Übersinnlich: Anthologie (German Edition)

Franz Spunda

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Spunda publiziert aber schon damals auch in renommierten liberal- und nationalkonservativen Zeitschriften sowie in Organen der katholischer Erneuerungsbewegung u. So ist Magie im Sinne Hohenheims ein inniges Versenken in die Natur, ein aktives Schauen und Erkennen, das nichts mit dem Volksaberglauben zu tun hat, ein Versenktsein, das aber noch Kraft zum Handeln und zum Gestalten des Geschauten hat, kurz gesagt, eine dynamische Theologie der Natur. Spundas Sehnsuchtsorte haben sich inzwischen in die griechische Welt verschoben. Viel eher erscheinen diese in die neuen Diskursfelder versetzt und transformiert.

Die parallel zu den Reiseschilderungen entstehenden Griechenland-Sonette sind der konzentrierte Ausdruck dieses Autorbewusstseins. Auch die ersten romanhaften Bearbeitungen der Hellas-Sehnsucht stehen noch deutlich in diesem Bann: Atlantis , Die Pause, nach Merian. Richard Strauss mit einer begeisterten brieflichen Stellungnahme Er gestattet es sich auch, mit den vorhandenen historischen Quellen relativ frei, wenngleich nicht beliebig zu verfahren.

Dagegen richtet sie das Idealbild des Platonischen Staates auf. Religion ist der Atem, der alles durchwebt. One of the sons is a photographer. Two sons are lawyer candidates and one son is secondary-school teacher. The youngest daughter, aged 22, is a clerk. In another letter, originating from April , he writes among others: I always said yes during our Platoesque dialogues, I took the easy or difficult role of the silent listener: Secretly, however, I was fully aware of how much I was learning.

I have already finished five chapters, and I have a strange but good idea. Although I am nervous and capricious, but what I have translated, has really been done well. He is a wonderful man: He starts his travels at the spur of the moment, he wanders spontaneously, while I am pushed around by life. Right now, where I am being pushed? I don't mind being pushed unless I move forward. I need not go upwards!

For that I would have to have wings. He is a sad man who laughed a lot at himself and criticized the wicked world. He is an interesting chap this sad man , that is, his soul is so healthy but his body is so sick. In vain does one look here for the wisdom of the Latin saying "mens sana in corpore sano".

I know from him that one of your poems was included in a German anthology of poetry. In spite of his vast knowledge, he did not make a career. He became a grammar school teacher of German as a second language and Hungarian literature. Most of the preserved books are in German including the complete works of the great classic German writers and philosophers.

He wrote several studies on Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Goethe's Teachings for Youth which was written for a memorial celebration of the th anniversary of Goethe's death. He also translated the Hassidic tales of Martin Buber into Hungarian. I still have a letter written by grandfather to Martin Buber inquiring about the terms and conditions under which a selection of Buber's collection of Hassidic tales could be published.

Towards the end of his life, Simon's friends deserted him. He was a lonely man. He did not like his colleagues at school. He thought they were haughty hypocrites. Probably he was right. My grandmother, Elsa Weisskopf became alienated from her husband. Mother writes in a rather bitter tone about her parents' marriage: Her father is to be blamed for this, because, from early childhood on, what she hears and sees when her mother talks to her father clearly indicates that her mother does not love her father.

Her father is not the respected head of the family, but a psychopathic invalid. Mother has never shown the emotions and words of a woman who is in love with her husband. Mother was living with me, instead of father. Did I play the role of a boy or that of a girl in this collusion? She did not tell her sons anything about her life, and this can only be party attributed to the circumstance that she spent the last days of the war "in a yellow-star house", a house designated for Jews and located close to the borders of the ghetto. The other reason for keeping absolutely silent about the past might have been her intention to avoid confronting the past, and she must have thought that her children should not have anything to do with the past.

Her father was teacher of Hungarian literature and German at a secondary grammar school, while her mother was an office clerk with unfulfilled literary ambitions. This is what she writes about her Vienna experiences: But this is not a problem. Last night we had an absolutely wonderful time. We were at the Vienna Opera House and saw Turandot.

We sat in the box on the second balcony. Before taking our seats I was shown around on the huge gallery and the corridors. The Vienna Opera House is larger than ours. The interior of the auditorium is also huge.

