Reading from the biography of Else Urys, creator of the Nesthäkchen series
A blond doctor’s daughter from Berlin was the main character of the writer Else Ury in her Nesthäkchen volumes. With these books, Ury became one of the best-known young adult authors of the 1920s. Many young girls identified with Urys Annemarie Braun. Just like the protagonist of her book series, Ury was a middle-class child from Berlin. When the Nazis came to power, persecution began. Else Ury may have been apolitical, even politically naïve, as her last novel “Jugend Ahead!” suggests, but she was also Jewish. She cared for her mother in a so-called Jewish home in Berlin until she died. And in January 1943 she was deported to Auschwitz and murdered there. Marianne Brentzel’s biography Else Urys was published in 1992. “Nesthäkchen is coming to the concentration camp” means in the revised version “Nothing can happen to me. The Life of Nesthäkchen Author Elsy Ury”. On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Else Ury’s death, Marianne Bretzel will read from it on Saturday. Suzanne Lenz
Nothing can happen to me. The life of Nesthäkchen author Else Ury. Reading, bookstore Primobuch, corner Herderstr. 24/Gritznerstraße in Berlin-Steglitz, January 14, 7 p.m. Admission is free, registration is requested. Tel.: 70 17 87 15 or: primobuch.de
The Neukölln resistance is large and wide
Olga Benario, daughter of a Jewish family of lawyers, moved from Munich to Berlin-Neukölln in 1925 at the age of 17. She lived on the Inn-corner of Donaustrasse, five minutes from the Neukölln Opera. A stumbling block gave Kathrin Herm and Dariya Maminova the impetus to deal with the biography of the resistance fighter. Here, in Neukölln, where Olga Benario joined the communists, she was arrested for the first time with her then partner Otto Braun and charged with high treason. Her father obtained her release at the time, and she in turn led an armed action to free Braun from the Moabit criminal court.
Olga Benario Prestes in 1928Bundesarchiv Bild/Wikipedia CC
She fled to the Soviet Union via Czechoslovakia, where she received training in weapons, horseback riding, flying and parachuting, and was introduced to Brazilian Communist Party leader Luiz Carlos Prestes, for whom she went to Brazil as his bodyguard. Not only did she protect him, but she also married and became pregnant by him before being arrested and deported to Germany in 1936. Her daughter, whom she carried, gave birth to and cared for for 14 months during her imprisonment, was saved. Olga Benario herself was killed in the Bernburg killing center in 1942 at the age of 34. There are already plays and films about Olga Benario. Now a musical evening with the title “I’ll lift the world out of its hinges” has been added. The world that comes together in Neukölln is big and wide. Ulrich Seidler
Olga Benario. Fri., Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 6 p.m. (also on the following weekend) in the Neuköllner Oper, Karl-Marx-Str. 131, tickets and information at neukoellneroper.de
“Holy Spider” with Sara Fazilat in Wolf Kino
In 2001, a journalist (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) makes her way to the holy city of Mashhad in Iran to investigate a series of murders of prostitutes. By ridding the streets of “immoral things,” the so-called spider killer believes he is doing God’s will, and not a few people celebrate him for it – including police officers. They put obstacles in the journalist’s way instead of helping, but the woman doesn’t give up. The film by Iranian director Ali Abbasi, who lives in Denmark, is based on true events and could hardly be more relevant given the current situation in Iran. The German actress Sara Fazilat (“A Thousand Lines”) plays a prostitute in the film. After the screening at the Wolf Kino, she stayed to talk to the audience. Claudia Reinhard
Holy Spider. Subsequent talk with Sara Fazilat, January 14, 6 p.m., Wolf Kino
Concert: Martin Bruchmann in the machine house
“Who would I be today if I hadn’t gone back then” – that’s the name of the EP by Neukölln singer-songwriter and actor Martin Bruchmann, who was born in Leipzig in 1989 and once moved to Berlin. Who would I be today if I hadn’t left then? A question that probably worries many people who have gone to Berlin (or to another city) at some point in their lives to start a new chapter in their lives. But when you see Bruchmann’s video for his song “Thirteen” (which in turn forms the first of three chapters of his self-produced short film for the EP), you can feel, insistently condensed, that the reasons for a new start in the lyrical self were particularly serious here.
