OMIKE

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OMIKE ( Hungarian for Országos Magyar Izraelita Közművelődési Egyesület "National Hungarian-Israelite Educational Association") was a Hungarian association that existed from 1910 to 1944 to maintain and promote Jewish culture in Hungary.

history

OMIKE was founded in 1910 by the Budapest chief rabbi , Simon Hevesi, with the aim of conveying the traditional values ​​of Judaism to secularized Jews . OMIKE maintained various cultural and social offers in Hungarian cities, such as B. canteens for foreign students, libraries and dormitories for apprentices and students, and organized summer camps and lecture evenings. From 1939 onwards, actors, singers and other artists who were no longer able to practice their profession due to the Jews-discriminatory laws of the Hungarian government close to Germany were supported.

History from 1938

With the Jewish laws since 1938, Jewish cultural life was forcibly isolated and was only permitted in the synagogues, the Goldmark Hall, the Jewish Museum and in the smaller cultural institutions. Jewish authors were only allowed to be published by Jewish publishers; they were only allowed to write in Jewish newspapers. There was no resistance in Hungarian society because the measures were in line with rampant anti-Semitism. The intellectual ghettoization had already taken place before the spatial ghettoization was later ordered.

In addition to the Jewish laws, the Minister of the Interior Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer permitted OMIKE to expand its activities on September 12, 1938. Theater performances and readings were initially held in the Goldmark Hall, music performances in the OMIKE Chamber Theater and variety and poetry readings in the Kulturhaus am Bethlen-Platz , initially three times a week, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday, and from 1942 also on Thursday. A subscriber system was set up for the events, and sponsors were obtained for some events.

On November 11, 1939, Ernő Szép the emcee of the evening and took this task in the following period often true. Until the renovation of the Goldmark Hall in October 1941, operas could only be performed in concert form with piano accompaniment; this concerned Nabucco , Rebecca (oratorio by César Franck ), Fidelio , La juive , Orfeo ed Euridice and Die Entführung aus dem Seraglio . Aida and The Queen of Sheba were then performed with an orchestra ; the Aida was announced for March 2, 1944. The last event in the Goldmark Hall was on March 18, 1944, one day before the German occupation of Hungary .

At the theater there were Salomon An-ski's Dibbuk , Friedrich Hebbels Judith , both productions with Oskar Beregi , and contemporary authors such as Károly Pap with Betséba (1940) and Mózes (1944), Dezső Szomory and Jenő Rejtő .

Annie Fischer played Bach and Beethoven's Violin Concerto , the pianist Pál Kadosa and the cellist János Starker performed. Zoltán Kodály was honored on his sixtieth birthday, his wife Emma Schlesinger was Jewish, and there was the Hungarian premiere of Béla Bartók's Divertimento for string orchestra on December 7, 1942.

The clown Zoltán Hirsch , who was later killed in Auschwitz , also performed here.

The editor of the Nyugat successor “Magyar Csillag” Gyula Illyés printed poems by Szilárd Darvas (1909–1961) and Zoltán Zelk (1906–1981) despite the ban .

Theatrical performances

When the Jewish actors were no longer allowed to appear in the theater, the Hungarian State Opera came up with the idea of ​​giving their own performances in the Jewish Community's Goldmark Hall. The president of the parish, Dr. Ribári, obtained the permits for this, only Jewish artists should participate in the performances.

program

The opening took place on January 8, 1940 with Moses, a play by Imre Madách . Oszkár Beregi played the main role. Further performances were:

May 4th 1940 Pergolesi : La serva padrona
December 7, 1940 Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari : Il segreto di Susanna
January 27, 1941 Mozart: The Abduction from the Seraglio
November 4, 1941 Dezső Szomory : Alice Takáts
December 21, 1941 Ede Donáth : Sulamith
May 15, 1942 Mozart: Bastien and Bastienne
March 22, 1943 Jean Racine : Esther

The last production, a Molière comedy, was no longer given because German soldiers penetrated during the final rehearsal and the theater in Szeged closed. That was the end of OMIKE's four years of theater work.

people

management

  • László Bánóczi was director of the OMIKE theater
  • Oszkár Beregi (1876, Budapest - 1965 Hollywood) actor, director. During 1940–1944 he was the main director of the OMIKE theater. In 1944 he was able to hide with the help of his brother-in-law, the eminent singer Koloman von Pataky .
  • László Weiner (1916 Szombathely - 1944 Lukov) composer, pianist, conductor. Studied at Kodály at the Academy. In 1942 he and Vera Rózsa married. He was deported in 1943. Also Kodály could not save him.

