Jo Mihaly

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Jo Mihaly (actually: Elfriede Steckel, maiden name: Elfriede Alice Kuhr; born April 25, 1902 in Schneidemühl , † March 29, 1989 in Seeshaupt , Bavaria) was a dancer, actress, poet and author.

Elfriede Kuhr (middle, seated) in 1915 with (from left to right) her mother, her brother Willi-Gunther and her grandmother Bertha Golz, née. Haber.

Life

She was born in 1902 as Elfriede Alice Kuhr. After their wedding, their name was Elfriede Steckel. She trained in classical dance and became a member of the Haas Heye Ballet Berlin.

From 1923 to 1925 she toured Germany, including appearances in variety shows and in the circus. In the 1925/26 season she was engaged as a modern dancer at the Dreistädtetheater Beuthen - Gleiwitz - Hindenburg . At the Volksbühne in Berlin she met the actor and director Leonard Steckel , whom she married in 1927. She lived with him for a while at Bonner Strasse 12 in the Berlin artists' colony . 1928–33 she appeared as a solo dancer with her own socially critical programs, a. a. “The Persecution of the Jews” and “Vision of War”. Since 1927 she wrote poetry and had her first publications in the magazine Der Kunde, published by Gregor Gog and the Brotherhood of Vagabonds . In the Weimar Republic she led a vagabond life herself and bundled her experiences in 1929 in the Ballade vom Elend , a song book in the tradition of François Villon or Erich Mühsam . Politically, she was particularly committed to the rights of the Sinti and Roma. 1931–33 she was a member of the “Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition”, the “ Red Aid ” and the “Freethinkers' Association”. Their daughter Anja was born in 1933 (Anja Ott, actress, † September 28, 2011).

In 1933 she emigrated with her husband to Switzerland and lived in Zurich until 1949. She published features and articles under pseudonyms in Swiss newspapers and continued to perform as a dancer and singer. Mihaly continued to work for refugees and had contact with resistance groups in Germany. In 1943 she became co-founder and chairwoman of the cultural society of emigrants within the Israelite Refugee Aid in Zurich. She was also a co-founder of the Free German Movement in Switzerland. In 1945 she became the founder and secretary of the Association of German Writers (SDS) in Switzerland.

In a letter dated May 15, 1946, she was appointed as the representative of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in the Advisory State Committee of Greater Hesse for the resigned MP Werner Krauss (KPD) . She held the mandate until July 14, 1946.

From October 1945 to July 1946 she worked in Frankfurt am Main, but was prevented from returning to Switzerland by the US authorities. She founded the Free German Cultural Society in Frankfurt and was a member of the local cultural commission there.

From 1949 she worked as a freelance writer in Ascona; she wrote novels, short stories, poems and books for young people. An overall appraisal of their scattered work is still pending.

Awards

  • Honorary award from the city of Zurich

Works

Jo Mihaly's autobiography from 1982: … there’s a reunion! A girl's war diary 1914–1918 , in which she describes her experiences in the First World War .
  • Even when it's night. Novel. Memoria, Huerth 2002
  • Wanted: Stepan Varesku. Novel. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1989 (first: Guardian of the Brother. Steinberg & Buchclub Exlibris , Zurich 1942; again Paul List, Leipzig 1959)
  • Who is the thief A question of guilt. Stäfa 1988 (first together with The White Train. Gute Schriften, Basel 1957)
  • ... there’s a reunion! A Girl's Diary 1914–1918. Kerle, Freiburg 1982; Bertelsmann Lesering u. a. Book Clubs, 1984; again dtv 1986
  • Three Christmas stories. Series: Christmas books from the book printers Stäfa AG + Küsnacht, 32 (with biographical notes; catalog raisonné. Drawings by Roland Thalmann), Zürichsee Medien, Stäfa 1984
  • What old Anna Petrovna says. Stories from Russia. Salzer, Heilbronn 1975
  • The enchanted rabbit. Two animal stories. Salzer, Heilbronn 1971
  • Give me time to love Christmas stories. Salzer, Heilbronn 1970
  • Remember, man ... With 25 photographs of baroque depictions of the rural death of Rico Jenny. Gemsberg, Winterthur 1958
  • Christmas on the Hallig and other stories about the Christmas festival. Friedrich Reinhardt AG., Basel [1958]
  • Michael Arpad and his child. Children's fate on the country road (with own drawings). Gundert, Stuttgart 1930; slightly revised: LitPol Verlagsges., Berlin 1981

