Laureen Nussbaum (born Hannelore Klein, August 3, 1927)[2] is a German-born American scholar and writer. She is best known for being a Holocaust survivor, and as a scholar and childhood friend of the famed memoirist Anne Frank. Nussbaum is frequently consulted on Anne Frank works and literature.
Nussbaum was a professor of Foreign Languages and Literature at Portland State University. After retirement Nussbaum now lectures on the Holocaust, Anne Frank and her experience during World War II.[3][4][5] While at Portland State, she also became the head of the German section of the Foreign Language Department.[6] Nussbaum's publications on 20th-century German literature and literature written in Dutch by German refugees are often referenced in academia.
Friendship with Anne Frank
Nussbaum was born Hannelore Klein in Frankfurt, Germany. As Germany became increasingly hostile toward Jews, Nussbaum's family moved from Frankfurt to Amsterdam in 1936. In her new neighborhood, Nussbaum met Anne Frank.[7] Nussbaum's family and the Frank family had been friends in Frankfurt, though Nussbaum had not known the Frank children at that time. Nussbaum became closest to Anne's sister Margot. While growing up together, Nussbaum remembers Anne as "vivacious and smart", though the two were not particularly close.[8] In fact, Nussbaum was "rather indifferent" about Anne, considering her a "noisy chatterbox" and "a shrimp".[9]
After Anne and most of her family were killed, Nussbaum remained close to Otto Frank, Anne's father and the only surviving member of Anne's immediate family. Otto was the best man at Nussbaum's wedding to Rudi.[7]
Nussbaum has written about the fact that Anne Frank rewrote a large part of her spontaneous diary entries with the intention to publish an epistolary novel based on her diary.[10] While clear that "Otto should be congratulated for probably being the first to publish a document from the Holocaust," she has criticized him for combining Anne's two versions of her diary into one without explanation.[11]
Of the memory that she keeps of Anne, Nussbaum stated in 1995 "Memory easily fools you and my memory is coloured, inevitably, by the fact that she has become so famous. I always found her lively and keen, but would never have thought she would turn into this icon. I am afraid the icon has become, for some people, a source of income and the person Anne is obscured by this. She stands as a symbolic figure upon whom the world can heap both its guilt and its commiseration."[12]
Holocaust
The Klein family moved to Amsterdam in 1936 to escape the increasing antisemitism in Germany. However, when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940, Jews were barred from many public places and in 1942 were forced to wear yellow stars on their clothing to denote their ethnicity. At the time of the invasion Nussbaum was twelve.
The Klein family was able to elude deportation because they were only part Jewish, claiming that Mrs. Klein was not Jewish at all. After that claim was accepted by the German authorities, only Nussbaum's father had to wear the yellow star on his clothing. The rest moved about society without issue. This is the subject of her book Shedding Our Stars: A Story of Hans Calmeyer and How He Saved Thousands of Families Like Mine published in 2019.[13]
Nussbaum first met her future husband Rudi Nussbaum in Amsterdam, and acted as liaison for him while he was in hiding. Rudi hid for four years before the war ended, at first living with Dutch peasants, then in the countryside, and finally in the Klein home. The two married in 1947, two years after the war had ended. Of the experience Nussbaum stated "I would not have chosen, at the age of 13 or 14, a deep sense of obligation that someone was dependent upon you. But in all situations in life, you have to rise to the occasion. We decided the other person was decent and worth it."[14]
Life in America
In 1955, Nussbaum, along with her husband and children, spent a year in Indiana, where Rudi did post-doctoral research.[14] Together Nussbaum and Rudi had three children; two sons and one daughter.[15] Upon settling in California in 1957, Nussbaum changed her first name from Hannelore to Laureen.[2]
