Hannah Busoni Collection 1914-1985 1930-1958
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- Collection
- LeoBaeckInstitute; microfilm; americana; additional_collections
- Contributor
- Leo Baeck Institute Archives
- Language
- German
This collection documents the life of Hannah Busoni (née Apfel) and her husband, the artist Rafaello Busoni, son of the renowned composer, Ferruccio Busoni. The collection consists primarily of personal correspondence and photographs, but also includes Portuguese newspaper clippings. There are also four court cases pertaining to the defense attorney, Dr. Alfred Apfel, Hannahs father
Hannah Apfel was born on May 17, 1905 in Berlin, the daughter of the prominent Jewish lawyer Dr. Alfred Apfel and his wife Dora (née Schoenewald) Apfel. Dr. Alfred Apfel, defended Carl von Ossietzky in a trial related to the famous Weltbuehnenprozess. As a girl, Hannah took piano lessons with a Japanese woman named Hide, who herself had learned to play the piano under the guidance of the composer Ferruccio Busoni and would later marry his son, Rafaello Busoni. - In 1927, Hannah Busoni earned her law degree in Heidelberg. Just three weeks after passing the Referendarexamen, she was expelled from the University because of her Jewish faith
Kiki Busoni, Rafaello and Hide Busonis daughter, was born in 1927. One year later, Hide was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was sent to Switzerland to be cured. While Hide was away and slowly dying, Rafaello and Hannahs friendship developed into romance. In 1930, Hides health had supposedly improved dramatically, and so she returned home to Berlin. Unfortunately the diagnosis was spurious, and Hide died fourteen days later at home. Soon after, Hannah and Rafaello married. In January of1935, the newlywed couple, accompanied by Kiki Busoni, took the steam ship Arlanza to Madeira and lived there until the Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936; they then went back to Berlin. In November of 1938, Mario, Hannah and Rafaellos son was born. Knowing they could not stay in Germany, Rafaello decided to move the family to Sweden, his mothers home country, thinking they would at least be safe there. However, after only six months, the Busonis were forced to leave again, given the choice to return to Germany or go to Italy. Choosing neither, the Busonis boarded a ship in October of 1939 in Norway that brought them to New York. On October 15, 1939 the Busonis arrived in Ellis Island. The three Busonis proceeded to live with Eva Feilchenfeld, a close friend of Hannahs, in Mount Vernon, New York, for a few months before moving to New York City. There they settled into an apartment in Midtown. Hannah started a framing business, while Rafaello continued painting and earning a living as an illustrator. In 1962, Rafaello passed away
After the death of her husband, Hannah spent a lot of time traveling. In 1969, she explored the Balkan Peninsula, going to countries like Yugoslavia, and Greece. In 1973, she went to Africa. Towards the end of her life, Hannah became involved in the Austrian Stammtisch around the writer Oskar Maria Graf and attended many of the meetings. Hannah Busoni died on November 9th, 1995 in New York City
Photographs removed to Photograph Collection
Finding aid available
Notes
Film/Fiche is presented as originally captured.
- Addeddate
- 2010-01-21 20:02:10
- Call number
- 199143
- Foldoutcount
- 0
- Identifier
- hannahbusoni01reel01
- Identifier-ark
- ark:/13960/t07w7115v
- Noindex
- true
- Ocr_converted
- abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.37
- Ocr_module_version
- 0.0.21
- Page-progression
- lr
- Page_number_confidence
- 0
- Page_number_module_version
- 1.0.3
- Pages
- 636
- Ppi
- 300
- Scandate
- 20091207212058
- Scanner
- microfilm03.sanfrancisco.archive.org
- Scanningcenter
- sanfrancisco
- Full catalog record
- MARCXML
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