Letter from <persName ref="https://d-nb.info/gnd/11674085X">Leopold Sachse</persName> to <persName ref="https://d-nb.info/gnd/1210951975">Anny Gowa</persName>, <placeName ref="http://vocab.getty.edu/tgn/7005289">Hamburg</placeName> <date when="1934-07-12">July 12, 1934</date> Erwin Fink Institute for the History of the German Jewsredaktion@juedische-geschichte-online.net
Beim Schlump 83, 20144 Hamburg

Archive of the IGdJ, Collection "Jüdischer Kulturbund", 48-003.3/7

jgo:source-252

On July 12, 1934, the date of this letter, the “Jewish Society for Arts and Science”Jüdische Gesellschaft für Kunst und Wissenschaft, an association registered in Hamburg, had been in existence for six months. It offered Jewish artists and scientists who had lost their jobs as a result of National Socialist legislation new opportunities to perform and thus financial support. Leopold Sachse, the director of the Hamburg City Theater, now the State Opera, who was dismissed in 1933, was the artistic director of the Society. In his letter, he turned to Anny Gowa, stage and costume designer, married to Ferdinand Gowa. The literary scholar and lawyer Gowa, jokingly referred to here as "my dear colleague", was the Society's managing director. Sachse informed Anny Gowa that the costume designs she had submitted had met with a very positive response and would be adopted for the planned production once a contract had been signed. In the course of a correspondence in 1992, Anny Gowa provided the author with a copy of the letter.

 Brief von Leopold Sachse an Anny Gowajgo:article-294Leopold SachseHamburgJuly 12, 1934IGdJ48-003.3/7 EnglishSource:Textdeu

Oberstr. 68, July 12, 34 Dear Mrs. Anny Gowa! Yesterday evening, I received your drafts. I can only repeat to you what I immediately said to your husband: “Excellent!” You are so heartwarmingly talented! I know how much positive technical penetration belongs to such things, which just far exceeds the demands of the merely imaginative-picturesque. That you have found this solution in such a relatively short time is admirable. May I now ask you to get in touch in a similar way with the “man,” who is still walking around in the state of Adam before the Fall. ¬ It is a pleasure to be able to tell you that I have the authority to acquire your designs for the Jewish Society for Arts and Science Jüdische Gesellschaft für Kunst und Wissenschaft.The business part is best discussed in person. It just occurred to me that you might consider it an imposition to burden your vacation time by worrying about clothes for a naked man. – If that is the case, then do peacefully enjoy the beach weeks with your children without thinking of “Jewish theater.” – You work in such an exhilarating way that we will still be able to manage even if the approval should actually – knock on wood – come in. – Provided that all the waiting is not going to “do us in” before then – wife and daughter, who share my opinion about your sketches, extend many good wishes to you. I am glad that we understand each other so well artistically and through you, I extend most sincere greetings to my dear employee.

Your Leopold Sachse