In 1959, Rudi gained a position at Portland State University and the family moved to Portland, Oregon.[14] While teaching part time at the same institution, Nussbaum acquired her Ph.D. and eventually a full time position in the Foreign Languages and Literature department, where she became Professor Emerita in 1989.[16]
On July 22, 2011, Nussbaum's husband Rudi died after taking a fall in the Amsterdam Airport while the two were on holiday. After his funeral, he was cremated in Holland. The funeral was followed by a memorial service at the University Place Hotel and Conference Center in Portland.[17]
In literature
Nussbaum is published on a number of topics in multiple languages. Some key works include:
"The Evolution of the Feminine Principle in Brecht's Work: An Overview" in A Bertolt Brecht Reference Companion.[25]
On Writings by Concentration Camp Survivors
"Drawing Conclusions from a Sojourn in Hades: The Work of Gerhard Durlacher, an Auschwitz Survivor" in The Bulletin of the Center for Holocaust Studies.[26]
"Three Concentration Camp Accounts by Teenage Survivors: A Comparative Analysis," in Autobiographische Zeugnisse der Verfolgung.[27]
"Anne Frank and Gerhard Durlacher, Two German-Dutch Writers: Parallels and Contrasts," in The Low Countries: Crossroads of Cultures.[28]
On Georg Hermann
"Afterword," in Georg Hermann, Unvorhanden und stumm, doch zu Menschen noch reden. Briefe aus dem Exil an seine Tochter Hilde 1933-1941[29] (a volume she also edited).
"1926: Georg Hermann," in Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture 1096-1996.[30]
"A Sampling of Georg Hermann's 'Letters about German Literature,' published in Het Algemeen Handelsbad 1921-1926," in Georg Hermann: Deutsch-Jüdischer Schriftseller und Journalist 1871-1943.[31]
Other
"Witness Grete Weil: An Intensive Summer Graduate Seminar," in Shedding Light on the Darkness: A Guide to Teaching the Holocaust.[32]
Bertolt Brecht: Centenary Essays by Steve Giles and Rodney Livingstone[37]
Between Sorrow and Strength: Women Refugees of the Nazi Period by Sibylle Quack[38]
Constructing a Sociology of Translation by Michaela Wolf and Alexandra Fukari[39]
German-Jewish Literature in the Wake of the Holocaust: Grete Weil, Ruth Klüger, and the Politics of Address by Pascale R. Bos[40]
The Child's View of the Third Reich in German Literature: The Eye Among the Blind by Debbie Pinfold[41]
The Woman who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation by Gayle Greene[42]
Theaters of Justice: Judging, Staging, and Working Through in Arendt, Brecht, and Delbo by Yasco Horsman[43]
Winter Facets: Traces and Tropes of the Cold by Andrea Dortmann[44]
Women Without a Past?: German Autobiographical Writings and Fascism by Joanne Sayner[45]
A 2019 memoir, “Shedding Our Stars: A Story of Hans Calmeyer and How He Saved Thousands of Families Like Mine,” written in collaboration with Karen Kirtley, focuses less on Nussbaum's relationship with Anne Frank, and more on Hans Calmeyer, the German official who saved the Klein family.[46]
Related Research Articles
Otto Heinrich Frank was a German businessman who later became a resident of the Netherlands and Switzerland. He was the father of Anne and Margot Frank and husband of Edith Frank, and was the sole member of his family to survive the Holocaust. He inherited Anne's manuscripts after her death, arranged for the publication of her diary as The Diary of a Young Girl in 1947, and oversaw its adaptation to both theater and film.
Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank was a German-Dutch diarist of Jewish heritage. One of the most-discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, she gained fame posthumously with the 1947 publication of The Diary of a Young Girl, in which she documents her life in hiding from 1942 to 1944, during the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II. It is one of the world's best-known books and has been the basis for several plays and films.