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From the box you could see the whole auditorium and also the orchestra. I had excellent binoculars to examine the faces with. There were huge applauses before and after the acts and even during them. The first act was so sinister and weird. There were executioners lit by red light while they were clinking and sharpening their swords. There was also an execution.

Anyway, this is not so much important. The mandarins, wearing their long hair plaited and beautifully dressed, the emperor, the people and the princess were all excellent. A huge number of lampions could be seen. By 11 we had got home, and went to bed immediately. Yesterday morning I worked in the garden. I have just had a snack and now I am writing to you. I was glad to receive your letter. I would very much like to know what is the second volume. How is life at home?

Carola Kickers

This meant that, as she had a large vocabulary, she could read German novels and newspapers easily, and she was quite fluent in speaking the language. She went to a very expensive private school, where in addition to German and English, she also learnt French. Latin, however, was not part of the curriculum. She originated from the well-to-do middle-class, and she learnt German from her mother whose mother tongue was German. She also knew French and English very well.

Her love of literature and poetry was so intense that she also tried writing. She translated two tales by E. A Hoffmann and Goethe into Hungarian. She wrote tales for a children's magazine. Other issues of Cimbora June 10 , 19 and 26 May and June I am drifting between illness and work. The writings are not without any talent, but they are just what one calls amateurish. The founder of this school pointed out the importance of building up a world in the pupils' minds in which a sense of morality prevails.

She believed that the cool and detached transfer of knowledge is not enough and that tuition must also affect the deeper layers of the soul. She had been drawing from her early childhood on recording her experiences continuously as if she were keeping a diary. Her sketchbooks have been nearly completely preserved. Memory flashes from the past. She is ten years old and while on holiday in Tirol she walks around alone, in a village totally unknown to her, with her sketchbook looking for motives. She is eleven years old, but she is drawing on the shore of lake Balaton with a deadly seriousness.

In the hustle and bustle of Saturday markets she tries out the impossible, she tries to capture the fleeing moment, and if someone casts a glance at the drawing in the sketchbook, her face goes red with anger despite her shame and disgust of causing a stir. A series of sketchbooks has been preserved that contains beautiful drawings of sceneries made in colour pencil.

The composition of the drawing is striking and the drawings display a strange sense of beauty. Given the fact that the scenery pictures were drawn by a child aged eleven, the viewer is really surprised how mature the composition is, and how these drawings done in colour pencil already have an atmosphere of their own.

One of these drawings shows a garden with the garden gate. On one side of the gate there is a long pole topped by a wind-cock which is in fact a soldier made of clay, dressed in red trousers and a blue shirt and holding swords in both arms. The title of the drawing can be found on the right-hand bottom corner The soldier defends the fatherland with two swords.

A reading of the artist's recollections already quoted above, reveals that for the child artist drawing is both the most adored activity and also an escape from reality: She wrote a letter to me encouraging me to participate in the joint activities. She asked me whether I was waiting to be invited. No one can understand that I can't possibly be playing, laughing and drawing at the same time. If I withdraw from my campmates, there is a reason for that: I want to draw.

I think it is easy to understand this. But no one is willing to understand this. This is how she remembers in her recollections: This was true in as much as that I looked around in the world with a great deal of sensitivity and passion. Later on, I really recognised that other women were different from me, but I did not think they were other women or the real women, I merely believed they were less sensitive than me.

References are to the website www. On 2 August she wrote the following letter to her parents: I do not have anything yet to write about. There are two grown-up children, Ilonka and another child whose name I have forgotten. The ship journey was excellent and enjoyable, the sun was shining in the deep blue sky.

I was drawing and I was alive. Anyuli, write me a long letter, please. And a few days later she wrote: It really goes too far that Lenkice phoned me up. I draw the scenery, and the longer I am here, the better I like it. I like Aunt Olga very much. I wrote a five-page letter to Sziszi if I do write, why should not it be a long letter. I am good at gymnastics. Ships were slowly passing by and it was all completely silent. He is always here and he cheers us up all the time and helps in everything we do.

