Jo Mihaly upon setting up the “Schutzverband deutscher Schriftsteller” in Switzerland, list of names (1944)
In 1944, the dancer and author Jo Mihaly began establishing contact with German writers who had fled to Switzerland. Her goal was to reform the Schutzverband deutscher Schriftsteller (or “SDS”; English: “Association of German Authors”), a defunct labour union entity that had protected the interests of authors in Germany.
Jo Mihaly:10 Monate im zerstörten Deutschland, speech manuscript (26 November 1946)
[10 months in ravaged Germany]
Directly after the end of the Second World War, the writer and dancer Jo Mihaly decided to get involved in the cultural rebuilding of Germany. The schweizerisch-deutsche Kulturvereinigung Basel [Swiss-German cultural association] collected over 14,000 books and educational materials for Germany.
In this solo dance, which lasts just over two minutes, the dancer Jo Mihaly shows how a flower blooms in a dark courtyard, how it stands there pitifully for a time and dies shortly thereafter. Long stretches of the dance are performed kneeling.
Jo Mihaly: Fische fürs Volk [Fish for the People], Photograph (1935)
Upon emigrating with her husband, the actor Leonard Steckel to Switzerland in 1933, the dance performer Jo Mihaly was refused a work permit, as was the case with many German immigrants at the time. Mihaly could thus only continue to give her performances in private circles.
Jo Mihaly: Speech at the farewell event of the Kulturgemeinschaft der Emigranten in Zürich (1945)
The dancer and writer Jo Mihaly knew well that the lives of many emigrants were marked not just by material need. They also experienced a kind of “spiritual privation”.
