Trude Sojka

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
Trude Sojka in 1999

Gertrud Herta “Trude” Sojka (born December 9, 1909 in Berlin ; † March 18, 2007 in Quito ) was a German painter and sculptor who created a technique out of recycled materials and concrete.

Eva y la Culebra

Life and education

Sojka grew up with two siblings as the child of Czech- Jewish parents. Her father, Rudolf Sojka, was an engineer who was married to Hedwig Baum. The family soon moved to Prague on Na Poříčí Street near the train station. In addition to Czech and German, Sojka learned several languages ​​(English, French, Latin, Greek) at a young age and was interested in music and the visual arts. She spent her holidays in a boarding school in Lausanne .

After graduating from high school, her father enrolled her in the Faculty of Economics in order to enable her to have a "serious" career in contrast to the arts. She was so bored there that she drew caricatures of the professors. Eventually she began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin , which she finished in 1936. In 1938 she married Dezider Schwartz, a Slovak public official.

time of the nationalsocialism

After Hitler came to power and the rest of the Czech Republic was broken up by the “ Third Reich ”, the Sojka family got into trouble. The Sojkas were not very religious and did not understand the dangers that threatened them under the Nazi regime. In 1942, Sojka's mother was murdered near Malý Trostinec . In 1943 her sister Edit was brought to Theresienstadt together with her husband Arthur Porges and their son Karl and later died in Auschwitz . Sojka and her husband were able to hide in the city of Nitra in Slovakia until 1944 .

In September 1944, after the Slovak National Uprising , she was with her husband in the forced labor camps of Sereď brought near Nitra. In October they were transferred to Auschwitz. Trude Sojka never saw her husband again, who probably died on a death march. Trude Sojka stayed in Auschwitz for a month and was then transferred to Groß-Rosen in Poland, later to Kudowa-Sąkisch and from March 1945 to the Zittwerke Kleinschönau, where many pregnant Jewish women did forced labor to build airplanes and other machines.

Their daughter Gabriele was born on May 4, 1945, Evelyn Schwartz, who died on May 29, two weeks after the camp was liberated by the Soviet army on May 11.

Sojka's story during the Holocaust continues to be investigated as she refused to speak about her experience.

The only family members of Sojka who were not interned in a concentration camp were her older brother Waltre's family. As an engineer and scientist, he was invited to Ecuador with his wife to give lectures in chemistry. Given the dangerous situation for Jews in Europe, the couple decided to stay in Ecuador.

After the Second World War

After her liberation, Sojka returned to her house in Prague, which had been confiscated by the SS . She earned her living for a year as a translator, secretary, ceramist and in other professions. When her brother Waltre, who lived in Ecuador, reported to the Red Cross, she found out about his survival and traveled to Ecuador, where she continued to Quito with her brother and his wife.

On her arrival in Guayaquil , Trude Sojka met her future second husband Hans Steinitz for the first time, a German-Jewish lawyer who escaped from Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 1939 , whom she married in 1948 and with whom she had three daughters. Trude could now devote herself to her art and home. During this time she met great Ecuadorian artists such as Oswaldo Guayasamín, Gilberto Almeida, Víctor Mideros, Manuel Rendón and, in the 1990s, Pilar Bustos.

At the age of 90 Sojka was honored by the Ecuadorian cultural center Benjamín Carrión as "Artist Emeritus". In connection with this honor, the House of Culture organized a retrospective exhibition of their works and published the book Las Dos Vidas de Trude Sojka , written by Rodrigo Villacís Molina. This was just one of the many honors that took place in Ecuador in the House of Culture.

In 2001 Sojka suffered a stroke. Until around the age of 95, she continued to make heavy paintings and sculptures using cement and recycled materials. When her strength waned, she stopped cementing and only painted and drew.

Trude Sojka died of respiratory failure on March 18, 2007.

job

First influences in Europe

Sojka studied at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin, where she got to know German Expressionism ( Die Brücke ) and Jewish Expressionism. She was interested in the works of Marc Chagall , Chaim Soutine and Georges Rouault and admired the sculptures by Ernst Barlach .

On the other hand, Sojka was already interested in primitive art from Africa, Oceania, and Indo-America, which she probably knew from ethnographic museums. When she arrived in Ecuador after the war in 1946, she was amazed to see the pre-Columbian and Andean symbols so clearly.

holocaust

Her first paintings in Ecuador in the 1950s tell of her experiences in the concentration camp: fear and loneliness, barbed wire, the sad procession of women who might go to the gas chambers, but also their prayers, which helped her to survive the horror, just like them Hope for freedom and a new life.

