Lola Landau, birth name: Leonore Landau (December 3, 1892 - February 3, 1990) was an Israeli writer, poet, and dramatist. She wrote in German and was member of the
Association of German-Speaking Writers in Israel [
de].[1][2] While in Germany she was an active pacifist.[3]
Biography
Leonore Landau was born in Berlin to a family of noted Jewish gynecologist Theodor Landau (brother of gynecologist
Leopold Landau) and Philippine
née Fulda. Among her ancestors was a noted scholar in halakha rabbi
Yechezkel Landau.[1]
In 1915 she married philosopher
Siegfried Marck [
de] and moved to
Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), where she published her first poems. She had two sons with Merck. In 1920, after an intense affair, she divorced and married poet and pacifist
Armin T. Wegner.[1] Together with her sons, they moved to
Neuglobsow [
de], where her daughter Sybille was born in 1923. In 1925 they moved to Berlin.[1] Wegner was an ethnic German, and it was an unlikely case of Jew and gentile intermarriage at these times.[4] From October to February 1927/28 Landau and Wegner were among selected guests invited to the Soviet Union on the occasion of celebrations of the 10th anniversary of the
October Revolution. Wegner wrote a travelogue book about this.[5]
She moved to
Palestine with her son Andreas and daughter Sybille in 1936 and settled in
Jerusalem[1] (Her another son fled to Australia.[2]) Her husband (while already having a romance with artist
Irene Kowaliska) initially followed her, but being at ethnic German, could not live neither in
Nazi Germany, nor in Palestine, so he decided to settle in Italy,[6] and in 1939 they divorced. Afterwards Lola had a relationship with noted mathematician
Pessach Hebroni [
he].[1]
Books
Positano oder Der Weg ins dritte Leben, Berlin : Verlag Das Arsenal, 1995, ISBN 3-921810-62-0
Vor dem Vergessen. Meine drei Leben ( Before oblivion. My three lives ), Berlin : Ullstein, 1992, ISBN 3-548-30285-8, an autobiography
Leben in Israel, Deutsche Ausgabe: Marbach : Dt. Schillergesellschaft, 1987
Die zärtliche Buche, Bodman/Bodensee : Hohenstaufen-Verlag, 1980
Variationen der Liebe, Bodman (Bodensee) : Hohenstaufen-Verlag, 1973, ISBN 3-8056-2104-3
Hörst du mich, kleine Schwester?, Bodman (Bodensee) : Hohenstaufen-Verlag, 1971, ISBN 3-8056-2103-5
Noch liebt mich die Erde, Bodman (Bodensee) : Hohenstaufen-Verlag, 1969
Birgitta Hamann, Lola Landau. Leben und Werk. Ein Beispiel deutsch-jüdischer Literatur des 20. Jahrhunderts in Deutschland und Palästina/Israel, 2000
ARMIN T. WEGNER UND LOLA LANDAU, Geliebter Dämon, BRIEFWECHSEL 1916-1977 (edited by
Thomas Hartwig [
de]), correspondence between Armin T. Wegner and Lola Landay, over 1,500 letters