I got a letter from Sziszi. The day before yesterday we climbed the hill to watch the full moon rise over the horizon. I would not have believed how beautiful it is here at the top. The narrow path leading to the top and winding through the forest and the trees is also nice. On the way back the trees looked as if snow had fallen on them. Jinny believes this is due to the white moonlight. She spent a few weeks at the house of the elementary school teacher of the local school. On 2 July she wrote to her mother: It is a pleasure for me to watch this life, but I can also do what I want to.

Yesterday afternoon was spent with packing and looking around, and, like the first afternoon, it was long. I and my very young and lovely roommates slept well at night. There is a five-year-old boy with his seven-year-old sister and an eleven-year old girl with her sister aged 8. I had breakfast very early at five thirty and then I walked into the village. I could see the trees of the abbey park only behind the park fence, and the large-sized croft with huge stalls is also behind the fence.

Two girl children led me to the potato field in the vicinity, where I drew a woman hoeing weeds. I came home with her; she spoke about the owls of which there are very many here. She has lived in a manor for 18 years, and whole groups of owls are attracted by light.

I'm writing this letter in the afternoon: My things are in my suitcase under the bed and there was ample room in the wardrobe for the other things. I have already been to the open-air swimming pool; and never in my life have I enjoyed water so much as today. But he is good-willed to people. Our house is at the very end of the village. The final part of the voyage was very beautiful. The part around the church is quite old and you can see quite a lot of beautiful horse-drawn carriages and peasants with a swaggering walk.

Aunt Vali asked me to tell her how long I would stay, because there is someone to replace me if I wanted to leave and she would have to inform her. I replied that I would definitely stay for another two weeks. To be sure, that does not necessarily mean that another four weeks could also be possible. She prepares a large number of drawings Folder 40 and she writes to her parents almost on a daily basis. On 4 July she writes: Behind the house and beyond the bridge there are meadows and a lot of things to draw, you do not have to walk far to draw.

The wheat harvest will start in two weeks. Then I will really have a lot to draw. But even until then I can find people hoeing the weeds or peasant kids. If you walk through the village at about three o'clock, it is completely deserted. At half past six, however, the hay carts are coming through the streets and perched on them you can really see very good drawing models. I have never seen a peasant in the streets during the day.

They say there is so much work that everyone who is not lazy can make a living. There is also some charcoal making going on and lime burning deep down in the middle of the forest. People say that at night you can see the smoke above the forest and, in the case of lime burning, the flame. I've only brought two aquarelle papers, you could send some of them along with the apron and the strong drawing pins that Lenke is going to send anyway.

It is surely available everywhere. From the Glasgow Exhibition Nos. As I have just been told by the cowherd children coming this way that an elderly man I've forgotten his name is burning lime. Deep within the forest there is also a stone quarry. I will go to the village to post this card and then I will go home, where everything is fine. Last night I talked with Mr. Aunt Vali is also kind and clever.

There are two other aunts. After the children had gone to bed, I was also sitting with Marianna on the terrace. It is Wednesday evening now. I have just come back from a fantastic walk in the forest, a walk that surpassed everything you can imagine in every respect. There are lots of blackberries in the forest and a strange magic feeling overcomes you if you are there. You can find such tall beech trees there that I have never seen in my life.

Thanks for your card. So strange that aunt Lenke has not visited us for ages. I started to read the short story by Keller. Please write to me. On 8 July she writes to her parents: And you can also find here huge blood-red blackberries under the huge beech trees. I had finished this book the day before yesterday, because there is time also for reading, after lunch, when it is so hot and the kids take a rest. I work a lot. I talk to the village folk, the fork makers because it is on our street that forks needed for the harvest of this whole region are carved out.

The days go by with incredible speed, which is quite painful but which proves beyond doubt that I don't get bored here! On 9 July she sends the following report to her parents: They do the carving while sitting on a strange chair, and then the fork is assembled out of its parts. To me the peasants' dialect is not strange, because I heard it from Annus. Towards the end of the vacation, on 13 July she wrote: I do not know yet whether I stay next week for the fourth week.

Travelling around in the region would cost a lot of money. Anyhow, I want to see Zirc by all means! But I have a problem: I have completely run out of the pocket money, but this is because I had my brown shoes heeled: I will write to you on Wednesday and let you know whether I go home on Friday or not. It is not a good idea to ask Vali for this amount, and to go home with leaving behind a debt.

