Irene Storm's Bento

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Irene Storms Bento , nee Irene Danner , (born January 28, 1923 in Liège ; † April 18, 2006 in Eschollbrücken ( Pfungstadt )) was a circus rider who appeared in the Circus Sarrasani and the Circus Adolf Althoff , among others .

Life

On her mother's side, she came from the Lorch circus family . Her mother was Alice Lorch, the daughter of Julius Lorch, "King" of the Icarier circus troupe of the same name. Her father was Hans Danner, an acrobat on a swing rope who was trained at the Lorch Circus.

First she spent a year in the house of her grandmother, Sessie Lorch nee. Keller, in Eschollbrücken in Hesse, 3 km from Pfungstadt - the winter quarters of the Lorchs. When she was one year old, her parents got an engagement at the then largest and best German circus Sarrasani. They spent two years in South America and then returned to Eschollbrücken. From then on, Irene grew up with her grandmother, Sessie Lorch. Her sister Gerda was born in 1927.

Circus was fashionable at the time. This made Irene a sought-after school friend. But the girl experienced the strongly growing anti-Semitism and the hostility associated with it. On September 13, 1930, the Lorch circus went bankrupt. In 1938 another law was passed restricting the rights of Jews, banning all first-degree Jewish children from attending school. She then worked as an office assistant for her dentist Wilhelm Eidmann.

In 1936 the parents were hired by the BUSCH circus. The girl accompanied her parents. With the "Carolis", an acrobatic troupe of the circus, she learns to jump from one horse to the other. In 1939 the girl was also used and appeared for the first time. As the only girl in the troupe, she delighted the audience. But soon the Carolis informed her that, due to an order from Berlin, they were no longer allowed to perform with Irene.

In 1941 she met the clown Peter Bento - actually Storms - after a performance and fell in love. Peter Bento also came from a circus family; he was born in Belgium. He stood up for her so that she could be accepted into the ALTHOFF circus. On August 25, 1941, her mother signed her contract for a role as a clown and acrobat for 150 Reichsmarks per month, with free board and lodging. On December 20, 1942 she gave birth to Peter, her first child, followed by Jano, Mary (June 28, 1945) and after the war Daisy (1949) and Astrid (1959) follow.

But the anti-Semitic threats continued to rise. On March 7, 1943, the Lorch family was denounced, Sessie Lorch, Irene's grandmother, her uncles Eugen, Arthur and Rudolph Lorch were arrested by the Gestapo and deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp or murdered.

The girl was luckier in the ALTHOFF circus. She managed to escape the Gestapo. The Althoff family took her in as a “little Italian”, as did Alice, Hans and their sister Gerda.

In 1948 Peter and Irene married and returned to Eschollbrücken. They continued to work as artists and the children also took up this profession. Daisy and Mary became jugglers, Jano and Astrid founded the children's circus Clowni.

Irene and Peter Storms Bento are buried in the cemetery in Eschollbrücken.

literature

  • Ingeborg Prior : The clown and the circus rider. A love in dark time , Piper, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-492-22832-1 .
  • 50 Rescuers - Stories of Courage. Two stories. Barbra Streisand Documentation. USA 1998.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Image of the tombstone of Irene Storms Bento
  2. ↑ www.denkzeichen-gueterbahnhof.de Names of the Jews deported from Darmstadt
  3. ↑ Adolf Althoff's human commitment did not become public until the mid-1980s through a newspaper article. In 1994 he was awarded by the GCD (Society of Circus Friends eV). In 1995 the State of Israel awarded him the honorary title “Righteous Among the Nations” at the Yad Vashem Memorial.
personal data
SURNAME Storms Bento, Irene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Danner, Irene (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German circus rider
DATE OF BIRTH January 28, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH Liege
DATE OF DEATH April 18, 2006
Place of death Pfungstadt - Eschollbrücken near Darmstadt