The Woman In Gold Has Special Meaning For Me

Bear with me as I wander a bit.  In the end I will recommend you watch Woman in Gold on Netflix.  

My mother used to send me clippings about a woman, Maria Altman,  in LA who was suing the Austrian government to win back paintings by Gustav Klimt, stolen by the Nazis from her family, with the main attention on the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, who was the beloved aunt of Maria Altman.

It turned out that Maria Altman was someone my mother knew.  My mom would shop at her small dress shop.  They became acquaintances, if not friends, because they had both fled the Nazis as young women and they both worked most of their lives. Sometimes my mom just related things Maria Altman told her about the progress (or lack of progress) in the proceedings to get back the paintings the Nazis stole from her wealthy family's Vienna house.  The problem was, the main painting was valued at an estimated $100 million and was considered the prize painting by an Austrian artist in the eyes of the Austrian government.

One of the ironies of the story is that this great Austrian painting so valued by the Austrians, is of a Jewish woman.  But her name was removed and the painting was called  Woman in Gold.

Because I'd been hearing about the lawsuit, when the movie was released in 2015, we immediately went to see it in Anchorage.  At that time, we were flying monthly to visit my mom who was then 93 and pretty much bedridden.  I really wanted her to see the film, but taking her to a theater would have been a real production.  

I'd been hearing about how good Netflix was and googled "Netflix, Woman in Gold" and got a page which suggested we could watch it there.  So that was when I signed up for Netflix.  But then when I searched for Woman in Gold, they didn't actually have it.  My initial experience with Netflix wasn't a good one.

However, there are other modern German language films which my mother and I did enjoy watching together on Netflix.  She died that July never having gotten to see this major film about someone who knew and whose story she had followed for years.  

I'd note another connection in the film.  The attorney Maria Altman engaged for this battle was  the grandson of Arnold Schoenberg the giant of 20th Century classical music..  Arnold Schoenberg had been a guest in Altman's family home in Vienna before he too fled to the United States and California.  My mother also knew this family, though she ever met Arnold.  My understanding is that they were either relatives or close friends of Melanie Swinburg who had been a stage actress in Vienna.  I knew her well because she became the baby nurse of my younger brother and remained a close family friend until her death.  Her crypt is with my family's in LA, next to my brother's, who died in an accident at the age of 23.  

So this film has lots of family connections as well as parallel family experiences, though Altman's family was fabulously wealthy in Vienna and my mother's father owned a modest men's clothing store in Dortmund, Germany.  

So when I saw that Woman in Gold was finally playing on Netflix this week, we watched it.  It was a very emotional experience for me for all the reasons mentioned above.  Plus Helen Mirren who plays Maria Altman looks and sounds like lots of women I knew growing up. And I'm a sucker for stories of great injustice being righted.  And, of course, I was sad again that my mother couldn't watch this film with us.  

One final example of how the film spoke to me - a more tangible one.  As a child, my parents would read to me, and translate from,  Struwwelpeter, a book with tales of very 'bōse' (something between naughty, wicked, and evil) little boys.  

The cover story is one I remember well - the boy who never cut his hair or fingernails.  The consequences for these behaviors was grim and perhaps tells us something about the German psyche.  For instance, the boy who sucks his thumb and is forbidden to suck it again, of course sucks it as soon as he is alone.  And it gets cut off with giant shears and blood dripping.  

I had a strange affection for this book.  If the intent was to scare little children into obeying their parents, it didn't work on me.  

At one point in the movie, when Mrs. Altman, at her  small home,  is trying to persuade Randy Schoenberg to take her case, he sees a copy of Struwwelpeter and picks it and tells her that he too was read the stories as a child.  

I'd brought the family copy of the book back from my mom's house last time we were there.

So, I'd recommend folks watch Woman In Gold if they have Netflix.  (Or if they find it elsewhere.)  

The scenes of the Nazis publicly  humiliating and beating Jews, breaking into their houses and stealing all their valuables, is a reminder  of what could happen here if Republicans don't let go of their obeisance to Trump and his calls for attacking those they disagree with. And if voters don't come out in droves to overcome the GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression.  The mob that broke into the Capitol and tried to overthrow the election doesn't look that different from the Austrian citizens we see.  Well, actually the Austrians look rather reserved in comparison.