Elizabeth, Bergner, one time favorite in Germany, is not interested financially whether her film is being shown in Germany or not, the Israelitisches Familienblatt says in an article on the position of Jewish stage people in the Third Reich.
The film “Catherine the Great” was barred in Germany. Miss Bergner is playing in person to packed houses in London.
The article says in part:
“It is we German Jews who are affected by demonstrations such as that which accompanied the showing of the Bergner film. For every new demonstration of this type the door opens to new deliberations about the place of the Jews in German theatrical and artistic life.
“Since the government regulations provide that none but Jews may attend the performances and exhibitions of the Jewish Culture League, we have this unique situation, that all who are present are united in one common bond of heart and mind, and when the curtain rises it must show something that will carry us all with it and melt us into one.
“Having the Jewish public, Jewish artists, Jewish scenic painters, Jewish producers, we must also have the Jewish content. A work that neither has a Jew as author, nor deals with Jewish things and yet is produced here, must by its production, its acting, so glow with Jewish feeling and be so thoroughly transcribed into Jewishness, that its production must affect the spectator as a Jewish experience.
“Of course Jewish culture does not mean those things in which we German Jews are now being reproached. That pseudo-culture which in many cases before March 1933 swamped real art and real culture among us Jews, too, never stood to us for real, true art.
“Jewish culture is nurtured wherever the eternal problems of humanity move people, wherever the high mission of Jewish scholars seeks to bring about the liberations of all the dwellers on earth from the yoke of things earthly. It is this culture for which our fathers allowed them-selves to be hunted from all the countries of the earth, and to die in Spain on the auto-da-fes. This culture is so intimately grown into our inmost selves, that be is far removed from it, cannot live without it, because the roots of it are in his very being.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
