Jella Lepman

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Jella Lepman (born May 15, 1891 in Stuttgart as Jella Lehmann; † October 4, 1970 in Zurich ) was a German journalist , author and translator and the founder of the International Youth Library in Munich .

Life

Childhood and early years until 1933

Jella Lehmann was born in Stuttgart as the daughter of the businessman and factory owner Josef Lehmann (1853–1911) and his wife Flora née Lauchheimer (1867–1940). She had two sisters and grew up in a middle-class family that was influenced by liberal Judaism . Through her mother's sister she was a cousin of the sociologist Max Horkheimer . After finishing school at the Königin-Katharina-Stift , she spent a year in a Swiss boarding school in Lutry near Lausanne .

In 1913 she married Gustav Horace Lepman (1877-1922), the son of an American of German descent and partner in a bed spring factory in Feuerbach . The marriage resulted in two children (Anne-Marie born in 1918, Günther born in 1921). Gustav Lepman fought as a German officer in France during the First World War . He survived the war, but died in 1922 as a result of his war injuries. He left a life insurance policy of 100,000 Reichsmarks, which, however, quickly lost value due to inflation. Lepman later wrote: “But at least I was young. I was able to work and build a new life for myself. "

Lepman, who had already started writing as a teenager, started as the first female editor at the liberal Stuttgarter Neue Tagblatt . She wrote socio-political articles and in 1927 established the supplement “The woman in home, work and society”. She also published her first children's book ( The Sleepy Sunday , 1927) and a play for children ( The Singing Pfennig , 1929). She joined the German Democratic Party (DDP), in which she was a leader in the women's group. In 1929 she ran for the German Reichstag alongside Theodor Heuss, without success .

exile

When the National Socialists came to power in 1933, Jella Lepman lost her permanent position as a Jew. Until 1935 she was still employed as a freelancer. In 1936 she emigrated with her two children via Italy to England , where she was to live as a stateless immigrant for eight years . While her children were housed in boarding schools, she got by with journalistic and writing work. She worked as a secretary for Anita Warburg , who headed the emigration department of the Jewish aid organization Woburn House in London and organized child transports . On behalf of Olga Schnitzler, Lepman copied manuscripts from Arthur Schnitzler's estate at the Cambridge University Library in 1938 . She later worked for the BBC and the US broadcaster ABSIE (American Broadcasting Station in Europe). A children's book project failed, she moved a few times or stayed with friends. In between, she kept herself afloat as a housekeeper. In 1943 she published the book Women in Nazi Germany under the pseudonym Katherine Thomas , which describes the everyday life of women and the political development in Germany since the First World War.

post war period

Memorial plaque for Jella Lepman at the International Youth Library in Blutenburg Castle

After the end of the Second World War in 1945, she returned to Germany as an advisor to the US Army on women's and youth issues as part of the “re- education ” program of the American military government , where she first lived in Bad Homburg and then in Munich. Since she was convinced that in the reconstruction of Germany one should place hope above all in the children and that books are the best means to educate German children to be cosmopolitan, tolerant and love for peace, she concentrated a considerable part of her work on Promotion of literature for children and young people. In 1946 she organized the international exhibition “Das Jugendbuch”, which opened in the Haus der Kunst in Munich and subsequently took place in many places, including in the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart , in the Frankfurt Städel and in the US Information Center in Berlin.

From 1946 to 1948 she was deputy editor-in-chief of the illustrated magazine Today , which was published by the US military government. In 1948 she founded the "Association of Friends of the International Youth Library", which among other things. Erich Kästner and Hildegard (Hamm-) Brücher belonged and became the sponsor of the International Youth Library. This was opened on September 14, 1949 in Munich in the spirit of international understanding based on the model of the American Public Children's Libraries. In 1951 she organized the international congress “International Understanding through Children's Books” and initiated an international board of trustees for young people's books, which was founded in Zurich in 1953 as the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY). She also initiated the Hans Christian Andersen Prize in 1956 and founded the magazine “Bookbird”. Until 1957 she was director of the International Youth Library.

She then moved to Zurich, where close friends lived. There she died of cancer in 1970 at the age of 79, surprising for those around her. She found her final resting place in Zurich's Enzenbühl cemetery on Forchstrasse. The grave has since been cleared.

Writing

Jella Lepmann wrote several children's books since the 1920s and edited collections of children's stories, including the multi-volume collection of bedtime stories that she had compiled over the years. Her books have been translated into numerous languages. In addition to her own children's books, she inspired Erich Kästner to write his peace parable “ The Conference of Animals ”.

Jella Lepman reported on the founding of the International Youth Library in her life story Die Kinderbuchbrücke .

Honors

In 1969 Jella Lepman received the Goethe badge (sic!) From the Hessian Ministry of Culture. At the same time, she was publicly honored by the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main.

For Lepman's 100th birthday, the International Youth Library held a ceremony and hosted a Jella Lepman memorial exhibition. The International Board on Books for Young People awards the Jella Lepman Medal to people who have made outstanding contributions to the institution.

A street in Stuttgart was named after her in 1999. She is also the namesake for a meeting room in the city ​​library on Mailänder Platz . In Munich, a street and a municipal kindergarten in the Berg am Laim district are named after her.