estate

A more extensive part of Jo Mihaly's literary estate is with Thomas B. Schumann, who in 2002 published Mihaly's novel “Edition Memoria” in his Hürth-based publishing house, Also when it is night . A small part is in the P. Walter Jacob archive of the Walter A. Berendsohn Research Center for German Exile Literature at the University of Hamburg .

The dance artistic estate is in the German Dance Archive Cologne .

Her diaries served as a template for the television series 14 - Diaries of the First World War .

literature

  • Brigitte Bruns: Throw your hope over new frontiers. Theater in exile in Switzerland and his return. Edited by the Deutsches Theatermuseum , exhibition catalog. Henschel, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-89487-571-8
  • Walter Fähnders, Henning Zimpel (ed.): The era of the vagabonds. Texts and pictures 1900-1945. Klartext, Essen 2009, ISBN 978-3-89861-655-3 (writings of the Fritz-Hüser-Institut , 19)
  • Yvonne Hardt: A political poet of dance: Jo Mihaly. In: Amelie Soyka (Ed.): Dancing and dancing and nothing but dancing. Modern dancers from Josephine Baker to Mary Wigman. Aviva, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-932338-22-7 , pp. 138-151.
  • Petra Josting: 'Gypsies' in children's and youth literature of the Weimar Republic using the example of Jo Mihalys' Michael Arpad and his child. Ein Kinderschicksal auf der Landstrasse ”, 1930. In: Petra Josting, Walter Fähnders (Ed.): “ Laboratorium Verseitigkeit ”. On the literature of the Weimar Republic. Festschrift for Helga Karrenbrock on her 60th birthday. Aisthesis , Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 3-89528-546-3
  • Helga Karrenbrock:  Mihaly, Jo. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 490 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Ed.): "Residence: Nowhere." About life and survival on the street. Frölich & Kaufmann, Berlin 1982
  • Ursula Pellaton: Jo Mihaly . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 2, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 1247.
  • Niklaus Starck (Ed.): Love letters to Ticino, written by Jo Mihaly. Edited and provided with a foreword by Anja Ott. Porzio, Basel 2011, ISBN 978-3-9523706-2-9
  • Niklaus Starck : Jo Mihaly and human dignity. An illustrated biography. Porzio, Basel 2011, ISBN 978-3-9523706-3-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Document founding protection association
  2. ^ Jochen Lengemann : The Hesse Parliament 1946–1986 . Biographical handbook of the advisory state committee, the state assembly advising the constitution and the Hessian state parliament (1st – 11th electoral period). Ed .: President of the Hessian State Parliament. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-458-14330-0 , p. 395–396 ( hessen.de [PDF; 12.4 MB ]).
  3. ↑ The revolutionary Stepan Varescu, who escaped from prison, comes across a gypsy camp in the steppe. He is received hospitably and fraternally by the residents and is protected from the pursuits of the police and the military. Since Varescu has an enthusiastic following among the people, especially among the peasants, the government tries by all means to get hold of him. But their efforts fail because of the gypsies, whose clan is almost completely wiped out in battle. Mihaly narrates the events based on reality in a partisan way for the oppressed
  4. ↑ bibliographically often incorrect spelling "reunion"
  5. ↑ frequent editions in various publishers
  6. ↑ Review of Even when it's night
personal data
SURNAME Mihaly, Jo
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kuhr, Elfriede Alice (maiden name); Steckel, Elfriede (real name); Moletta, Francesco (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German dancer, actress, poet, author and politician (KPD), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Schneidemühl
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1989
Place of death Seeshaupt , Bavaria