Lore Segal: “I wanted to love Vienna…”

The exhibition “I wanted to love Vienna, but I didn’t dare” by Karin Hanta addresses the subject of Lore Segal’s childhood and time growing up in Vienna’s 8th district, her escape to England, and her later career as an author and professor – including at Columbia University (NY).

Lore Segal was born in Vienna in 1928, the daughter of Ignatz (Igo) and Franziska (Franzi) Groszmann, a chief accountant and an aspiring musician. In 1938, she lived through the “Aryanization” of her family’s apartment by the Nazis. Lore managed to escape to England on the first Kindertransport; her parents were able to join her later on. The majority of Lore’s relatives and their loved ones, however, fell victim to the Nazi terror.

Lore learned English very quickly, studied English literature, and began processing her emigration with the help of literature (1964 novel “Other People’s Houses”). In 1950, she moved to New York, where she then kicked off her literary career in the 60s. Not until age 40 was she able to work up the courage to visit Vienna again after all those years. Until her last days, she had an ambivalent relationship with her native city, which is also reflected in the exhibition. Lore’s last visit to Vienna was in 2018 – to receive the Theodor Kramer Prize for Writing in Resistance and Exile.

On January 22, the 76-minute documentary “My Knees Were Jumping” will be shown as part of the exhibition. In this movie by filmmaker Melissa Hacker, she narrates the moving tale of the Kindertransports, drawing on the story of her mother Ruth Morley for inspiration.