fair fair fair fair fair fair fair fair
 

Over six decades, Hilde kept diaries, collected photographs, and saved theater reviews of plays she performed in.

From Hilde's album of reviews, here is one about Zuckmayer's play "Katherina Knie" in which Hilde played the lead role.

fair

Hildegard's dear brother Ralph took his own life in 1925 —a devastating loss that, it seemed to her, created a hole in her life she never could fill. At that time, Ralph was a medical student in Leipzig, near Dresden, and he was writing a scientific essay on "The Formation of Sexual Characteristics and their Relation to the Gonads."  This work, although incomplete, was published by the Pathology Institute of the University of Freiburg.

fair

The editor of the journal wrote a preface to Ralph's article:

fair

“The author [Ralph] had almost made the following written work ready for publication, when he was – in the middle of a state examination, through a mishap – torn away from his life, still so young and entirely filled with scientific endeavor.  I took it as my duty, even after his death, to get into print this diligent although not exhaustive synopsis of recent literature on the problem of the development of secondary sexual character.”

What was the mishap or accident (“Unglücksfall”) to which the editor refers?  This is the account that Hilde told us, which is echoed in Erich Kstner’s fictionalized rendition (in the 1931 novel Fabian) of Ralph Zucker’s life: Ralph, a medical student, had taken an important examination.  Another student told him – as a kind of joke – that he had failed.  Despondent, he took his own life that day.  But actually he had passed the exam with high marks. 

Here's an early photo of Hilde -- I'm not sure how old she is, perhaps 12 or so.

fair


In October 1931, my father wrote this note to his (soon to be born) son Peter, on a blank page of the (original edition) of Rilke's Duino Elegies, just to the left of Hilde's photo:

fair

"When you, dear Peter, sometime many years hence -- when we are no longer there -- receive this book in your hands, then admire a little this small and swollen but -- between us -- very, very diligent woman."

 Hilde had a small volume of "Erinnerungen" (Souvenirs) written by her mother, father, brother, and classmates and friends between 1919 and 1921, when she was about 10-12 years old.  Each entry is charmingly written, with exquisite and unique penmanship.  It would be good to display pages from the volume on this website, but we haven't got around to doing that yet.

More about Hilde and the history of the Barglow family is here.