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Erika Blumgrund (1924-2016), nacida en 1924 en Brataslava. Sobreviviente de Therisienstadt, vivió desde 1958 en Argentina. Durante muchos años fue la editora del Seminario Israelita (al principio, Judische Wochenshau). Además de su trabajo periodístico, Blumgrund, que había crecido en cuatro idiomas, escribió poemas y textos en prosa traducidos del español al alemán. Sus obras incluyen Acordes (1993) y La corriente de la vida hacia su desembocadura incontenible fluye (1995), el volumen de poesía Eso fue todo (2009) traducido al español por Jorge Hacker, y el libro Por los Peldaños de la vida; diarios íntimos de una adolescente judía esclava: 1938-1941 (2010). También fue pintora destacada de óleos.
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Erika Blumgrund, (1924-2016) was born 1924 in Bratslava. Survivor of Therisienstadt, lived since 1958 in Argentina. For many years she was the editor of the Seminario Israelita (at first, Judische Wochenshau). In addition to her journalistic work, Blumgrund, who had grown up in four languages, wrote poems and prose texts translated from Spanish into German. Her works include Acordes (1993) and La corriente de la vida hacia su desembocadura incontenible fluye (1995), the volume of poetry Eso fue todo (2009) translated into Spanish by Jorge Hacker, and the book Por los peldaños de la vida; diarios íntimos de una adolescente judía esclava: 1938-1941 (2010). She was also an outstanding painter of oil paintings.
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Una descripción Erika Blumgrund por un conocido: Tiene más de 80 años, habla seis idiomas, todavía da clases de gimnasia y está estudiando italiano para traducir su propia obra al italiano. Hay un poema en donde ella dice que le agradece a la vida haber podido sobrevivir, reencontrarse con su novio de los 14 años, haberse casado, sus hijos, sus nietos, su profesión y todo, pero que no duerme, ella no duerme porque le resuena permanentemente en la cabeza el ruido del tren de la muerte”
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A description Erika Blumgrund by an acquaintance: “She is over 80 years old, speaks six languages, still teaches gymnastics and is studying Italian to translate her own work into Italian. There is a poem where she says she thanks her. to life have been able to survive, reunite with her boyfriend of 14 years, have married, their children, their grandchildren, their profession and everything, but that does not sleep, she does not sleep because it resounds permanently in the head the noise of the train of death”
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Obras de Erica Blumgrund
Poesía/Poetry
Estigma
Creí que la sangre ya no brotar
de las viejas herida.
Pensé que la primavera
haría olvidar los inviernos,
que los trenes
no traería el recuerdo de otros trenes. . .
Esperé que los cerros,
el mar, el cielo sin fronteras,
borrarían la memoria de alambres de púa.
Pero los fantasmas vuelven
en silenciosas noches sin fin.
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Stygma
I believed that blood would no longer spurt
from the old wounds.
I thought that Spring
would make forgotten the Winters,
that the trains,
wouldn’t bring the memory of other trains. . .
I hoped that the hills,
the sea without boundaries,
would erase the memories of barbed wire.
But the ghosts return
in endless silent/quiet nights
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Contarás. . . !
Cuando ya no estemos
¿quién les contará a los niños de los niños
sobre los viejos tiempos?
Del río, a cuya orilla íbamos a jugar,
del prado que en la primavera
estallaba de amarillo-diente de león,
de las campanillas de los Alpes y de las violetas
al borde del bosque
y de la alondra que nos dedicaba su mejor canción,
mientras marchábamos por valles y montañas.
El cielo despejado aún era azul, hasta un día
ese universo hermoso saltó en mil pedazos. . .
y despertamos al sufrimiento y al horror;
sin comprender recordábamos la felicidad perdida.
Cuando ya no estemos
¿Contará de nosotros los niños de los niños?
¿O sólo se hallará lo nuestro en crónicas del tiempo?
Datos escuetos, desprovistos de emoción,
registrados fríamente:
que en el siglo veinte, en la flor de la civilización,
fueron borrados del mapa seis millones de judíos, salvajemente. . .
Cuando empalidezca nuestro recuerdo al paso del tiempo
quizá te alcancen estas líneas.
Tu corazón se pondría pesado
y recordarás un antiguo
relato que algún antepasado te contó. . .
Así perdura el recuerdo de nosotros.
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And you will tell…!
When we are no longer,
who will tell the children of the children
about the old times?