If the money is not spent, the better it is. If you get my Wednesday message on Thursday, and if I decide to stay, Vali will get her money either on Friday or on Saturday. I want to get the money immediately so that I can have time to go to Zirc. It is a pity I can's see the village fair of Zirc. On 20 July she writes: He looks at the field to see how much he has already harvested.

To hell with everything, to hell with the pig, to hell with the blunt scythe and to hell with the late wife. This is how the artist remembers the end of this vacation and her return home in her recollections: Folder 40 Images 4, 24, 25, 30 and She turned up unexpectedly at strange farmsteads to be received by children.

Why did she not try to draw the peasant women walking with a rolling gait? Where were the Sunday couples? Why did not she have any interest in them? Fatigued, she slept like a day labourer. Weeks later she got home and she put all the drawings of the harvest on the sofa showing them to her mother. With what a boyish gesture! The artist's mother replied: I found great joy in your letter: In addition to acquiring the technique of the profession, drawing and painting a lot, you should strive to develop in yourself genuine humanity, understanding, forgiveness and patient discipline, because these are the traits that may also best serve your art.

However, we live on occupied territory, I am unable to invite you this year, and neither would I assume the responsibility of inviting you. I tried to think hard, but I could not remember the right family. This is a region of unparalleled beauty, and I lived in a fantastic peasant house. It has an incomparable beauty. He lives at a small town, and is a hotel owner. He is an interesting and educated man who publishes his writings and he deals with folklore. You could learn a lot from him, as he is a great friend and advisor of the peasantry.

Maybe he can find some good accommodation for you. His hotel is not at a summer resort but in a small town. Like all the parts of Transdanubia, this region has a warm climate. You should send your drawings to him and let him know how much you can afford to spend. Do write to my summer address sometimes. Obviously you should be aware of the fact that letters are being censored at the border.

To sum it up, you should never write about anything that is or can be regarded to be political news. There in the village I am mostly known by this latter name. The drawings of Folder 20 were made in Folder 37 contains self-portraits originating from and Images ; ; 18, and These drawings, while being reports of physical reality, display a nearly infinite sensitivity.

From Folder 37 Nos. She obtains a letter of recommendation: I think the unfolding of her excellent talent would be largely helped, if she had the opportunity to continue her studies at the Paris School of Fine Arts. In fact, it is more correct to say that to receive instruction from a teacher who is not excellent is a waste of time.

And it also true that a talented student can learn from a talented master more easily and more quickly, and this is true even then when the master is not the best teacher. Initially, it is important to acquire a reliable and good basic knowledge and to develop taste in the good direction so that the artist identifies with important requirements. These are the right principles, but they do not help you choose the right school based on the prospectuses.

And I who do not know all these schools cannot give you advice. Anyway, those who want to become painters, mostly visit the free schools. I myself used to visit the Academy Julian for a few months, and at that time the best master, J. Laurens was still living. He was not a good painter, but he was an ideal teacher, who often promoted ideas that were in contrast with his own painterly work! But maybe if everything comes off as I planned, maybe I will go there myself this autumn. Therefore, I haven't got the slightest idea as regards your questions on England.

However, this conclusion must be brought in harmony with the expectations that one has towards himself. Should you have made drawings, bring them to me because I would like to see them. I stay another two weeks in Budapest. I have absolutely no excuse, as I do hardly any work. Somehow my interest in anything has waned. Well, I have grown quite old, but I myself have not found any reason for doing something than love. And, practically I do not believe there is any other reason. This, incidentally, was always the subject of debate between me and Robert. If I am capable of loving with a sufficient energy, then, maybe, the whole world will be interested if not may be no one will be interested.

To be sure, as regards the work method, you have to be very careful. I am afraid I have already told you this so often that you will get bored by it. The image that you bring to canvas or paper must really be composed so that what you love and have chosen to be your subject should be as suggestive as possible, so that we, the viewers, can feel what you were moved by or what you were so much glad about.

You should whole-heartedly follow your fantasy and you should leave out everything that disturbs or does not belong there. You should carefully choose the material and the medium through which you wish to give expression to your message. I would be willing to teach you and help you, but right now this is impossible. What you are writing about taking a job is nearly impossible, because right now France does not issue any work permits.

