Who Do You Think You Are - Marianne Faithfull 18th Sep

[kiterunner]

On BBC1 at 9 p.m. and repeated next Monday at 11:05 p.m.

[Anstey Nomad]

Isn’t she related on her mother’s side to the Masochs, of masochism fame? This could be interesting.

[Shona]

Originally Posted by Anstey Nomad

Isn’t she related on her mother’s side to the Masochs, of masochism fame? This could be interesting.

Her maternal great-great, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, wrote Venus in Furs - hence the term 'masochism'.

[Shona]

Twenty-odd mins in and we're still on her mum. Pls bring on some genealogy v soon.

[Margaret in Burton]

No family history at all. Just a history lesson on Nazi's, Jews and The Red Army.

[Piwacket]

Very much a personal need for understanding - but perhaps that should have been done in private? Presumably the Directors of the programme felt we needed to have this lesson? But certainly not a programme about Geneaology

[kiterunner]

Episode synopsis:

Marianne Faithfull was born in 1947,the daughter of Robert Glynn Faithfull and Eva Hermine von Sacher-Masoch, who married in 1946 and divorced by the time Marianne was 6. Marianne married John Dunbar, an art dealer, in the 1960's and had a son Nicholas but this marriage didn't last long either.

Eva and her brother Alexander grew up in Vienna. Their parents were Artur von Sacher-Masoch, an aristocrat who served as a Lieutenant-Colonel in WW1, and Elisabeth Flora, known as Flora, who was a Hungarian Jew.

The family moved to Berlin in the 1920's. Alexander became a left-wing journalist and Eva a dancer.

Marianne visited Berlin and met a dance historian who showed her photos of Eva and her friend Hede Mehrmann dancing at the Barberina Club. Eva and Hede performed in politically radical shows such as "Ping Pong" as the Nazis came to power, but by 1933 they were performing in a more conventional entertainment, "Der Bauer als Millionair". Hede died in Auschwitz in 1943.

Artur, Flora and Eva left Berlin for Vienna in 1934 and Alexander stayed. But the Nazis brought in rules requiring writers to join the Nazi writers' organisation and prove their Aryan ancestry, which Alexander couldn't do, so he left Germany and went to Yugoslavia.

Marianne went to Vienna, to the National Library, and met an historian who showed her Artur's registration card from 1934 which described him as a retired high-ranking military officer and showed he had the title Ritter (knight). Marianne was shown her family tree including the Von Sacher-Masoch line going back to the first Ritter, Johann Nepomuk Stephan Sacher who was knighted in the Austrian Empire in 1832.

A registration card from March 1937 showed that Artur and Flora moved to an apartment in the Hungarian embassy. Marianne was shown a document stating that Flora had changed her name to Elisabeth Flora Sara Sacher-Masoch - Jewish women were forced by the Nazis to add the name Sara and men the name Israel. Marianne was shown Flora's ID card with the letter J for Jude stamped on it. Flora's marriage to Artur counted as "privileged" because of Artur's high rank, which protected her to some extent.

Marianne was shown a household registration form describing Flora as "Mischling" (mongrel) of the 1st degree. This meant that one of her parents was Jewish, and there were Nazi rules which meant that she would not be allowed to marry a non-Jew. There was a note on the registration saying that the Gestapo required to be informed of any change of address for the Sacher-Masoch family.

Marianne visited the documentation centre of the Austrian resistance, and was shown a secret message sent from prison by the resistance leader Walter Kampf, which asked Lieutenant Colonel Sacher-Masoch to warn certain resistance members that they were in danger. An interview given by Alexander in the 1970's told how he introduced Artur to the communist resistance, and how Artur was questioned five times by the Gestapo.

Marianne met another historian who confirmed that the Russian Red Army soldiers raped a lot of women when they liberated Vienna in 1945. Eva and Flora were among the rape victims. After the war, Eva restarted a magazine called Frau und Mutter (Woman and Mother) and Marianne read an editorial written by her.

[kiterunner]

Well, there was a family tree in it...! But it was only shown for a very brief moment. Marianne seemed surprised to find out that the Nazis were mad.

I was interested to hear about the adding of "Sara" or "Israel" to the Jewish people's names, as I have seen lists where all or nearly all the people have these middle names and I wondered about it.

[Olde Crone]

I can't stand Marianne Faithfull but I have to say she has gone up in my estimation as a result of this programme. She is much more intelligent and thoughtful than I had given her credit for.

I thoroughly enjoyed this rivetting programme, but I agree, it wasn't really genealogy, it was her personal history. There's a difference I think.

And now I know why my Jewish MIL insisted that my daughter have the name Sara as one of her names!

OC

[Shona]

V biographical. Impressive historians. Revelatory with regard to Nazi attitudes. Historically absorbing. Genealogy? Nope.