Of the river, by whose banks we went to play,
of the meadow in Spring
exploding with dandy-lions,
of the little bells from the Alps or the violets
at the edge of the forest
and of the lark that dedicated its best song to us,
while we marched through valleys and mountains].
The clear sky was still blue, until one day
that beautiful universe broke up in a thousand pieces. . .
and we awakened to suffering and to horror,
without understanding, we remember the lost happiness.
When we are no longer,
who will tell of us to the children of the children?
Or will ours be found only in the chronicles of the time?
Concise data, Devoid of emotion,
registered coldly:
In the twentieth century, in the heart of civilization,
were erased from the map, six million Jews, savagely. . .
When our memory fades during the passage of time
Perhaps these lines will reach you.
Your heart will become heavy
and you will remember an old
tale that some ancestor told you. . .
And so ill endures the memory of us.
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Nosotros, los “Sobrevivientes”
¡De repente nos encontramos en el proscenio!
Iluminados, examinados, interrogados, por
sentimientos,
por el modo de transmitirlo a nuestros hijos,
por los comentarios de ellos. . .
Diferenciados de la gente “normal”
Nos sentimos clasificados en una categoría especial.
Nosotros, “los sobrevivientes”
Hemos despertado el interés de psicólogos,
Historiadores, escritores y cineastas.
En un suerte de “pánico de hora de cierre”
-claro, “cada vez somos menos” – 1
nos vimos urgentemente “descubiertos”,
y debemos – asî nos dicen –
cumplir con el compromiso
de perpetuar lo vivido y revelar
nuestra alma a la posteridad.
Asi desenterramos los recuerdos
Del último cajón. . .
Reabrimos las viejas heridas
(¿acaso alguna vez cicatrizarán?)
Porque nada debe perderse,
ni siquiera las lágrimas.
Valientemente nos ubicamos en la luz del proscenio.
Nosotros, los “sobrevivientes”.
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We. The “Survivors”
Suddenly, we find ourselves on the proscenium!
Illuminated, examined, interrogated, for
feelings,
for the manner to transmit them to our children,
For their commentaries. . .
Differentiated from “normal people.”
We feel classified in another special category.
We have awakened the interest of the psychologists,
Historians, writers and filmmakers.
In a rash of “panic of the closing hour:
Of course, “everyday are fewer”
We see ourselves “discovered.”
And we ought to “so they say to us”
Fulfil the obligation
to perpetuate that which was lived and to reveal
our souls to posterity.
So, we exhume our memories
From the last box. . .
We reopen the old world
(perhaps at some time they scarred over ?)
Because nothing should be lost,
not even the tears.
Valiantly, we place ourselves in the proscenium.
We, the “Survivors”
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Óleos /Oils
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Caracas in 1994, As a young woman, Gego worked as a draftsman in several architecture firms, painting workshops, and carpentry shops in her native Germany while completing a degree in architecture from the University of Stuttgart in 1938. To escape the increasing anti-Semitism in her home country, she emigrated to Venezuela in 1939, where she worked as a freelance architect and industrial designer. In 1953, she moved to the coastal town of Tarma and began her artistic work, producing drawings, watercolors, monotypes and xylographs; the majority of these early works were figurative and expressionist. She returned to Caracas in 1956, and there, using pure abstraction as her starting point, she began to address problems of sculptural space in her work; in 1957, along with artists Carlos Cruz-Diez, Alejandro Otero, and Jesús-Rafael Soto, Gego participated in the exhibition Arte abstracto en Venezuela. By 1959, the Museum of Modern Art in New York had begun to acquire her work; she moved to New York in 1960 and remained in the United States until 1967. Gego taught at the school of architecture of the Universidad Central de Venezuela and at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Cristóbal Rojas. Her first individual show was held at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas in 1961; in 1962, she installed a sculpture at the headquarters of the Banco Industrial de Venezuela. She helped found the Instituto de Diseño Neumann in Caracas where she taught from 1964 to 1977. From the 1970s to the 1980s she completed important, architecturally integrated sculpture for public buildings, residences, and shopping malls. In 1972, for example, she constructed Cuerdas (Cords), a sculpture installation consisting of suspended nylon and stainless steel strips, for the Parque Central architectonic complex in Caracas. Gego eventually began to use random procedures and “poor” materials such as industrial scraps and metals. Her series of suspended sculptures Dibujos sin papel (Drawings without Paper) and her series Bichos (Creatures) also date from the 1980s, as does her Reticulárea ambiental. ________________________________________________________________
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