Works

  • Die Kinderbuchbrücke , Ed. International Youth Library. Foreword by Christiane Raabe, afterword by Anna Patrucco Becchi. Munich, Verlag Antje Kunstmann, 2020, ISBN 9783956144219
    • Un Puente de Libros Infantiles , Creotz, 2017. ISBN 9788494147388
    • Oerini Chaekui Dali , transl . By Sun-Ah Kang. Nami Books, Seoul, 2015. ISBN 9788996683667
    • Jia qi er tong tu shu de qiao liang , Zhongguo shao nian er tong chu ban she, Beijing, 2006. ISBN 9787500780809
    • Kodomo no hon wa sekai no kakehashi , transl . By Morimoto Manami. Kogumasha, Tokyo, 2002. ISBN 9784772190374
    • A Bridge of Children's Books , trans. By Edith McCormick, foreword by Mary Robinson . The O'Brien Press, Dublin, 2002, ISBN 0-86278-783-1
    • A Bridge of Children's Books , trans. By Edith McCormick, foreword by JE Morpurgo. Leicester: Brockhampton Press, Leicester; American Library Association, New York 1969. ISBN 0340032057
  • Children see our world - texts and drawings from 35 countries , collected and ed. by Jella Lepman. Ullstein, 1971. ISBN 9783550077661
    • Come i bambini vedono il mondo , transl . By Amina Pandolfi. Garzanti, Milan, 1972.
    • How children see our world: words and pictures from thirty-five countries , trans. By Heide Dugall, arrangement: Dietmar Meyer and Frank Curcio. Avon Books, New York, 1975. ISBN 9780380005291
  • The arrested parrot: the most beautiful goodnight stories: latest episode , ed. by Hansjörg Schmitthenner, Ull. by Jutta Kirsch-Korn. Ullstein, Berlin, 1963. ISBN 9783548125343
  • The cat with the glasses - The most beautiful bedtime stories , collected by Jella Lepman, ed. by Hansjörg Schmitthenner , illustrated by Regina Ackermann-Ophüls. Europa-Verlag, Zurich, Vol. 1, 1951; Vol. 2, 1959. License edition. Zeitverlag Bucerius, Hamburg, 2006. ISBN 9783938899021
  • Who is lux A detective story for the youth , illustrated by Paul Flora . Ensslin & Laiblin, Reutlingen, 1950.
  • The secret of the Kuckuckshof - A detective story from the Black Forest 1st edition London, John Murray, London, 1942.
  • The sleepy Sunday , illustrated by Hermann Gradl . W. Hädecke, Stuttgart, 1927. Facsimile edition: Bröstler, Marktheidenfeld, 1992. ISBN 9783927439115

literature

  • Anna Becchi: Jella Lepman. The founder of the International Youth Library . In: LIBREAS. Library Ideas , No. 25, 2014.
  • Lioba Betten (Ed.): Mrs. Lepman. Give us books - give us wings . Kovar, Munich 1992.
  • Lioba beds: Jella Lepman (1891–1970). Give us books - give us wings . In: Birgit Knorr, Rosemarie Wehling (ed.): Women in the German Southwest (= writings on political regional studies of Baden-Württemberg. Vol. 20). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1993, pp. 100-104.
  • Astrid Fernengel: Children's literature in exile . Tectum, Marburg 2008 (Diss. TU Berlin 2006).
  • Sydelle Pearl, Danlyn Iantorno: Books for Children of the World. The Story of Jella Lepman. Pelican Publishing, Gretna 2007.
  • Walter Scherf:  Lepman, Jella. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 14, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-428-00195-8 , p. 304 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Katrin Hörnlein: The five lives of Jella Lepman . DIE ZEIT , No 41, October 1st, 2020, p. 19

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The obituary of October 7, 1970 mentions October 4, 1970, with which the occasionally false claim “14. October “can be excluded. (On the obituary notice two children and their spouses are named as mourners: Anne and Piero Mortara-Lepman as well as Guy and Marion Lepman.) Furthermore, the date of their death is confirmed by: Anna Becchi, Jella Lepman: The founder of the International Youth Library. LIBREAS. Library Ideas , 25 (2014). [1]
  2. ↑ Irene Ferchl: Jella Lepman (1891-1970). In: Stadtlexikon Stuttgart. Stuttgart City Archives , April 19, 2018, accessed on April 2, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b Kathrin Diehl: "The children will show the way". In: juedische-allgemeine.de. Jüdische Allgemeine , August 25, 2019, accessed April 1, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b c Katrin Hörnlein: The five lives of Jella Lepman. In: The time. September 30, 2020, accessed October 4, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Prominent pre-deceased by alphabet (PDF). City of Zurich, March 6, 2020, accessed on April 1, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Eva-Christina Meier: "The children find the way". In: taz.de. November 14, 2020, accessed May 13, 2021 .
  7. ↑ Irene Ferchl: Narrated city. Stuttgart's literary places . Silberburg, Tübingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-8425-1382-2 , p. 29 .
personal data
SURNAME Lepman, Jella
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Lehmann, Jella (maiden name)
SHORT DESCRIPTION German writer
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1891
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH 4th October 1970
PLACE OF DEATH Zurich