AJR Information Volume XLIX No. 11 November 1994 £3 (to non-members) Don't miss... An awesome - and awful - anniversary At the cutting edge p.2 Poetry Day Shadow of November Days special p.4 DifTicult o time of the year brings so many anniver­ a turning point in German history when - in a clas­ dialogue p. 16 saries in its train as early November. The sic phrase - history refused to turn. From 1871 N seventh commemorates the Russian Revolu­ onwards, the country had inexplicably grown into Two elections tion, the ninth the Abdication of the Kaiser, the Europe's industrial and military powerhouse. If any he German tenth Kristallnacht and the eleventh Armistice Day. one person incarnated that power and the warlike election Though each of these events merits the epithet his­ ambition it engendered it was the Kaiser. His abdica­ Tresults - toric, some are clearly more longlasting than others tion from the German throne therefore seemed to which showed in their effect. leave the path clear for peace and the advent of de­ Schonhuber's A good example of this hyped-up importance was mocracy. That deduction was wrong. What really ill-named November 7. The start of the Bolshevik Revolution happened was that der Kaiser ging und die Generale Republikaner polling below 2 was long presented by "converts" as a turning point blieben (The Emperor left and the generals stayed). A percent of the in human evolution. Their message found credence mere fourteen years after Wiihelm the Second's abdi­ total vote - are when Sidney and Beatrice Webb returned from Rus­ cation a super-Kaiser (aka Fiihrer) had ascended the a welcome sia in the early 1930s and said "We have seen the throne armed with powers and a will to war quite indication of the future, and it works". dwarfing that of the Hohenzollern. country's Now, barely five years after its demise. Commu­ November 11, Armistice Day? Another misnomer. commitment to nism is as extinct as the dodo, and its former Was this not the terminal day of "the war to end all democracy. In May we dubbed territory trails clouds of pollution and dereliction. wars"? Soon after that date the phrase only evoked Schonhuber, November 9 was another date made to carry un­ hollow laughter. Armistice Day should, by rights, Zhirinovski, Le due symbolic freight. This had to do with a have been called Temporary Truce Day, since what Pen and Fini the widespread misconception. November 9, 1918 was followed was a suspicion-laden suspension of hostili­ 4 Horsemen of ties lasting twenty years. the European And so on to November 10. Apocalypse. The Although it figures on fewer calendars than any of good news that the German the aforementioned anniversaries, it is a date that ech­ electorate has oes more loudly down the ages. Whosoever knows unhorsed anything at all about traditional Polish markets, Car­ Schonhuber is pathian inns, Budapest department stores, Berlin qualified by the lecture theatres, Prague newspaper offices and Vien­ bad news that nese coffee houses cannot but know that all is now many Austrian utterly different. voters hold Whoever crosses the continental landmass from Haider's stirrups. France to Russia and from the Balkans to Scandinavia Fortunately, traverses a landscape from which Jews are virtually thanks to absent. Their yawning absence represents a decline of demographic both numbers and vital substance from millions to a factors, Austria handful, which decline is, furthermore, irreversible. is hardly in a This is the "empty quarter" of Europe, a continent position to entice which from classical times till our own childhood rep­ Anschluss- resented all that was most forward-looking on Earth. minded Germans by rephrasing Crystal Night spelt finis to two millennia of civiUsa- the 1938 Nazi tion. It was the widely disregarded precursor to a loss slogan to read that will never be made good; that is why of all the Heim ins red-letter days of November, it is the tenth which (Oster) Reich.C: The Berlin synagogue in Fasanenstrasse after "Kristallnacht". throws the darkest shadow. D AJR INFORMATION NOVEMBER 1994 Farschriben As a contribution to the Yiddish revival we are reprinting an anecdote from Roite search chemist and her mother a painter. Pomeranzen (Editor Immanuel Olsvanger, They left Germany for Palestine in 1933. Schocken Verlag, Berlin 1935). In 1937 Annely came to London to visit friends. "I liked it, so I stayed", she now jn schejnem tvintertog is arajn in an says. Initially finding work as a domestic, achssanje (inn) a id in a fajnem she later drove a WVS canteen wagon. In £ fukssenem pelz, un hot sach 1939 she met and married Paul Juda. He aivekgesezt neben a tischel un hot sich