My grandmother Margaretha Jatzek gave her debut as a dancer at the Vienna Opera at the age of eight. But times got worse, and classical dance was not the most in-demand profession. Therefore, she joined vaudeville shows under her stage name Gred Bassler to make a living in the 1930s.
The advertisement poster for the Cabaret Fledermaus on top of this article announces singers, dancers, a lute player, a “musical puppet”, and a jazz band.
When I was a kid, granny never talked to me about her appearances. It seems that she turned the page on her artistic career when she married my grandfather and consequently lived in places like Neustettin (nowadays Szczecinek), Eberswalde and Oderberg – which were pretty exotic for a young woman from Vienna.
One of her colleagues in some of these shows was the famous songwriter, and standup comedian Fritz Grünbaum who took the role of the master of ceremonies. Grünbaum died in the concentration camp Dachau on 14 January 1941.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to my brother Thomas who found and collected these photographs.
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