Elsa Bernstein

Elsa Bernstein, born Porges (pseudonym Ernst Rosmer ), ( born October 28, 1866 in Vienna, † July 12, 1949 in Hamburg -Eimsbuettel ) was a German writer and 1900 frequently performed playwright.

Life

Elsa Porges was the daughter of music writer Heinrich Porges, who was appointed soon after Elsa's birth by King Ludwig II in Munich. Bernstein grew up in Munich, " brought up in the midst of the artistic war for the new music drama of Richard Wagner ", as she wrote in a self-disclosure. Bernstein worked briefly as an actress, had to give up this profession but due to an eye condition. In 1890 she married the lawyer and writer Max Bernstein, from his marriage had two children. With her husband she held a artistic and literary salon, she had to stop in 1939.

The possibility of the U.S. in 1941 to emigrate rejected Bernstein, because her sister Gabriele received no entry permit. Because of their " Jewish origin " she was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto on 25 June 1942 initially to Dachau and already on June 26, 1942 together with her sister Gabriele. Gabriele Bernstein came to the Gettho Theresienstadt. Elsa Bernstein was freed there in early May 1945.

Bernstein died in 1949 and was buried in her father's grave at the Munich East Cemetery.

Works

Under the pseudonym Ernst Rosmer:

• Twilight ( drama, 1893)
• We Three ( Drama in 1893, premiered in 2003 at the Solana Theater in Cologne, in a staging by Victoria Burkert with Gerd Buurmann in the role of Richards )
• Madonna ( amendments 1894)
• Royal children ( fairy tale drama 1895; 1895 by Engelbert Humperdinck set to music )
• Te Deum ( Comedy 1896)
• Themistocles ( tragedy 1897)
• Mother Mary. Dead poem in five transformations (1900)
• Merete (1902 )
• Dagny ( Drama 1904)
• John Herkner (Drama 1904)

As Elsa Bernstein:

• Nausicaa ( tragedy 1906)
• Maria Arndt (Drama 1908)
• Achilles ( tragedy 1910)
• Life as Drama. Memories of Theresienstadt (Diary of the KZ, posthumously 1999)