Martin Bruchmann, who has played Shakespeare and porn actors in the past and is also involved in the film and tells a bit of his own coming-of-age story, now carries all the very personal pop-rock-songwriter pieces of his EP for the first time live at the record release concert in the machine house. Certainly a great opportunity to experience him in person and not “just” on screen, where he will soon be seen in an international production of the Paramount+ streaming service (after roles in “Tatort” and “Our Mothers, Our Fathers”). Stefan Hochgesand
machine house in the culture brewery, Knaackstrasse 97, Friday, January 13, 8 p.m., presale 15 euros
Liebermann draws: The Kupferstichkabinett in his former studio
It is the place where most of the drawings were made: Max Liebermann’s representative residential and studio building on Pariser Platz, which was rebuilt after the war in 1945 and 28 years of the Wall. From there the Nazis had chased Germany’s most famous Impressionists (1847-1935), the respected president of the Prussian Academy of Arts, the enlightened and religiously completely tolerant Jew after 1933. This unique artist, who belongs to Berlin like the Brandenburg Gate, died old, sick, humiliated, stigmatized as degenerate.
Max Liebermann was a passionate traveler to Holland: “Judengasse in Amsterdam”, 1905, black chalk on paper. SMB/Kupferstichkabinett/ Dietmar Katz
Liebermann’s 175th birthday last year was an occasion to show his drawings from the Kupferstichkabinett’s collection – right where he once sat at the table and drew the lines, put the vehement squiggles on the paper and stretched architecture and street life into the pictorial space, and tried shadow effects. The National Gallery had collected most of the sheets during the painter’s lifetime. Today they are among the treasures of the Kupferstichkabinett and tell of the artist’s path in their own way. At the time, Liebermann was in an exchange with the changing directors of the National Gallery, some of which were friendly, but were also fraught with conflict. Kaiser Wilhelm had insulted his paintings as “gutter art”, which unsettled some of the dependent gentlemen museologists.
Visitors to the Liebermann House, today the seat of the Brandenburg Gate Foundation, experience Liebermann’s virtuoso draftsmanship, which was never a by-product of his famous painting, but instead cultivates a very independent, harsh, lively, and often humorous pictorial language. Something special is his very rarely shown very first sketchbook from the 1860s, as well as free preliminary studies for paintings, Dutch landscapes, where the passionate traveler to Holland conducted his nature studies, and portraits of prominent contemporaries. Favorite subjects were simple people. And last but not least, his striking drawings of self-questioning as counterparts to the painted self-portraits. Ingeborg Ruthe
Liebermann House, Brandenburg Gate Foundation, at Pariser Platz 7, until March 5, Mon., Wed.–Sun. 11am-6pm
Explosive vogueing in the Berlin cold store
Vogueing famously began impersonating models in fashion magazines and catwalks, in the backyards of New York’s 1970s Harlem ballroom scene. As an exalted and extremely physical dance form, vogueing has since become a queer, black and also Latin American tradition – part competition, part expression of personal self-realization. Jennie Livingston’s documentary Paris Is Burning and Madonna’s Vogue music video made Vogueing world famous in the early 1990s. The film portrayed vogueing as a central element of a queer underground that flourished in the 1980s – and whose roots stretch back decades.
With a two-part event, the MOVE.UNLTD collective is now taking a look at the pulse of the Berlin vogueing scene. On Saturday, January 14th, the Kühlhaus Berlin will become the proverbial ballroom. In the first part of the day, a solo piece by Cosmos will be presented. The second part is intended to bring together representatives of the European ballroom community. While the performances are rather experimental, the explosive energy of vogueing should become clear in the second part. Hanno Hauenstein
Cold store Berlin, Luckenwalder Str. 3. Dance performance from 2pm to 4pm; Vogueing Ball from 5 p.m. Tickets for both events cost 23 euros.
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