German Theater

The Story that Just Keeps on Ticking – Eva Baruch’s!

Many of you know my cousin Eva Baruch’s story, from my film and the many posts I’ve written about her, along with many of the people who were part of her life. But for those of you who don’t know her story, here’s a brief synopsis: She was a cousin of mine whose life reads like a movie script, because of her numerous cliffhanger escapes, and the circumstances surrounding them. During the mid 1930s in pre-WWII Berlin, Eva had become … Read More

From Kreuzburg to Hollywood: Finding Walter Wicclair

This was posted in JewishGen’s “Success Stories” on June 2, 2015    As incredible as it may sound, I didn’t learn that my family was Jewish until I was 51 years old. That secret was sustained while I was growing up as an only child, knowing only my parents, and with little knowledge about any relatives living or dead. Forget about their history because there was precious little information forthcoming from my parents. But after their passing, I decided to get … Read More

Escape from Shanghai

Known as Paris of the Orient, Shanghai in 1941 was  a turbulent mass of humanity: an ethnic and cultural mix of British, Germans, Russians, Italians, French, Americans, Japanese and Chinese; an international enclave that was an exotic blend of refugees and expatriates, teeming with espionage, political intrigue and murder. It was just days before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. My cousin, Eva Baruch, an actress who had fled from the Nazis in 1938, and had established a new career for … Read More

Eva Baruch, Actress, Activist or Spy: Chap. 4 – Who, What, Where & How!

I was trying to finish my film, “For the Life of Me”, while facing a deadline only a few months away. And it was a “biggie”- our first screening for a live audience, at the International Conference of Jewish Genealogical Societies . But with only a short time remaining I had decided not to include Eva’s story, for lack of both information and enough film to cover what little I did have. Help was Near! Then my friend, Bob Sallin came … Read More

Eva Baruch, Actress, Activist or Spy – Part 3

Melbourne and Back to Berlin In Chapter 2, after producing two anti-Nazi radio plays, a now pregnant Eva has to escape from Shanghai with her cohorts, and spend the rest of the war in Australia. In 1946, a year after the Japanese surrendered and the war was over, Eva was able to reunite with her actress mother, Kaete Horsten and bring her to Australia. During the war, Kaete occasionally found roles in the Shanghai theater. She’d been living alone for … Read More

Eva Baruch – Actress, Activist or Spy: Chapter 2

Shanghai to Melbourne In Chapter 1 we discussed Eva’s work in the Shanghai Theater, her work with British Ministry of Information (BMI), and her anti Nazi radio shows. As an open city, Shanghai had among its many nationalities a large German contingent, many of whom were pro Nazi. This included a network of Gestapo agents. In October, 1941, only weeks before war broke out in the Pacific, Eva produced two anti-Nazi  radio plays. The first was called”Wien, Maerz 1938″ (Vienna, … Read More

Eva Baruch – Actress, Activist or Spy: Chap. 1

Berlin to Shanghai When the full story of my cousin Eva Baruch’s life was finally revealed to me, it played like the old movie serials, where the heroine always got caught in a life-threatening situation at the end of the current chapter, only to escape at the beginning of the next one. That’s how Eva lived much of her life. But let’s go back to the beginning. It was in 1999 when I first became curious about my family’s history. … Read More

Marlene Dietrich and Kurt Gerron from the film, The Blue Angel.

Theresienstadt – Paradise or Death Camp?

Our Visit to the Ghetto Back in 2004, while in Prague for a few days, my wife, my son and I took a side trip to tour the notorious Nazi concentration camp at Theresienstadt. It was a sobering experience for us, but especially for me because it had a personal connection with my family. Among other relatives who died there, my uncle Paul Rehfisch perished en route, after he had been imprisoned in Bergen Belsen. (You’ll find this in more … Read More

Conrad Veidt and the Natzlers

My Twitter profile says I’m a “Conrad Veidt fanboy”. Yes! That’s true. I’ve been a fan going all the way back to my childhood, when he was a household name with my parents. It’s stuck with me ever since. The more I learned about him, the more fascinated I became with his movies. Yet what’s absorbed me even more was the man behind the actor, and the intrigue involved with his life. But we’ll get to that shortly. My parents … Read More

Walter Wicclair & Why My Father Hid His Identity

 No! Not a Pastry When I was around 8 years old, my father began to talk about a friend of his, a fellow German immigrant who had – what was to me – a silly sounding name. It was Walter Wicclair*.  Dad and I used to laugh about it because it always made us think of chocolate éclair. Then, about a year later I got to meet Walter for the first time. It was while Mom was in the hospital … Read More