Lea German

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Lea Dragica Deutsch [ lêa dâjtʃ ] ( March 18, 1927 in Zagreb - May 1943 on the transport to Auschwitz ) was a Yugoslav child actress who was murdered by the Nazi regime at the age of 16. It was referred to as the "Croatian Shirley Temple ".

life and work

Lea Deutsch came from a middle-class Jewish family. Her father Stjepan Deutsch (1886–1959) was a lawyer. Her mother Ivka geb. Singer was an educated woman who was particularly interested in chess . Lea Deutsch had a brother, Saša. The surname was written in Croatian Dajč . The family lived in a three-story house at Gundulićeva 39 in Zagreb.

At the age of five she already appeared at the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb, in smaller roles in plays by Molière and Shakespeare , supported by her dance teacher and mentor Rod Riffler . The audience quickly became enthusiastic about the talented young actress and she was compared to Shirley Temple. The Parisian music and film company Pathé took note of Lea Deutsch's early successes, came to Zagreb and made a short documentary.

Immediately after the destruction of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the establishment of Croatia (NDH) as a vassal state of the Axis Powers in April 1941, racial laws were introduced there too . Lea was also affected by this. She was no longer allowed to perform on stage and was also expelled from school. Her schoolmate Relja Bašić remembered:

"She sat motionless on a bench opposite the theater in her little herringbone-pattern coat with the yellow Star of David on her lapel, stared for hours at the building where she was once celebrated as a star, which she was no longer allowed to enter."

Arrest, deportation, death

In an attempt to save his family and himself, her father converted to Catholicism in June 1941 . On the occasion of his state visit to Zagreb on May 5, 1943, Heinrich Himmler urged the Croatian dictator Ante Pavelić to implement the so-called Final Solution in Croatia as well. In the following days, Croatians and Germans began arresting representatives of the Jewish community and those Jews who were still allowed to stay in the Croatian capital. For almost two years the family lived in fear of being picked up and deported at any time .

A number of members of the National Theater wanted to help Lea Deutsch and her family. The actors Hinko Nučić , Vika Podgorska and Tito Strozzi as well as the artistic director Dušan Manko, a member of the Ustaše , intervened in vain. People from the people also wanted to save the family. An escape to Karlovac was organized, where they were to come under the care of partisans. But the meeting never took place and the family had to return to Zagreb. Attempts by Jewish friends to allow emigration to the British mandate of Palestine also failed.

A lodger lived on the lower floor of the family's house, a young man from Herzegovina who occasionally appeared in Ustaša uniform. He offered Lea Deutsch a fake marriage in order to save her from deportation. Why this did not happen was initially unknown. It later emerged that Lea's mother refused to consent to the wedding because her daughter was still a minor.

In May 1943 Lea Deutsch, her mother and her brother were arrested by the National Socialists and deported to Auschwitz . During the six-day transport in the cattle wagon without food or water, 25 of the 75 deportees died, including Lea Deutsch. Her heart had been weakened by diphtheria in childhood . Her mother and brother were murdered by the Nazi regime in Auschwitz.

Her father survived the Holocaust . He hid as a patient in the Sisters of Mercy hospital, in the ward of the eye doctor Vilko Panac. The diagnosis was trachoma , an infectious eye disease. He died in 1959 and was buried in the Jewish section of Mirogoj Cemetery with Lea's photo on his tombstone.

Commemoration

In Zagreb a Jewish Lauder elementary school was named after her in 2003 and a street in 2006.

In 2011 the Croatian director Branko Ivanda made a biographical film about Lea Deutsch and Darija Gasteiger with the title Lea i Darija . The film shows joint appearances shortly before the Second World War , the founding of the Independent State of Croatia and the deportation of Lea and her family to Auschwitz. The role of Lea Deutsch was taken on by the Zagreb dancer Klara Naka .

See also

literature

  • Aleksander Laslo Snješka Knežević: Židovski Zagreb . AGM, Židovska općina Zagreb, Zagreb 2011, ISBN 978-953-174-393-8 .
  • Ivo Goldstein: Holokaust u Zagrebu . Novi Liber, Zagreb 2001, ISBN 953-6045-19-2 .
  • Martina Bitunjac: Lea Deutsch. A child of drama, music and dance (= Jewish miniatures. Volume 231). Hentrich & Hentrich, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-95565-303-3 .
  • Martina Bitunjac: Biographies of Jewish Women: Lea Deutsch - the “child prodigy” of the Zagreb theater . In: Medaon 10 (2016), 18 ( online ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Nina Ožegović: Film o tragičnom usudu dječje zvijezde. In: Nacional , number 565, September 11, 2006.
  2. ↑ Nova scena u Zagrebu (Croatian) . In: www.teatar.hr , Teatar. Archived from the original on October 13, 2008 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved October 19, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / teatar.hr 
  3. ↑ a b c d Lea German: zagrebačka Anne Frank (Croatian) . In: www.mvinfo.hr , Pavao Cindrić. 
  4. ↑ Nina Ožegović: Relja Bašić - svjetski glumac sa zagrebačkim štihom (Croatian) , Nacional . July 3, 2006. Archived from the original on July 7, 2012. Retrieved December 25, 2017. 
  5. ^ A b Ivo Goldstein: Holokaust u Zagrebu. Zagreb: Novi Lieber 2001, p. 472.
  6. ↑ a b Nina Ožegović: Simbol tragedije Židova u Hrvatskoj (Croatian) , Nacional . February 14, 2012. Archived from the original on July 1, 2012. Retrieved December 25, 2017. 
  7. ^ Entry in the Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims at the Yad Vashem Memorial
  8. ↑ Ivka German in the central database of names of Holocaust victims the memorial Yad Vashem
  9. ^ Sasa Deutsch in the central database of the names of the Holocaust victims of the Yad Vashem memorial
  10. ↑ US Holocaust Memorial Museum , Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database: Dr. Stjepan Deutsch , accessed December 25, 2017.
  11. ↑ Dubravka Ugrei: The New Barbarians , in Neue Zürcher Zeitung , July 27, 2007
  12. ↑ Završeno snimanje potresnog filma o Lei German (Croatian) . In: www.online-zagreb.hr , Online Zagreb. 
  13. ↑ Lea i Darija - Dječje carstvo (Croatian) . In: hrt.hr , Hrvatska radiotelevizija . 
personal data
SURNAME German, Lea
ALTERNATIVE NAMES German, Lea Dragica
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Yugoslav actress, singer and dancer
DATE OF BIRTH March 18, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Zagreb
DATE OF DEATH May 1943
Place of death between Zagreb and Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp