My Parents
Part 1
My mother was Ida (born on 11 of March 1899). Her mother was Rosa Greif, a =
great beauty (if only you could see her photo!). Sadly, she died when Ida w=
as nine years old. During WWI the family moved to Vienna where Ida and her =
older sister Paula went to a boarding school and their father, Joseph Ohren=
stein, specialized in gynecology. Ida studied at the university of Vienna, =
and got a doctorate in Philosophy and German literature. She later was the =
General Secretaerin of the Von Szolnay Verlag, the most successful publishi=
ng firm in Vienna before WWII. It published German language authors like Fr=
anz Werfel (40 days of Musa Dagh*), Heinrich Mann (Dr. Unrath, the source f=
or the movie The Blue Angel with Marlene Dietrich), and Felix Salten - Ida =
did not like him - (Bambi, A Life in the Woods), as well as the translation=
s of many English language authors such as John Galsworthy (The Forsyth Sag=
a), HG Wells, and Pearl S. Buck (The Good Earth). Ida's job was to negotiat=
e contracts with the authors. Some anecdotes: once, under time pressure, sh=
e went into a hotel room with Franz Werfel, and he dictated to her the last=
chapters of a book. Pearl S. Buck managed to find a US sponsor for Ida's s=
ecretary, Annie Poltzer, and her husband, so that they could leave for Amer=
ica in 1938, and thus be saved from certain death. Ida married my father in=
1936, and joined him in Czernowitz.
My father was Jacob Landau the eye doctor. More about him in another segmen=
t. When I was growing up he was serous, hard working and rarely cracked a j=
oke. Ida on the other hand was lively with a wonderful sense of humor.
I will end this segment with a wonderful quotation from Goethe:
Vom Vater hab ich die Statur/ Des Lebens ernstes Fuehren/
Von Muetterchen die Frohnatur/ Und Lust zu fabulieren/
>From father I have the stature/ To lead an earnest life withal/
>From mother the happy nature/ The joy of telling tales tall/
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* Only The Forsyth Saga and The Good Earth were published by Von Szolnay
Manny Landau
Sent from my iPad
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Received on 2015-12-23 15:00:56