You could only come here as a student, and I do not know whether the National Bank really issues the required licence. Anyhow, if I were you I would try to mobilise some good contacts. Do not allow your spirits to fail you. You have no reason to be sad, especially if you can see things that you do not forget, because they have moved you or made you happy. I just inquired what you could do. You can enrol yourself in Beaux Arts for next year.

There are no summer courses. The administration fee is francs; and the teacher's fee is francs. You have to submit your drawings based upon which you are admitted. If I go there, I myself will enquire what they really offer. I invariably recommend a summer course in French, where you learn French and only then you should come to Paris.

The Years of the War Finally, she does not get to Paris, and - among others due to the Jewish laws - she cannot visit the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. Recollecting these years in , she writes: Sometimes I got on a tram with a drawing folder, and within hours I came back, got off the tram at the stop walked up Garas utca , and I told mother that the person that I visited liked my drawings very much indeed. Sometimes I even showed her the particular drawings that were liked. The first time I went there it was with my mother. This was when mother would have wanted to send me to England, and she was busy collecting the catalogues of various schools.

A few years later I visited him alone. That time he was worried about me: It was probably at this time that he tried to persuade me to go to Paris. I myself did not want to go, I was absolutely passive, I did not think much, I did not plan ahead, and I did not make a decision to become a painter, I didn't say to myself I will show what a woman can do as a painter.

I was not aware of the problem of being a woman painter, but even though I was not aware of this problem there might have been in me a sense of vocation. I should have been aware of the future, of the difficulties and of the benefits of studying in Paris, living among artists. No there was no awareness. I kept on drawing with unthinkable fervour, and I visited the Museum of Fine Arts and a number of exhibitions. Images 5 and In her autobiographical recollections originating from she mentions that at this time her art suffered a slight setback: My drawings overflowed with energy and dynamism and their sheer quantity somehow prompted some people to say I should not learn at an academy.

It may be safely assumed that good old Viktor Erdei [19] was absolutely well intentioned when he said: Do you want to learn from them? The teachers there could learn from your drawings. She wrote to him a mad, exalted and lyric letter and humiliated herself in front of the master. She started to smoke, she phoned him half-fainting. She humiliated herself in front of the people and started to smoke, ran in the street, because she did not want to be late for the date. She started to lie to mom even though she slept in the same room as her mom did, and she read and even worked together with mom.

After a month she decided to become her master's lover: All in a hurry because he was invited together with his wife. Then a love, and then a sort of repetition of the first story with someone else. I told Lucy [20] my stories and she said I did not behave like a woman.

As this school functioned as an institution preparing its students for the entrance examination of the Academy of Fine Arts, studies that were prepared for this purpose were generally not preserved.

He came home on 1 May very ill, and in the meantime his wife replaced him at the school. In addition to drawing a lot, the personality and painting of our mentor were very attractive. This suggestive and ironic young painter studied at an arts academy in the Germany of the Weimar Republic, and brought along with herself the free and unimpeded style and urban folklore of the Berlin of the late 's. Then at the age of 20, I tore up my drawings and I didn't much regret having done so.

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Maybe that drawing could have been more than just a document. The manuscript does not reveal the addressee of the letter, and neither do we know for sure whether the letter has been actually sent or not: This letter was forwarded to me directly before I was drafted into labour service, and this is the reason why my reply is delayed. In the meantime I had come through exciting events as a result of which I am going to be free for a few months. During the summer months I certainly would like to go somewhere.

My body and my mind would badly need a break now. I am going to go to Pest in the near future and I want to go and see you. Even until then, I look forward to hearing from you. The cut-up fragments of what used to be five oil paintings, depicting a handsome young man, are preserved from the period preceding It does not turn out from the letter who that young man was, but the writer's lines are clear: I appreciate the trust you put in me.

Just one more question: But all women have a child, which means I am an enemy of all women. Don't expect life to become like you would like it to be, because it won't be like that. You must accept conditions as they are; this is how things happen here. At some place they are not exempt from talent but they are not succinct enough: Beauty must have a more intense glow. A monograph on the painters of Szentendre mentions the artist: This circle of friends included, e. This series including at least a hundred works on paper in pencil and pastel is remarkable because of its strong colour world Folders 25 and 31 and Images of the second Glasgow exhibition of at Glasgow's Third Eye Center on Sauchiehall Sreet.

