn the languages ​​of these countries.

In the first months after the Second World War , Janetzky's stepfather, who had relevant contacts to Belgian authorities, campaigned for the "Institut National de Radiodiffusion", founded in 1930 and divided into a French-speaking and a Dutch-speaking section in 1937, to also be a target group-oriented source of information the German-speaking Belgians should be. Willems obtained contractual approval for his stepdaughter Irene to moderate a 20-minute "émission en langue allemande" in the broadcasting house on Place Flagey in the Brussels community of Ixelles for an indefinite period from October 1, 1945 . With this offer Janetzky turned to the German-speaking compatriots in Ostbelgien in their mother tongue, which was not a matter of course immediately after the end of the German occupation of Belgium. The development and expansion of the German-language program over the years was to become Janetzky's life's work.

In the difficult early years, when the editorial staff, which consisted only of Janetzky and one employee, had little journalistic leeway and their program was only broadcast on a low-performance medium-wave transmitter from the north of the province of Luxembourg , Janetzky was urged to be the official headquarters in East Belgium To convey a Brussels perspective on Belgium and its concerns. In 1952 her broadcast was due to be stopped due to lack of funds, but Janetzky managed to convince the Belgian Prime Minister Achille Van Acker of the necessity of a program for the German-speaking minority so that the broadcast could continue. Janetzky also commented on the first edition of the Grand Prix Eurovision de la Chanson in Lugano for Belgian television in 1956 because of her language skills . As an interpreter and journalist, she also accompanied several Belgian delegations abroad, including to the United States. From 1961 onwards, the German program, which continued to be produced in Brussels under Janetzky's direction, was broadcast on the high-reach VHF broadcaster Liège and officially renamed “Belgischer Hör- und Fernsehfunk” (BHF) in 1964. Another FM frequency (transmitter in Recht (Sankt Vith) ) was added later for improved reception in the south of the German-speaking area. In 1974 Irene Janetzky resigned from the BHF broadcasting line after 29 years of service and retired. Her successor, Peter Moutschen, founded the "Belgian Radio and Television Center of the German-speaking Community" (BRF) in Eupen three years later , in the middle of the region that was the focus of the reporting, and subsequently built the German-language broadcasts from one in two up to three blocks of broadcasts from a total of six to about seven hours a day to form a full-service program that can be received all day.

Janetzky was one of the founders of the “Ring of German-Language Broadcasts”, an organization that was supposed to facilitate the international exchange of German programs between public broadcasters . She was also a member of the "International Association of Women in Radio and Television", an international association of women working in the media. The goals of the association were to unite the women of the media world, to promote the reconstruction of Europe and to build cross-border networks. The members of the association were mainly pioneers in the radio and television world, who mostly designed programs for women that were supposed to be informative and educational.

Janetzky continued to live in Brussels in old age, where she died on July 19, 2005. During her entire professional career, Janetzky felt obliged to a strict social and political neutrality with regard to the tensions between the three autochthonous language groups of Belgium and the various attempts at autonomy. Nonetheless, especially at the end of the 1960s, she liked the freer reporting of her young members of the editorial board, and she acted as a staunch defender of freedom of expression and freedom of the press in the event of criticism from broadcasting bodies or the Belgian parties.

On the occasion of her 100th birthday, a memorial plaque for the founder and director of the German program was unveiled in 2014 in the former broadcasting house and today's cultural center on Place Flagey.

Honors

literature

  • Heinz Warny: Irene Jaretzky - the radio pioneer . In: Lebensbilder from Ostbelgien , Volume 1, Grenz-Echo-Verlag, Eupen 2017, pp. 86–87 ISBN 978-3-86712-131-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BRF honors its founder Irene Janetzky . Announcement on ostbelgiendirekt.be from May 14, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Janetzky, Irene
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian journalist and pioneer of Belgian broadcasting
DATE OF BIRTH May 13, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Duisburg
DATE OF DEATH July 19, 2005
Place of death Brussels