Marie Jahoda über ihren Frankreichaufenthalt

Paris und Étretat, 1928 bis 1929

Paris was great. I attended the Alliance Française1 for four months to improve my French, 4 hours every day. To earn my living, I worked at the Berlitz School2 as a translator, sat in on some lectures at the Sorbonne (of which I remember nothing), made contact with the French socialists, read Michelet3 in the Bibliothèque Nationale and met many young and not so young people. […] I had two other jobs in Paris. For two or three months, I was a secretary-companion to Angelica Balabanoff, who had been [Benito] Mussolini’s4 mistress when he was still a socialist. She remained one. She was very old and a bit confused when I knew her and lived entirely in the past. We drank tea with jam out of a samovar while she reminisced about her life. She hated going out alone. When she had to she carried with her a piece of paper with her address. Though she had lived for several years in the same house in Montmartre, she rightly did not trust herself to find her way back.
One day, I read an advertisement for someone who could teach Latin to two Spanish boys in preparation for their entry into an Austrian Catholic gymnasium. It emerged that the teaching was to be done for two Summer months in Etretat5 on the beach; that the widow who hired me had seven sons, ranging in age from fifteen to three, that I was to live with them as one of the family. I did. Mornings were devoted to Latin with the two older boys, who spoke neither French nor German; I had no Spanish. We struggled with the help of dictionaries with doubtful results. I earned my keep more solidly on the beach in the afternoon, taking care of all seven. [...]. I liked the boys, disliked their mother.

Marie Jahoda Albu: Reconstructions. [Keymer, Sussex Published by the author] 1996, S. 42–43.

1 Alliance Française de Paris, École Internationale de Langue et de Civilisation Françaises: 1883 gegründete, noch bestehende und international renommierte Privatschule, in der französische Sprache und Kultur vermittelt werden. Anmerkung Reinhard Müller.
2 Berlitz France: französische Sektion der Berlitz-Schulen, private Unterrichtsanstalten, in denen ausschließlich ausländische Lehrkräfte in ihrer Muttersprache unterrichten. Die erste Schule wurde 1878 von dem aus Deutschland stammenden US-Amerikaner Maximilian Delphinius (später: David) Berlitz (Horb bei Mühringen, Baden-Württemberg 1852 – New York, N.Y. 1921) in Providence, Rhode Island gegründet. Anmerkung Reinhard Müller.
3 Jules Michelet (Paris 1798 – Îles d’Hyères 1874): Historiker und Philosoph; besonders bekannt sind seine sechzehnbändige Geschichte Frankreichs (1837–1867) und seine siebenbändige Geschichte der französischen Revolution (1847–1853). Anmerkung Reinhard Müller.
4 Benito Mussolini (Predappio, Forlì 1883 – Giulino di Mezzegra, Como 1945): faschistischer Politiker; trat 1900 der »Partito Socialista Italiano« bei, wurde 1912 Chefredakteur des Parteiorgans »Avanti! Giornale socialista« (Roma); 1914 wegen seines nationalen Sozialismus aus der Partei ausgeschlossen; 1919 Gründer der »Fasci di Combattimento«, 1921 umgewandelt in die »Partito Nazionale Fascista«; vom 30. Oktober 1922 bis 25. Juli 1943 als »Duce« faschistischer Regierungschef Italiens. Anmerkung Reinhard Müller.
5 Étretat (Seine-Maritime): Badeort nördlich von Le Havre. Anmerkung Reinhard Müller.

© Reinhard Müller -- Graz, im Oktober 2006

EHE MIT P. F. LAZARSFELD
Carl Jahoda und P. F. Lazarsfeld
Ehekonflikte
Paris
Geburt der Tochter
Karl-Marx-Hof
Lazarsfeld als Vater
Schuld am Scheitern der Ehe
Psychoanalyse
Trennung
Unterstützung

Ella Lingens
Sofie Lazarsfeld