Lilly Hungarian

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Lilly Ungar (born in 1921 in Vienna as Lilly Bleier ) is an Austrian book and art dealer who since 1938 in Colombia lives and works. Since the death of her husband Hans Ungar in 2004, she has been the sole owner of Librería Central and Galeria El Callejón in Bogotá.

life and work

Lilly Bleier and her twin sister came from a wealthy and respected family of business people. The father owned the stocking factory Friedrich Bleier & Company in Vienna-Mariahilf , the mother died early. The twins had an older brother, Raoul. They attended the Wenzgasse grammar school in Hietzing , Vienna's 13th district. After the annexation of Austria in March 1938, she was just able to take her Matura . Studying was out of the question because of her Jewish origins. After the Nazis came to power, the Bleiers lost everything they had, the company and the apartment on Loquaiplatz. Even the car was robbed by the Nazis. As a result, the question of fleeing was not the question for the family, but only where and how.

emigration

At the time of the Anschluss, Raoul Bleier was in Colombia , where he was visiting a friend. He stayed there just to be on the safe side and quickly found work. He took on the representation of a large US company. He also managed to organize immigration papers for his father and two sisters. The family left Vienna in early 1939. They traveled by train to Rotterdam and then by ship to Barranquilla , from there along the Río Magdalena to Medellín . Spanish was already being learned hard on the ship. Lilly Bleier spoke several languages ​​and quickly found work. The owner of a textile company gave her responsibility for the checkbooks that were necessary for foreign transactions. Soon the family moved to Bogotá.

On a train ride she met Hans Ungar , who had also fled Vienna. He came from an upper-class Viennese family who owned fashion salons and fur shops and had studied at the University of World Trade . His parents were friends with Stefan Zweig and Hermann Bahr . He had escaped alone and was now working for a British banker. His parents and brother were still in Vienna. Hans Ungar and Lilly Bleier became a couple and married. The marriage produced a son and a daughter.

Hans Ungar lost his entire family of origin. In 1942 his parents, Paul and Alice Ungar, were murdered in the Sobibor extermination camp , and in 1943 his only brother, Fritz Heinz Ungar, in the Auschwitz concentration camp . Nevertheless, he remained very close to Austria and traveled to Vienna more often after the fall of the Nazi regime. "I never thought of returning, my husband did," Lilly Urban describes her attitude at the time in an interview with the Viennese daily Kurier . She is still skeptical today: "I think it is possible that history will repeat itself."

Librería Central

In 1946, Hans Ungar took over Librería Central, first as managing director and later also as owner . It was founded in 1926 by the Austrian Pablo Wolf. His wife was also his partner in business matters and also supported him in 1956 when he also opened an art gallery, Galeria El Callejón , now the oldest gallery in the country. The program was clearly defined, with internationally known names from Europe, for example Oskar Kokoschka , and young emerging artists from Colombia, for example Fernando Botero .

Her husband also taught at the Universidad de los Andes , hosted a weekly literary program on the radio and published in newspapers and magazines. The couple kept in touch with many emigrants and the bookstore quickly became a meeting place for intellectuals, artists and politicians from all over Latin America. The Freundeskreis included a number of exiles from Austria, including Erich Arendt , Paul Engel , Lore Friedmann, from the Altmann family, and her husband Fritz, Trude Krakauer , Franz Lichtenberg, Margot Neumann, and Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff , an anthropologist born in Salzburg .

Lilly Bleier lives in a brick villa on the slopes of Santa Fe de Bogotá . The largest private library in Colombia is located in this building. Even at the age of 97, she is in the bookstore every day and is called Doña Lilly by customers and employees.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Margaretha Kopeinig : “I never thought of returning” , Lilly Ungar. How the daughter of a Viennese in Colombia built her life, Kurier , November 9, 2018
  2. ^ Died: Hans Ungar. Spiegel, May 29, 2004, accessed November 10, 2018 .
  3. ↑ Bernhard Brudermann: "The literature is probably the best way to understand this unique, contradicting, great country" (Colombia) ( Memento of the original from August 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.david.juden.at archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in: David , Jewish cultural journal, undated, accessed on November 11, 2018

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hungarian, Lilly
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ungar, Elisabeth (full name); Bleier, Elisabeth (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian bookseller
DATE OF BIRTH 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna