Lea Deutsch
Croatian actress
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Key Takeaways
- Lea Deutsch ( Croatian pronunciation: [lêa dâjtʃ] ; 18 March 1927 – May 1943) was a Croatian Jewish child actress who was murdered in the Holocaust.
- Their surname was at the time also spelled Dajč .
- She also had a brother, Saša.
- Deutsch began acting at the HNK Zagreb at the age of five, playing small roles in professional productions of Molière and Shakespeare.
- People were enchanted by her, and she was thought an exceptional talent, a "Croatian Shirley Temple.
Lea Deutsch (Croatian pronunciation: [lêa dâjtʃ]; 18 March 1927 – May 1943) was a Croatian Jewish child actress who was murdered in the Holocaust.
Early life
Lea Dragica Deutsch was born in Zagreb to Croatian Jewish parents, Stjepan and Ivka (née Singer) Deutsch. Their surname was at the time also spelled Dajč. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother was an educated housewife, who was actively engaged in chess. She also had a brother, Saša. The 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 Molière and Shakespeare. Her mentor and dance teacher was Rod Riffler, a modern dance teacher and choreographer from Zagreb. People were enchanted by her, and she was thought an exceptional talent, a "Croatian Shirley Temple." Even the famous Parisian firm Pathé heard of Deutsch and arrived in Zagreb to film a short documentary about her. She quickly rose to become a popular child actor.
In 1941, the Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or NDH) began the 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 a 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."
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