Bertha Zuckerkandl (1864–1945)

Berta or Bertha Szeps-Zuckerkandl was one of five children born in a prosperous Jewish family in Vienna, Austria. Her parents were Amalie (Schlesinger) and Moritz Szeps, a liberal newspaper tycoon. Berta was tutored at home by experts and grew up witnessing her father's political activities. He was an advisor to Crown Prince Rudolf and had connections with many French politicians such as Léon Gambett and Georges Clemenceau. Berta's elder sister Sophie married Clemenceau's brother Paul and during visits to her sister's home in Paris, Berta met famous artists and became interested in the Dreyfus Affair. At home, Berta continued her father's political missions and promoted cultural exchange with France. In 1886, she married Emil Zuckerkandl, a Hungarian professor of anatomy, with whom she had one son. She presided over a renowned literary and artistic salon for nearly 50 years. Among those who met there were her husband's colleague, the neuro-psychiatrist Richard Krafft-Ebing, composers Johann Strauss, Jr., and Gustav Mahler, and writer Arthur Schnitzler. Berta advocated for modernism in Austrian art and various human rights causes, and championed artists such as Gustav Klimt and Oskar Kokoschka. She introduced to the Austrian public new personalities such as German artist Käthe Kollwitz and French fashion designer Paul Poiret. In 1908, she published a collection of her essays on contemporary art. In the 1920s, she promoted the experimental theater projects of Max Reinhardt and became a co-founder of the Salzburg Music Festival. She worked as a journalist and art critic for leading publications such as the Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung and the Neues Wiener Tagblatt. She translated into German the plays of French dramatists such as Jean Anouilh, for which she later was awarded the Légion d'honneur. Following the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938, Berta escaped to Paris, where she re-established her salon. She published her memoirs, My Life and History, in 1939. During World War II, she fled to Algiers.