Martha Hofmann

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Martha Hofmann (born August 29, 1895 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ; died November 9, 1975 in Vienna) was an Austrian political activist and writer. She also wrote under the pseudonym Melitta Holl .

Life

Martha Hofmann was the eighth of nine children of the Viennese wood wholesaler Edmund Hofmann and Henriette Hock. The father was an honorary professor at the Vienna University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences , he died in 1923, his mother in 1941, the oldest sister was a victim of the Holocaust , the other siblings managed to escape, including the art historian Else Hofmann (1893–1960)

Hofmann attended the Lyceum of the civil servants' daughter association and the Black Forest School in Vienna, where she received her Matura in 1914. During the First World War she worked temporarily as a nurse. She studied classical philology, German and archeology in Vienna, Berlin, Leipzig and Heidelberg. In 1920 she received her doctorate with the dissertation “De fabula Platonica” and did a school internship at the Odenwald School . After the teaching examination for Latin and Greek in 1921, Hofmann taught German, Latin and Greek at the Zwi-Perez-Chajes School in Vienna. In the 1920s Hofmann led the cultural work of the Women's International Zionist Organization (WIZO) in Austria. In 1927 she lost her right arm in a car accident in Palestine . In Vienna she also taught at the Jewish Center founded by Anitta Müller-Cohen and was involved in the workers' organization Poale Zion . In 1927 she was a participant in the World Jewish Congress in Basel. In 1930 she acted as head of cultural work at WIZO in London for a year and in the same year published the commemorative publication “Ten Years of WIZO” in Vienna. In 1935 she visited Palestine again.

Hofmann published poems and literary contributions in the Wiener Morgenzeitung , the Neue Freie Presse , the Jüdische Rundschau (Berlin), in Die Demokratie (Vienna), Menorah and Der Jude . In 1925 she published the “Jewish Annual Almanac” with Ludwig Bató . In 1932 she won a short story award from the New Vienna Journal .

After Austria's annexation in 1938, Hofmann was dismissed from school as a Jew. She fled to London and in 1939 to Palestine, where she made her way as a language teacher. When she got into journalistic work in the press and radio, she found support from the literary critic Natan Bistritzki , the politician Salman Rubaschow and the writer Shin Shalom . Since she had not settled in Palestine even after seven years, she moved to a sister in Geneva in 1946 , trained as an interpreter and “made friends with the Yiddish poet Lajser Ajchenrand ”.

Against her inner conviction and in the absence of alternatives, she moved back to Austria. In 1949 Hofmann was returned to school service in Austria. At the same time she worked for the education department of the Austrian Trade Union Confederation and published in its magazine "Der Bildungsfunktionär", she became a member of the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SDAP). In 1957 she left school. Hofmann was a board member of the Austrian PEN Club and the Austrian Writers' Association . She was friends with Rudolf Felmayer and Ernst Waldinger .

In 1953 Hofmann won the literary Chagall competition at the Albertina in Vienna . In 1954 she received the Georg Trakl Prize for Poetry and in 1963 the Theodor Körner Prize for Literature. In 1970 she was awarded the Cross of Honor for Science and Art .

tomb

Hofmann is buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery (honor grave group 40).

Works (selection)

  • The blue tent . Poems. Vienna: Saturn, 1934
  • Dinah and the poet . Hebrew translation. Tel-Aviv, 1942 (a Kafka novella)
  • On the crossroads . Play. London, 1945
  • The star trail. New poems (1935–1947) . Zurich: Oprecht, 1948
  • Persephone and seven chapters on the dying of the creature . Innsbruck: Austrian Publishing House, 1950
  • Wandering stars . Poems. Vienna: Jupiter, 1954
  • Nomad trains. Cyclic seals . Vienna: Bergland, 1957
  • The Orient lies towards evening . New poems. Vienna: Austrian Publishing House, 1962
  • Constellations. Selected essays (1945–1965) . Vienna: Bergland, 1966
  • Theodor Herzl - Becoming and Path . Essay. Frankfurt am Main: Ner-Tamid, 1966
  • From my great-grandmother's portfolio . Autobiography. In: Josef Fraenkel : The Jews of Austria . London: Valentine Mitchell, 1967
  • Constellations. Selected essays (1945–1965) . Vienna: Bergland, 1966
  • Encounters, light and dark. New verses . Vienna: Bergland, 1969
  • Reflection landscapes . Freiburg im Breisgau: Owls, 1992
  • Path landscapes . Freiburg im Breisgau: Owls, 1998

literature

ascending in time

  • E. Adunka:  Hofmann, Martha . In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 . 2nd revised edition (online only). 1965
  • Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss (Ed.): International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933–1945 . Volume 2.1. Munich: Saur, 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 530
  • Evelyn Adunka: Despite all difficulties and plagues. Reference to Martha Hofmann. In: Literature and Criticism , H. 301/302, 2001, pp. 64–76
  • Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century. Volume 1: A-I. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , pp. 568f.
  • Hofmann, Martha. In: Lexicon of German-Jewish Authors . Volume 12: Hirs – Jaco. Edited by the Bibliographia Judaica archive. Saur, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-598-22692-2 , pp. 188-195.
  • Dieter Hecht: At the Crossroads: Martha Hofmann, a Zionist Pioneer from Austria. In: Judith Szapor (ed.): Jewish Intellectual Women in Central Europe 1860–2000: twelve biographical essays . Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2012 ISBN 978-0-7734-2933-8 , pp. 261-292
  • Sonja Niederacher: Property and Gender. Jewish entrepreneurial families in Vienna (1900–1960) . Vienna: Böhlau, 2012, ISBN 978-3-205-78751-8 , p. 58ff.
  • Evelyn Adunka : Hofmann, Martha. In: Andreas B. Kilcher (Ed.): Metzler Lexicon of German-Jewish Literature. Jewish authors in the German language from the Enlightenment to the present. 2nd, updated and expanded edition. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2012, ISBN 978-3-476-02457-2 , pp. 237-239.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Evelyn Adunka: Hofmann, Martha. In: Metzler Lexicon of German-Jewish Literature , 2012, pp. 237–239
  2. ^ Hofmann, Else , in: Ulrike Wendland: Biographical Handbook of German-Speaking Art Historians in Exile. Life and work of the scientists persecuted and expelled under National Socialism . Munich: Saur, 1999, ISBN 3-598-11339-0 , p. 319f.
  3. ↑ Evelyn Adunka:  Bató, Ludwig . In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 . 2nd revised edition (online only).
  4. ^ Shalom, Shin , at Jewish virtual library
personal data
SURNAME Hofmann, Martha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Melitta Holl (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 29, 1895
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH November 9, 1975
Place of death Vienna