Lea Deutsch - Biography

Lea Deutsch (18 March 1927 in Zagreb – May, 1943) was a Croatian Jewish child actress who died during the Holocaust.

Early life

Deutsch was born in Zagreb to a Croatian Jewish parents, Stjepan and Ivka (née Singer) Deutsch. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother was educated housewife, who was actively engaged in chess. She also had a brother, Saša. Deutsch family lived in Zagreb at Gundulićeva street 39 in a three-story house. Deutsch began acting at the HNK Zagreb at the age of five playing small roles in professional productions of Moliere and Shakespeare. People were enchanted by her, she was thought as an exceptional talent, a "Croatian Shirley Temple". Even the famous Parisian firm Pathé heard of Deutsch and arrived to Zagreb to film a short documentary about her. She quickly rose to become a popular child actor.

In 1941 NDH began with implementation of race laws which prevented Deutsch from acting. Immediately after the establishment of the NDH she was banned from the theater where she performed, and little later from a school that she attended. Deutsch's schoolmate Relja Bašić recalls; "She used to sit motionless on a bench across from the theater in a little herringbone pattern coat with a yellow star of David on her sleeves, staring for hours at the building where once she was a star, and now she couldn't even enter the building".

Arrest, deportation and death

In an attempt to save his family, Deutsch's father had converted his family to Catholicism. On May 5, 1943 Heinrich Himmler visited Zagreb. During his visit he pressed NDH leader Ante Pavelić, to enact the "Final Solution" on his territory. In the coming days, Croatian and German officials began detaining the heads of the Jewish Community Zagreb and remaining Jews who had been allowed to stay in the city up until this point.

Members of the national theatre intervened to try to help Deutsch and her family. Actors Tito Strozzi, Vika Podgorska and Hinko Nučić, and the theatre's intendant Dušan Žanko (himself a member of the Ustashe) all attempted to save Deutsch's life. "Ordinary" people tried to save the Deutsch family. Escape trip to Karlovac was organized for a Deutsch family, where they were supposed to hook up with the Partisans, but they had to return to Zagreb because they failed to meet with their "connection". Jewish attempts to transfer the Deutsch family to British Mandate of Palestine, also failed. In the lower floor of their house Deutsch family had at one time a tenant, young men from Herzegovina, who occasionally wore the Ustasha uniform. In the words of Deutsch friend Nika Grgić, this young man offered to falsely marry Lea in a attempt to save her from deportation, but that was not realized for unknown reasons. On May 1943, Deutsch with her mother and brother was deported to Auschwitz by Nazis. Out of 75 prisoners during the six-day journey in the cattle wagon, without a food and water, 25 did not survive. Lea Deutsch was among the deceased, after her supposedly weak heart gave up on her. Her mother and brother were killed in Auschwitz, while her father survived the Holocaust and lived until 1959.

Legacy

In 2003, a Lauder Jewish elementary school in Zagreb was named after her.

In 2010 Croatian director Branko Ivanda made a film "Lea i Darija - Dječje carstvo", about a tragic destiny of Lea Deutsch.