The viewer notices the artistic execution and the wild, French-style colours. The then still very young artist borrows Paul Signac's book from her master Viktor Erdei. About of these drawings have been preserved in the estate. On some of the landscapes drawn in pastel you can see a whirlwind of strong purples and yellows and emotional blues, as if we saw a gathering storm Glasgow exhibition: Some of the landscapes of Szentendre were made after the war, and these pictures were complemented by oil paintings depicting the town.

It maybe strange that I write to you without knowing you. I think my work could benefit a great deal from such a visit. I resumed artistic work after a long break of approximately 10 years in an isolation that is perhaps too big and too detrimental for my work.

In her curriculum vitae the artist writes about this period as follows: Before and during the war I prepared several hundred works on paper drawn in pencil and pastel on the streets, yards and market places, etc. I could suddenly recollect a picture from the summer of , the summer before the arrow cross party came to power or from earlier. I was walking in the vicinity of the railway station in the early afternoon hours carrying a drawing folder. Two or three women of my age were standing at a fence or gate, and they jeered at me and were laughing at me.

Her works on paper were perfect not only in an academic sense, but she could express both the form and emotion in her drawings to such an extent that one could hardly believe her maturity, awareness and creative shaping potential. It can also be assumed that also in the summer of she was staying at Szentendre. You are invited to come to the Artists' Colony in the morning hours till And even if I had wanted to be, I could never have been. They were young revolting artists. And I was a young child who was very good at drawing. This feature of the connection has remained unchanged for a ridiculously long period.

These young artists never ever considered accepting a young Benjamin ova as their colleague. In a letter written to her mother dated 21 June she wrote: While eating they had a debate, and I waited for them to finish their meal, and went with them to Teri. Then Viktor and I went for a walk. We had dinner at Teri and then I took Viktor to the ship station and saw him off. He promised to bring me a marvellous book by the painter Signac. I will write about it later, and he will bring the book the next time.

On 22 June she wrote to her mother: I was already here at ten in the morning at the Borpince utca , at a small rundown house. Now I found a motif on the shore and I am hurrying there. I am, of course, in continuous contact with Ada. I see them every day. I have already seen Kmetty and Barcsay. Perlrott is also out here, but I have not met him yet, and neither do I want to meet him. A letter dated 23 June she wrote: When you left, I was still staying with Ada who invited me to dinner, and on arriving home, I had dinner once again.

Viktor Erdei is going to come out to Szentendre either on the 28 th or 29 th. I am sure he will bring me the book by Signac. However, another letter, dated 16 November , originating from this period contains the following lines: Should you want to become a member of the association, please inform me and then I will recommend your membership. However, we have missed this exhibition. In the artist participated in the exhibition, organized by the Group of Socialist Artists and titled Freedom and the People, that took place at the Centre of the Metal Workers' Union.

The exhibition was forcibly closed in two days. After finishing her secondary-school studies, she visited a painting school for a few months. Apart from this training, she has been developing her knowledge as a self-taught artist since her childhood. Her first models are family members. Later on she started to draw street scenes. We publish some of her drawings that are rare examples of artistic immersion. In these drawings the depicted human figures never display the false and deceptive traits of showiness, but they give us a sincere reflection of reality.

We discussed your letter with Tildy and we agreed on the following: Please indicate both your wholesale and retail list prices. We are willing to take delivery of a larger quantity. In this case, however, we would expect you to charge a more advantageous price.

On March 19, the German army occupied Hungary. On March 24, a government decree ordered Jews to wear a yellow star. With the exception of Budapest Jews, by May 15 the concentration of Jews living in the countryside had been completed and their mass deportation to death camps got underway. On June 9, the Ministry of the Interior decided that 30, of the 60, Budapest homes occupied by Jews had to be vacated, and the families involved were forced to relocate into yellow star houses.

A series of decrees was issued restricting the movement of Jews with the purpose of humiliating them. Jews were allowed to leave their designated buildings only between 2 p. By July 6, , the deportation and destruction of Hungarian Jewry living outside Budapest had been finished. More than , Hungarian Jews were killed in German concentration camps.

This, by implication, meant that he was acquitted of all the crimes he committed before! After 15 October , the situation of the Jews living in Budapest got worse. All Jewish men aged and all Jewish women aged were mobilised. According to estimates 25, men and 10, women were deported.