The Diary of a Young Girl, also known as The Diary of Anne Frank, is a book of the writings from the Dutch-language diary kept by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. The family was apprehended in 1944, and Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945. The diary was retrieved by Miep Gies, who gave it to Anne's father, Otto Frank, the family's only known survivor, just after the Second World War was over. The diary has since been published in more than 70 languages. First published under the title Het Achterhuis. Dagboekbrieven 14 Juni 1942 – 1 Augustus 1944 by Contact Publishing in Amsterdam in 1947, the diary received widespread critical and popular attention on the appearance of its English language translation, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Doubleday & Company and Vallentine Mitchell in 1952. Its popularity inspired the 1955 play The Diary of Anne Frank by the screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, which they adapted for the screen for the 1959 movie version. The book is included in several lists of the top books of the 20th century.
Georg August Friedrich Hermann Schulz, better known as Heinrich George, was a German stage and film actor.
Edith Frank was the mother of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank, and her older sister Margot. After the family were discovered in hiding in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation, she was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
There is a wide range of ways in which people have represented the Holocaust in popular culture.
The Thalia Theater is one of the three state-owned theatres in Hamburg, Germany. It was founded in 1843 by Charles Maurice Schwartzenberger and named after the muse Thalia. Today, it is home to one of Germany's most famous ensembles and stages around 9 new plays per season. Current theatre manager is Joachim Lux, who in 2009/10 succeeded Ulrich Khuon.
Ralph Frederick Manheim was an American translator of German and French literature, as well as occasional works from Dutch, Polish and Hungarian. He was one of the most acclaimed translators of the 20th century, and likened translation to acting, the role being "to impersonate his author".
Drums in the Night is a play by the German playwright Bertolt Brecht. Brecht wrote it between 1919 and 1920, and it received its first theatrical production in 1922. It is in the Expressionist style of Ernst Toller and Georg Kaiser. The play—along with Baal and In the Jungle—won the Kleist Prize for 1922 ; the play was performed all over Germany as a result. Brecht later claimed that he had only written it as a source of income.
Arthur Kutscher was a German historian of literature and researcher in drama. Together with Max Herrmann he can be seen as a founding father of theatre studies in Germany. He was a professor at Munich University, where he taught a famous seminar in theatre history. Kutscher was a friend of the iconoclastic dramatist and cabaret-star Wedekind. His work influenced many playwrights, poets, and directors. His students included Bertolt Brecht, Erwin Piscator, Peter Hacks, Hanns Johst, Klabund, and Erich Mühsam. Brecht's first full-length play, Baal, was written in response to an argument in one of Kutscher's drama seminars. While Kutscher was responsible for inspiring an admiration for Wedekind in the young Brecht, he was "bitterly critical" of Brecht's own early dramatic writings.
Caspar Neher was an Austrian-German scenographer and librettist, known principally for his career-long working relationship with Bertolt Brecht.
Hans Georg Calmeyer was a German lawyer from Osnabrück who saved thousands of Jews from certain death during the German occupation of the Netherlands from 1941 until 1945. On 4 March 1992 Yad Vashem recognized Hans Calmeyer as Righteous Among the Nations.
Hélène Berr was a French woman of Jewish ancestry and faith, who documented her life in a diary during the time of Nazi occupation of France. In France she is considered to be a "French Anne Frank".
Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht, known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler. Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, he wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became a leading theoretician of epic theatre and the Verfremdungseffekt.
Eva Schloss, MBE is an Austrian-English Holocaust survivor, memoirist and stepdaughter of Otto Frank, the father of Margot and diarist Anne Frank. Schloss speaks widely of her family's experiences during the Holocaust and is a participant in the USC Shoah Foundation's Visual History Archive project to record video answers to be used in educational tools.
Margarethe Kahn was a German mathematician and Holocaust victim. She was among the first women to obtain a doctorate in Germany. Her doctoral work was on the topology of algebraic curves.
Grete Reiner was a Czech-German magazine editor and writer, who is notable for being the first translator of The Good Soldier Schwejk, the antimilitarist satirical novel by Jaroslav Hašek.
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Rachel Feldhay Brenner was a Polish-born college professor, writer, and scholar of Jewish literature. She was president of the Association for Israel Studies from 2007 to 2009.