Musician

  • Emma Schlesinger , married to Zoltán Kodály , composer
  • Vera Rózsa (1917, Budapest - 2010). Studied at the academy as a conductor and later as a singer. She first appeared on OMIKE in 1943. She sang in Handel's Judas Maccabaeus and the Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro . She found rescue in the Swedish Embassy with the help of Raoul Wallenberg , but has lost her husband. After the liberation she sang at the Hungarian State Opera and the Vienna State Opera
  • Gabriella Relle (1902, Budapest - 1975) 1924–29 soloist at the Hungarian State Opera; she performed at the Berlin State Opera in the 1930s . She sang over 40 roles.
  • Manci Herendi (1930 Budapest -) actress. After the war she played leading roles in different cities in Hungary.
  • Dezső serious , bassist. Had great success in Germany. When the Nazis seized power, he returned to Hungary. Sang a lot at OMIKE. In 1944 he was arrested and taken to a camp, but he was among the 1,684 Jewswho were rescued to Switzerland on theinitiative of Rudolf Kasztner . After the war, Ernster sang in Budapest and in various theaters abroad.
  • Moshe Schwimmer (1918, Ukraine - 2003), cantor. Schwimmer studied in Brno , where he sang in the conservatory choir and fled to Budapest from the Nazis. He gave concerts until he was taken to a camp. After the liberation he performed in Europe and later emigrated to Chicago , where he worked as a cantor in the Ezra Temple for 30 years.
  • Béla Lénárd (1892, Vienna - 1960, Budapest), actor. In the twenties he played in various comedies and founded a cabaret. Between 1940 and 1944 he performed with OMIKE. After the war he continued his theater career.

Visual artist

  • Imre Ámos Ungár (1907, Nagykálló - 1943 Ohrdruf) graphic artist. In the labor camp prepared many drawings that were exhibited in the OMIKE. He was later arrested again and sent to Ukraine. There, too, he continued to draw and also wrote poetry. In 1943, the Germans forced him to march west. During the march he died in an unknown location. <the marches were 1944/45>
  • Ilka Gedő (1921, Budapest - 1985, Budapest) painter and graphic artist. She participated in the second OMIKE exhibition in 1940 and the fifth in 1943. In 1944 she drewa large series of drawingsin the Budapest ghetto .

writer

Classics were performed at OMIKE, but also pieces by Jewish writers whose performance was otherwise prohibited.

souvenir

  • OMIKE concert program May 1943 and September 1947
  • 2004 Jahn Auction Budapest V. Szent István Ringstrassert. 11.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Magyar Zsidó Lexicon. )@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.zsidlex.extra.hu
  2. ↑ Kinga Frojimovics, Géza Komoróczy and others: Jewish Budapest: monuments, rites, history. 1999, pp. 364-369.
  3. ↑ DNB
  4. ↑ on March 19, 1944, Hungary was occupied
  5. ↑ History 1920–1949. ( tbeck.beckground.hu ( Memento from September 18, 2010 in the Internet Archive ))
  6. ^ Agnes Kory: Remembering Seven Murdered Hungarian Jewish Composers. The OREL Foundation, 2009. (orelfoundation.org)
  7. ↑ Katalin S. Nagy: Emlékkavicsok - A holocaust a magyar képzőművészetben (1938–1945). 2006, pp. 60, 64.
  8. ↑ jewishvirtuallibrary , see also Hungarian Wikipedia hu: Bálint Lajos (író)
  9. ↑ Károly Pap. Jewishvirtuallibrary.org
  10. ↑ Omike program sheet. ( judaika.hu ( Memento from March 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive ))
  11. ^ Judaica auction in Hungary. 2004. ( judaika.hu ( Memento from July 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ))

literature

  • Kinga Frojimovics, Géza Komoróczy u. a .: Jewish Budapest: monuments, rites, history. (= Atlantic studies on society in change , 101). Central Europ. Univ. Press, Budapest 1999, ISBN 963-9116-38-6 .
  • Remény. Hungarian magazine issue 1998 (Remény)
  • Magda Horák (Ed.): "Ősi hittel, becsülettel a hazáért!" : OMIKE; Országos Magyar Izraelita Közművelődési Egyesület 1909–1944 . Háttér, Budapest 1998, ISBN 963-8128-46-1 .
  • Judit Hasznos, Erika Garics: Száz éves az OMIKE 1998 . Remény Folyóírság 2009 tavaszi számja. (remeny.org)
  • R. Füzesi: Színház az árnyékban . 1991. (mek.niif.hu)
  • Yehuda Don: The Economic Effect of Antisemitic Discrimination: Hungarian Anti-Jewish Legislation. 1938-1944 . In: Michael R. Marrus : The Nazi Holocaust: historical articles of the destruction of European Jews , Volume 4: The "Final Solution" outside Germany. Vol. 2, Meckler, Westport 1989, ISBN 3-598-21556-8 , pp. 504-523.
  • Katalin S. Nagy: Emlékkavicsok - A holocaust a magyar képzőművészetben (1938–1945) . Glória Kiadó, Budapest 2006, ISBN 963-9283-99-1 . (Memorial stones, the Holocaust in Hungarian fine arts)
  • Frederick Bondy: The Writers, Artists, Singers, and Musicians of the National Hungarian Jewish Cultural Association (OMIKE), 1939-1944 . Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Indiana 2017, ISBN 978-1-55753-764-5 .