On November 3 a decree was issued drafting all Jewish women who could sew. On November 3 a decree ordered the registration of all Jewish women aged for doing service in connection with "national defence". It cannot be reconstructed exactly how the artist had survived these mobilisations. There is a short reference to this in the recollections of the artist's husband: Once she and her girlfriend had to go to a railway station.

They escaped deportation because there were not enough railway carriages. They were told to go home and come again the following day. Ilka went home and thought to herself: I would be a fool if I went there again, and she did not go there any more. The police searched through the flats, and did not find Ilka. Conditions in the ghetto and the yellow star houses were horrible during the siege of Budapest, and the dead could no longer be buried in the cemetery during the last days of the siege.

They were placed at the end of the yard of the huge tenement house and they were covered with cardboard. The series of juvenilias can be put into chronological order, and thus one is confronted with a visual diary. This report, relying on the language of graphic art, was not interrupted during the terrible weeks spent in the ghetto or, more exactly, in the yellow-star house. In connection with these works it can be said: Children, while they try to get used to the present and to circumstances, accept the unacceptable as natural and they try to regard the intolerable as tolerable.

Portrait of a Girl With Bow, the Budapest Ghetto, , Yad Vashem Art Museum, Image 64 All the prisoners of the ghetto and of the yellow-star houses knew that it was just a question of time, and the Russians would liberate the city, but none of them could be sure that in the hour of liberation they would be still alive. They are invaluable as documents, and much more than that: These drawings are not simply reports on the infernal season: Four self-portraits were made in the ghetto.

On the self-portrait drawing that is preserved at Yad Vashem Art Museum the artist is still 23 years old, but an ageless person looks back on us or rather a person who has grown old. The eyes reveal that her spirit has already been broken, but the compressed lips and the line descending from the curve of the lips show that the artist still has the strength to fight for her life.

The artist depicts herself sitting in front of a drawing board, and she emphasises her dignity. On drawing 31 from Folder 10 she depicts herself leaning on her elbow: On drawing 64 from the Addenda folder the artist's head is propped up on her elbow and the eyes, so it seems, stare into nothingness. The ego looks for support in her own self. The Period From to This was a huge villa that the owners had deserted and, initially, the young artists moved into the building as squatters, and later on they had become legal tenants.

However, some years later a bigwig of the communist party fell in love with the house and had the former tenants kicked out of it. At this point a strange thing happened. And this is when the artist's mother, Elza who lived as a subtenant and who was deprived of her financial reserves asked her daughter for a key so that she could come more easily to baby-sit. Not much later, on 7 February , Elza died. She had an ugly death and she died deserted. There was an influenza epidemic, and she had to be hospitalized.

She died the following day on February 7, Her heart was in a terrible condition. That is the reason why she died of a flue father's written recollections. He was 74 years old then. On the back of the death certificate the following note is to be read: In contrast to this resignation, Ilka put each of the golden coins into a canvas holder, and then put them behind the spine of a huge dictionary. She gave these dictionaries along with a number of cheap books into the custody of a grocery-shop owner whom she knew well. When, after the siege, Ilka and her mother inspected the neighbourhood, they entered the shop that, unsurprisingly, was broken up, and it was in a terrible condition because the soldiers used it as a toilet.

Although the pages of the dictionaries were torn out, to the triumph of Ilka, the gold coins hidden under the spine had all been recovered in a flawless condition. The report goes on: But a huge amount of overdue taxes had to be paid. Erik was threatened by prison unless he paid a sizeable amount of money.

Lenke told Elza what the problem was, and Elza handed over the gold coins without any hesitation. This was enough to pay back the debt of the Steiner company, which put Erik at risk of being imprisoned. They did not sell the golden coins, they just deposited them as a loan security on which an exorbitant interest rate was charged. When they wanted to repay the debt, the lender simply claimed he had never got the coins as a loan security. It was not possible to write a document on the transfer of the loan security.

For a while I don't know exactly for how long they stayed with the Steiners. They lived there in a small flat, which also had the advantage of their being able to come over to us and baby-sit, and we could also take Dani there; they lived close to us. There was a very complicated settlement between the sisters.