was linked to organisations working for gehejssen darlangen zum essen. Er hot German restitution and post-war she re­ gegessen mi kol tuiv (of all good things) luctantly followed him back to Germany. un getrunken a glesele ivajn ejch. However, this did not work out too well Opgegessen, ruft er zu di balabosste and the couple divorced in 1955. Annely (landlady) un sogt ir: "Macht mir dem returned to Britain where she took a posi­ cheschben (bill) un farschrajbt sich (chalk tion in the URO offices. it up), ivorem ich hob ba sich kejn gelt In the evenings, she attended night nit; ich tvel kumen dem ander moi, tvel classes at the Reimann School of Art. In ich ajch bazolen." Tracht sich di 1958 she went to work for Erich Estorick Annely Juda balabosste: tvoss sol si do ton? A fremder Photo: Newman - a well known art collector - as secre­ id: nit si ken em, nit si tvejss em! Glat asej he Annely Juda gallery in Dering tary and gallery assistant. Soon trauen hot si nit gewelt, un farlangen a Street looks much like any other: afterwards she joined the Kaplan Gallery. maschken (pledge) hot ir nit gepasst. Sogt Twide empty spaces and broad white A year later she met Mrs Stern. This si: "Ganz fajn! Nor kejn bicher fir ich nit; walls. Walking around the sunlit rooms of proved to be somewhat of a turning ivel ich farschrajben ajer nomen mit'n this fourth floor art-house one can see in point. Mrs Stern wanted to open a gallery, cheschben af der ivant." Sogt der id: the mind's eye the cultured coterie, sip­ but needed a partner. Annely fitted the " Woss hejsst? af der ivant? jederer wet ping modest wines and admiring the bill. In 1960 the Molton Gallery opened arajngejn un lejenen (read), wel ich doch works of Annely Juda's stable of well- on South Molton Street. Although this farschemen majn nomen!" macht di known artists, which includes such names venture did not prove successful in itself, idene: "Nu, ejber as (if) ess passt ajch nit, as Tony Caro, Alan Green and Michael it showed that Annely Juda could "deliver kent ir farhengen dem cheschben mit'n Edes. It all seems so sophisticated. And the goods". She was approached by pelz!"U then one looks up and sees the massive American investors who wanted her to industrial hoist poised above the gallery- open and run a gallery for them. She wide skylight gently lowering a huge, agreed and the very successful Hamilton J I I I I I I I LJ I I I I I ITTTTm rough wooden crate which contains a Gallery came into being in 1963. It stayed ff °B stuffed reindeer. Seconds later, two burly in business until 1967 and many of the D The New and Improved D men begin unloading broken refrigerators artists whom she first met then are still and obsolete cookers from the lift to the with her. § BAZAAR '94 | polished wooden floors. These are part of In 1967, the "Summer of Love", P at Belsize Square Synagogue P an exhibition of the sculptures of Gloria Annely Juda opened her first independent • 51 Belsize Square, London NW3 • Friedmann. gallery to bear the name Annely Juda Fine n D Annely Juda, the gallery's founder- Art in Tottenham Mews. Her son David, • - Better Quality - New Ranges - • owner, turned 80 in September. Her close who had been in the Merchant Navy, D - Events - D connections with those at the cutting edge joined her in 1968. They have worked to­ Q including the wholly new Q of artistic innovation and deep under­ gether since then to build up a very standing of modern art - from brick successful international establishment. B AUCTION OF B piles to dead sheep in formaldehyde - Their work takes them around the world B PROMISES B ensure that the words "...but I know what from New York to Tokyo. Last year, at a I like!" never cross her lips. One could specially arranged reception, Annely Juda n n sense her amusement as she showed off was awarded the City of Cologne Art H (Saturday, 8.00pm - by reservation) H another of the exhibits from her forth­ Prize for services to art, after which Ger­ n Saturday 10 December 5 - 8pm D coming show: slices of tomato between man TV made a documentary about her. • Sunday 11 December 10 - 6pm • two sheets of glass. It must have been ob­ Five years ago, on the occasion of her P Lunch 12 - 3pm j=j vious that the deep meanings and 75th birthday. The Guardian newspaper D Afternoon tea - with live music D implications of work of this stature were ran a special profile of this remarkable B Children's amusements - B flying high above my head. She didn't ac­ woman. AJR Information does not share P - Bargains - Fun - D tually call me a philistine, but if she had the newspaper's circulation, but this year D Entrance Fee D she would probably have been right.