Memorial - The Theatre of Carola Neher's Life

Education

The Theatre of Carola Neher's Life

An exhibition dedicated to the fate of the actress who died in the GULAG

International Memorial together with the Goethe Institute in Moscow present «The theatre of Carola Neher’s life» – the first exhibition in Russia devoted to the fate of one of the brightest stage star of the Weimar republic.

The trace Carola Neher left in the memory of a whole generation of German theatre lovers is incompatible with the brevity of her theatre career. A decade she spent on stage was probably one of the brightest in the history of German theatre, but among the constellation of celebrities presenting the theatre life of the Weimar republic Carola Neher plays a special role. Cleopatra and Eliza Doolittle, Polly Peachum and Katarina from Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare and Brecht, Shaw and Klabund, Hauptmann and Ödön von Horváth. She is often mentioned in the context of Bertolt Brecht’s plays for whom she was a favorite actress during those years. It was Carola Neher who played one of the leading parts in the famous Threepenny Opera and gave a brilliant performance in Pabst’s same-name movie (1931). Almost all her heroines are notable for the love of life, stamina and courage – the traits which marked the actress herself and proved necessary for her during the last decade of her life, when she had to play in a terrible play staged by directors who were far from theatre.

Carola Neher was an embodiment not only of an actress of new experimental theatre, but also of the new woman: she was fond of sports, drove a car, piloted a plane. When the Nazi came to power she emigrated to the Soviet Union together with her husband, communist Anatol Becker. The very first meeting with the country of victorious proletariat proved disappointing: Moscow was almost starving with its food ration system, there was no housing. However, returning to Germany was out of the question – the actress’ German citizenship was taken away from her after she signed, together with other cultural figures, the protest against the occupation of the Saarland by fascists in 1934. In 1936 she and her husband were arrested. Anatol Becker was executed, and Carola Neher sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. One of the most talented actresses in the history of German theatre died of typhus in the Sol-Iletsk prison in 1942. Her son, who was sent to an orphanage at the age of two, found out his family history years after tormenting searches.

Irina Scherbakova, head of Memorial educational programs, curator of the exhibition:

«The main goal of the exhibition is to tell a story of an outstanding artist who fled one dictatorship and died in another. The visitor sees unique materials: documents, photos, video and audio records from German and Russian archives, family collections of Carola Neher’s descendants and museum collections of International Memorial».

Rüdiger Bolz, director of the Goethe Institute in Moscow, head of Eastern European and Central Asian department:

«When we speak of Carola Neher, many people, who are familiar at least to some extent with the 1920s cultural epoque shining with the brightest colors – react to this name with great enthusiasm. Those who know more about the history of theatre and cinema, will find a lot of laudatory words about the role of Carola Neher in the avant-garde acting of that time. However, few people know about how Carola Neher’s life came about, what a sudden change happened in the fate of the actress who was unanimously adored and worshipped by the audience, critics, playwrights and theatre managers. The decision to emigrate to the Soviet Union abruptly interrupted her brilliant career. This is a great shock – to get to know so closely and in such details the biography of a person. And it’s equally shocking to realize that no less than 70 percent of all German emigrants fell victims of Stalin’s „purges“. Thus, this exhibition shows much more than a tragic life of the star of the theatre sky and Berlin society».

The exhibition is open from 12 December 2017 to 17 June 2018 every day, except for Sunday and Monday, from 11 am to 7 pm.

Workshops based on the materials on the exhibition are organized on Thursdays and Saturdays, prior registration required.

Within the framework of the exhibition a series of movie shows «Murderers among us» is organized (movies of the period of reflection on the consequences of the World WarI $3 and presentiment of the Nazi coming to power):

7 April M by Fritz Lang (1931)

12 May The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by Robert Wiene (1920)

19 May Nosferatu by Friedrich Murnau (1922)

26 May Destiny by Fritz Lang (1921)

Curators – Irina Scherbakova, Maria Shilova

Architecture: Kirill Ass, Nadia Korbut

Graphic design: Igor Gurovich

General partner: Goethe Institute in Moscow

Partners:

Literaturhaus Berlin

Memorial Deutschland

Mission of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in the RF