As a matter of fact, I do not know to what extent she was right. I very much objected to bringing up this problem after such a long time. Ilka could also have written to me. To tell you the truth, a letter sent from Jerusalem is delivered in the same way as one sent from Budapest to Jerusalem. Never mind, if Ilka believes that she has nothing to write me about, then she should keep on not writing.

Isn't it an ugly place? I hope Dani's hand is improving and that it will still improve, and I think Dani with his healthy spirits will overcome the problems. I would be glad to know something also about Simon, but Mother keeps silent about him obstinately. However, most regrettably, another interpretation of the events is also possible: This debt does exist, and, at the best, it exists not fully. I would like to know how much of the debt still exists, and I, on my part, will do my utmost to forward you the money with which Elza helped us at that time.

The wage and the severance pay of the dismissed workers had to be paid.

Erik raised a loan and the help received from Elza was collateral and the redemption was also agreed on. This man, however, did not abide by the terms of the agreement and this meant a criminal fraud. Erik had overdue liabilities that he could not pay. He pawned the gold coins, and he got the money from which he could pay the liabilities. But the explanation, sent in the second letter, goes on: Everything had been agreed on just verbally, and, when the debtor wanted to repay the loan, the lender said everything had disappeared, and the jewels were no longer accessible.

At the same time and in the same manner No other jewels were left. When it turned out that it was impossible to recover these objects, Lenke gave Elsa a valuable Persian carpet of purple colour sized 2. When Lenke left Hungary, she gave two silver candlesticks and a set of cutlery as a partial compensation to Elsa. Yes, this was assistance falling under the category of debt repayment. To be sure, no one knew and no one could have known that these donations were more than legitimate.

Even at the time, when Uncle Simon during the last months of his life lived in Baross utca , mother knowingly shouldered some of the costs. I am fully aware that this is not a complete repayment. A letter written by Erik on 22 February is burnt on both sides. This letter gives account of the brutality with which Imi Endrey, the son of aunt Riza destroyed all the letters that had been preserved. Imi mentioned something about old photos of Elsa and letters that had been preserved by Riza.

Imi mentioned that he had burned some of them and some had been handed over to you. To be sure, what is the purpose of talking too much about this? These are really olden times. If I take a closer look at the calendar, within a few days it will have been 25 years since I left Budapest. Maybe it is not even true that I lived there once, and neither is it true that since then I have been there on a visit once for three days. Under conditions of a relentlessly galloping inflation, she did not dare to be left without any reserves.

Mother had serious pangs of remorse concerning repayment, although it was still in Elza's life that she sold a valuable and less valuable carpet and she handed over some old-fashioned silver-ware or she sold them and handed over just the money to Elza and Ilka. As part of the settlement an old typewriter was handed over that should rather have been thrown out. Mother was fully aware that she had remained the debtor of Elza, and she was very sorry about the fact that their relationship had suffered a setback, and that Elza's resource this was the word that she used most often in connection with the money was gone.

When Ilka at the end of the 's or even later? I sent money on two, or maybe, on three occasions. The last time when Ilka was terminally ill. The debt has never been repaid. The method of glossing over the facts worked. This was the funeral aid sent to the poor relatives, which showed that Erik looked down with condescension upon his deceased cousin and her family. This folder represents a setback: One can only guess what this problem could have been, but perhaps the most probable reason could have been the marriage of the artist that, to say the least, had a very stormy start.

If the success of a marriage is determined on the basis of whether it ended in divorce or not, then we could say that it was successful since it did not end in divorce. But this marriage did not have a smooth start. The artist took part in artistic life. In the autumn of some of her works were shown in the Ernst Museum an exhibition of the artists of the Social Democrats and artists invited by them.

The young mother is tormented by the complexities and difficulties of family life.

Übersinnlich: Anthologie: www.farmersmarketmusic.com: Books

Her autobiographical recollections written around bear testimony to the fact that she sincerely felt that she was confronted with the issue whether a woman can be an artist and whether being an artist is compatible with having a family and child-rearing. In connection with the psychologist she consulted, she remarks, " Do you see? Now I'm trying to find an explanation that makes it comprehensible even to a psychoanalyst and doctor what I say: Lucy replied to this: The artist however knows well, and she is right, that the conflict is unbridgeable.

She has no illusions: I become either a bad painter or a good one. I chose the second possibility. Which of these two options should I choose?

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