Pre-Columbian and Andes

Little by little, Sojka became fascinated by the popular Ecuadorian art and the symbolism of the ancient peoples of [Chachi | [Cayapa]], Guangala and Jama-Coaques, which led her to study them closely. Then, always using the same technique, she created paintings and sculptures with themes such as the petroglyphs , the Indian horses, the Tahuantinsuyo and stylized traditional indigenous motifs such as jaguar, monkey, bird, snake, sun and moon.

German and Jewish Expressionism

Already in Ecuador, in memory of her studies of fine arts in Europe and the influence of German and Jewish Expressionism, she devoted herself to experimenting with lines, colors and shapes in order to express her inner world. She created abstract and figurative works full of power and texture, with a dynamic use of colors and curved or straight lines that are reminiscent of music, dance, rhythmic gymnastics.

With advancing age and the birth of her two granddaughters, Sojka began to reflect on her own happy childhood, on her dreams, to remember the fairy tales and created works such as Tale of the Yellow Butterflies , or Carousel .

Exhibitions

  • 1969: Kitgua Gallery, Quito, Ecuador.
  • 1972: Anden Gallery, Philadelphia, USA
  • 1974: Galerie Gue-Bertz, gallery of the art museum and women's hall, Organization of the American States, Quito.
  • 1975: Las Peñas Gallery and El Toro Rojo Gallery, Quito.
  • 1977: Great Gulf Coast Festival, Pensacola, USA
  • 1978: Art Center, Pensacola, USA
  • 1981: 25th "Arts, Formes, Couleurs" hall, Le Bourget, France.
  • 1982: 26th "Arts, Formes, Couleurs" hall, Le Bourget, France.
  • 1990: Retrospective at the Pomaire Gallery, Quito and Greta Peterson Gallery, Cincinnati, USA.
  • 1991: Collective exhibition at Pomaire Gallery, Quito.
  • 1996: Retrospective "Vivencias" in the Centro Cultural CINCO, Quito.
  • 2000: Retrospective in the House of Ecuadorian Culture.
  • 2003: House of Ecuadorian Culture, core of Guaranda, Ecuador.
  • 2004: House of Ecuadorian Culture, core of Ríobamba, Ecuador.
  • 2015: Posthumous donation of the Thanatos sculpture to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.

Trude Sojka Culture House

The Kulturhaus Trude Sojka, a non-governmental non-profit organization, was opened to the public by the artist's family on March 12, 2009 in honor of Trude Sojka. In addition to exhibiting their work, it is a space for new artists, art workshops and human development to promote culture, art and peace. It includes the Hans Steinitz Library, which specializes in art and the Holocaust, and a sculpture garden.

Today the Kulturhaus Trude Sojka has the support of the Ministry of Ecuadorian Culture and the Claims Conference, USA, and the Czech Ambassador for Peru and Ecuador. It is also part of the culture museums and the Cemtros system of Quito.

The CCTS offers space for thematic, historical, photographic temporary exhibitions of up-and-coming artists. It also offers workshops on education for peace and the arts to schools, various groups and the public.

bibliography

  • Villacís Molina, Rodrigo: “The Two Lives of Trude Sojka”. Macshori Ruales Editor. Quito, 1999

Web links

Commons : Trude Sojka  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ sub camps of KL wholesale roses - Gross-Rosen . In: Gross-Rosen . ( gross-rosen.eu [accessed on August 10, 2018]).
  2. ^ Claims Conference: South America: Holocaust Education - Claims Conference . In: Claims Conference . ( claimscon.org [accessed August 10, 2018]).
  3. ↑ Acercamiento a la obra de Gertrude Sojka: - Repositorio UASB. Retrieved August 10, 2018 .
  4. ↑ The Trude Sojka Cultural House (Quito) - Current 2018 - Is it worth it? (With photos). Retrieved August 10, 2018 .
  5. ↑ Z domu výtvarnice Trude Sojky v Ekvádoru se stalo muzeum . ( rozhlas.cz [accessed August 10, 2018]).
  6. ↑ Pozvánka na výstavu: Gabriela Steinitz - ID | blansko.cz . ( blansko.cz [accessed on August 10, 2018]).
  7. ↑ Rodrigo Villacis Molina: Trude Sojka . Macshori Ruales Editora, Quito 1999, ISBN 978-9978-41-073-8 ( amazon.com [accessed August 10, 2018]).
personal data
SURNAME Sojka, Trude
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sojka, Gertrud Herta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH December 9, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin
DATE OF DEATH March 18, 2007
Place of death Quito