↑ Nussbaum, Laureen (2019). Shedding Our Stars: The Story of Hans Calmeyer and How He Saved Thousands of Families Like Mine. Berkeley: She Writes Press. ISBN9781631526367.
↑ Mit den Augen eines Kindes: children in the Holocaust, children in exile, children under fascism. Hertling, Viktoria. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 1998. ISBN9042006234. OCLC44019245.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
↑ Nussbaum, Laureen Klein (1977). The Image of Woman in the Work of Bertolt Brecht. Xerox University Microfilms.
↑ Nussbaum, Laureen (May 1985). "The Evolution of the Ferminine Principle in Brecht's Work: Beyond the Feminist Critique". German Studies Review. 8 (2): 217–44. doi:10.2307/1428641. JSTOR1428641.
↑ Nussbaum, Laureen (Spring 2005). "Drawing Conclusions from a Sojourn in Hades: The Work of Gerhard Durlacher, an Auschwitz Survivor". The Bulletin of the Center for Holocaust Studies. 9 (2): 5–8.
↑ Autobiographische Zeugnisse der Verfolgung: Hommage für Guy Stern. Stern, Guy, 1922-, Feilchenfeldt, Konrad., Mahlmann-Bauer, Barbara, 1954-. Heidelberg: Synchron. 2005. ISBN3935025505. OCLC59080194.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
↑ The Low Countries: crossroads of cultures. Broos, Ton J., Bruyn Lacy, Margriet., Shannon, Thomas F. Münster: Nodus Publikationen. 2006. ISBN3893237119. OCLC71723022.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
↑ Nussbaum, Laureen (1991). Georg Hermann, Unvorhanden und stumm, doch zu Menschen noch reden. Briefe aus dem Exil an seine Tochter Hilde 1933-1941. Mannheim: persona verlag.
↑ Yale companion to Jewish writing and thought in German culture, 1096-1996. Gilman, Sander L., Zipes, Jack, 1937-. New Haven: Yale University Press. 1997. ISBN0300068247. OCLC35990275.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
↑ Weiss-Sussex, Godela (2004). Georg Hermann: Deutsch-Jüdischer Schriftseller und Journalist 1871-1943. Tübingen: Niemeyer. pp.73–86.
↑ Lauckner, Nancy Ann (2000). Shedding Light on the Darkness: A Guide to Teaching the Holocaust. Berghahn Books. pp.158–173. ISBN9781571812087.
↑ Nussbaum, Laureen (1981). "The German Documentary Theater of the Sixties: A Stereopsis of Contemporary History". German Studies Review. 4 (2): 237–255. doi:10.2307/1429271. JSTOR1429271.
↑ Müller, Melissa (1999). Anne Frank: The Biography. Macmillan. ISBN9781429978897.
↑ Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara (2012). Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Jeffrey Shandler. Indiana University Press. ISBN9780253007551.
↑ Giles, Steve (1998). Bertolt Brecht: Centenary Essays. Rodopi. ISBN9789042003095.
↑ Quack, Sibylle (2002). Between Sorrow and Strength: Women Refugees of the Nazi Period. Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521522854.
↑ Wolf, Michaela (2007). Constructing a Sociology of Translation. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN9789027292063.
↑ Bos, Pascale R. (2005). German-Jewish Literature in the Wake of the Holocaust: Grete Weil, Ruth Klüger, and the Politics of Address. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN9781403979339.
↑ Pinfold, Debbie (2001). The Child's View of the Third Reich in German Literature: The Eye Among the Blind. Oxford University Press. ISBN9780191554193.
↑ Horsman, Yasco (2011). Theaters of Justice: Judging, Staging, and Working Through in Arendt, Brecht, and Delbo. Stanford University Press. ISBN9780804770323.
↑ Dortmann, Andrea (2007). Winter Facets: Traces and Tropes of the Cold. Peter Lang. ISBN9783039105403.
↑ Sayner, Joanne (2007). Women Without a Past?: German Autobiographical Writings and Fascism. Rodopi. ISBN9789042022287.
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