A Cherry Dress

Kommentierte Memoiren der exilierten Bühnen- und Lebenskünstlerin Anita Bild

Peter Bild, Irene Messinger

• Verlag: V&R Unipress
• Jahr: 2017
• ISBN:
  9783847007975
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Biological Sciences
• Thema: Science General

Die Wiener Tänzerin Anita Bild floh Anfang 1939 mit einem Hausmädchen-Visum nach England, wo sie durch eine Scheinehe wieder auftreten konnte. Sie organisierte die Ausreise ihrer Eltern nach London, die in einem Flüchtlingsheim unterkamen, dessen Leiter Fritz Bild sie später heiratete. Bekannt wurde sie als »Anita Douglas – The Viennese Nightingale« und später bei BBC. Anita Bild schrieb 1991 ihre Lebenserinnerungen für ihre Familie. Die Memoiren werden von wissenschaftlichen Beiträgen renommierter Expertinnen begleitet. Sie kontextualisieren die Tanzkarriere vor und im Exil, die Situation von Hausangestellten in England und Anita Bilds Scheinehe und zeichnen biographische Skizzen über Anitas Vater, den Juristen Georg Lelewer, den Musiker Franz Eugen Klein und ihren Scheinehemann Donald Douglas.Die Texte im Band sind zweisprachig, vorwiegend in englischer Sprache, verfasst."A Cherry Dress" is the memoir of a Viennese born dancer driven into exile. In her late 70s and 80s, Anita Bild wrote about her extraordinary life at her son's request. The main aim was to give her much-loved grandchildren a personal picture of the Viennese family she was born into, her sometimes exotic experiences as a dancer and choreographer in German language theatre, her escape from Nazi Austria and her early adventures in exile in London.Fleeing to London in February 1939, with a visa permitting her to work only as a domestic servant, she managed in just a few months, despite her lowly status, to arrange her parents' flight to London just weeks before the outbreak of World War. She describes with fascinating details how she drifted from household to household and how new-found friends provided a social network enabling her to visit London's leading high-court judge to plead, successfully, for her parents to be allowed into the UK. Those new friends even found her a generous, fascinating and eccentric Englishman happy to give her British citizenship via a marriage of convenience, thus enabling her to resume her stage career.Full of humour and vivid descriptions of people and events as she saw them, this very personal memoir is also a document of wider public interest. A series of academic essays and articles by members of her family provide historical context to accompany and to complement Anita Bild's charming memories of a charmed life lived to the full. She was the living proof that reflections on one's history are a source of wisdom and that variety is, indeed, the spice of life. This is a book that both charms in its personal reminiscences and illuminates events of a troubled, turbulent century.The texts in the volume are bilingual, mainly written in English.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Body
• Irene Messinger und Peter Bild: Vorwort / Publishers' Notes
• Peter Bild: A memoir: how, when and why
• Memoiren
• Anna Lelewer / Peter Bild: Gleichnis
• Anita Bild: A Cherry Dress
• Chapter 1: Early Days
• Chapter 2: My parents
• Chapter 3: School
• Chapter 4: Kasernengasse
• Chapter 5: Onkel Rudi
• Chapter 6: Grandparents
• Chapter 7: Religion
• Chapter 8: The Herzogs
• Chapter 8: Mama's family
• Chapter 10: Onkel Robert
• Chapter 11: Papa's Office
• Chapter 12: Papa and Music
• Chapter 13: Starting to dance
• Chapter 13: First love and menstruation
• Chapter 15: More relatives
• Chapter 16: The Lelewers
• Chapter 17: Holidays and The Premingers
• Chapter 18: Matriciulation and First Dance Engagement
• Chapter 19: Papa's students and the Silver Box
• Chapter 20: Salzburg, Summer 1934
• Chapter 21: My Teddy
• Chapter 22: Touring Egypt with Richard Tauber
• Chapter 23: A double engagement: Landestheater Linz, 1938–1939 and Felix
• Chapter 24: 1938–1939 My last Year ˋAt Home'
• Chapter 25: Passport
• Chapter 26: Domestic Permit
• LONDON Downs and Ups
• Chapter 27: Arrival
• Chapter 28: First Job at Wilsons
• Chapter 29: Marriage offer
• Chapter 30: Master of the Rolls, Sir Wilfred Greene
• Chapter 31: Home Office Troubles
• Chapter 32: Finding a Husband
• Chapter 33: Preparations for Parents' Arrival
• Chapter 34: Getting to know Mr Bild
• Chapter 35: Quakers Home Ramsgate
• Chapter 36: Marriage and Honeymoon
• Chapter 37: Donald's unusual family
• Chapter 38: Fritz Bild in love
• Chapter 38: Fritz Bild's Proposal
• Chapter 40: Escaping Internment
• Chapter 41: Theatre + Mme Rambert
• Chapter 42: Nightclubs
• Chapter 43: Dangerous Photos in Summer 1940
• Chapter 44: Air raid
• Chapter 45: Fritz's parents
• Chapter 46: War in London and Free Austrian Movement. Mama's first and only job
• Chapter 47: ENSA, Laterndl, Cossacks, Pregnancy
• Chapter 48: Giving birth
• Chapter 49: A letter to my mother
• Chapter 50: Reneé and Heinz Dürmayer
• Chapter 51: More Pantomime and Summer Shows
• Chapter 52: Papa returns to Vienna
• Chapter 53: A Secretary at Youth Aliah
• Chapter 54: Career at BBC
• Chapter 56: Reflections Living with Fritz
• Chapter 57: In my garden
• Chapter 58: Return
• Anita Bild: But then …
• Wissenschaftliche Kontextualisierung / Historical Notes
• Primavera Driessen Gruber: Anita Bild – Innen- und Außenansichten eines getanzten Lebens im Exil
• Ilse Reiter-Zatloukal: Georg Lelewer – eine biografische Skizze
• Birgit Peter: „Auf Wiedersehen“ – Franz Eugen Klein und Anita Lelewer
• Traude Bollauf: Die britische Einwanderungs- und Asylpolitik und das „Domestic Permit“
• Irene Messinger: Eine erfolgreiche Scheinehe in vielen Details
• Katharine Campbell: Donald Gabriel Hutchison Douglas, “An Unusual Man”
• Familienerinnerungen / Family tributes
• Miranda Bild: For my Oma, Anita
• Jessica Bates: Anita was my Oma
• Jan Bild: A Personal Tribute to my Viennese mother-in-law Anita Bild
• Laura Barnett: On Anita – my step grandmother, and my friend
• Peter Bild: Y – Z and After
• Anhang / Appendix
• Kurzbiografien der AutorInnen / Short Bios
• Abbildungsverzeichnis / Index of photographs