Eva Hermine (Sacher-Masoch) von Sacher-Masoch (1912 - 1991)

Born 4 Dec 1912 in Budapest, Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun, Magyarország, Hungary

Ancestors

Wife of Robert Glynn Faithfull — married 1946 (to 1952) in Austria

Died 22 May 1991 at age 78 in Aldworth, Berkshire, England

Profile manager: Austin Prall [send private message]

Biography

Eva Hermine was born in 1912. She died in 1991.

Austrian Aristocrat. She was the daughter of Artur Wolfgang Ritter von Sacher-Masoch and his Jewish wife, Rosa Elisabeth Flora Ziprisz, both of East European nobility. Her great uncle was Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch, who wrote "Venus in Furs" and who gave his name to the psychological condition, Masochism. Her sister was novelist Alexander von Sacher-Masoch. As a child, her family lived on an estate in Romania, then Austria, and in Germany. Before World War II, she studied ballet at the Max Reinhardt Company in Berlin and danced for productions of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill as well as in the edgy cabaret scene of Berlin; the family returned to Austria at the start of the war. Despite their Jewish ancestry, Sacher-Masoch and her mother were afforded a degree of protection from the Nazis due to Artur's World War I military record, and his status as a well-regarded Austrian writer under the pseudonym Michael Zorn. In secret, the family did help the fleeing Jewish citizens of Austria when the opportunity presented itself. Even though he was very careful, her father was arrested five times, held, questioned and then released by the Gestapo; it was a very stressful situation. In April 1945, she and her mother were captured by the invading Russian soldiers along with thousands of other women in Vienna who were tortured and raped. Early in 1946, she met and married a British army officer, Major Robert Glynn Faithfull and had a daughter, Marian. Their daughter was part of the British Invasion of singers from Great Britain to North America; Marian Faithfull’s 1965 hit song "As Tears Go By" reached Billboards in England at #9, Canada at #1 and the United States at #6. The family relocated to England but the couple divorced 1952; the Baroness Erisso then taught dance in private boarding schools to help support her daughter. The family’s interesting history and genealogy was a featured in a 2013 documentary on the BBC TV program, “Who Do You Think You Are?”

Bio by: Linda Davis

Sources

• Wikipedia: Eva_von_Sacher-Masoch

Born Eva Hermine von Sacher-Masoch, Freiin Erisso, she was the grand-niece of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs, and was the mother of Marianne Faithfull. She was born in Budapest, when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Her parents were Artur Wolfgang, Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1875–1953) and his wife, Flora (Ziprisz). She was the sister of renowned novelist Alexander von Sacher-Masoch (1901–1972). Her mother was Jewish.

Sacher-Masoch spent her early childhood living on her family's estates near the town of Karánsebes in Transylvania (now Caransebeș, Romania), moving with her family to Vienna in 1918. As a young woman she moved to Berlin where she worked as a ballerina for the Max Reinhardt Company, and danced for productions of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. At the outbreak of World War II, Sacher-Masoch returned to her parents' home in Vienna and lived there for the duration of the war. Despite their Jewish ancestry, Sacher-Masoch and her mother were afforded a degree of protection from the Third Reich due to Artur's World War I military record and his status as a well-regarded Austrian writer (under the pseudonym Michael Zorn).

Having opposed Hitler since the Anschluss, and witnessing atrocities against Jews in the streets of Vienna, Sacher-Masoch and her parents used their home to conceal Socialist pamphlets, narrowly evading detection by the Gestapo. Sacher-Masoch witnessed the United States Army Air Forces daylight raids on Vienna from 1944 onwards, and the Red Army's assault on Vienna in 1945. Confronting the trauma civilians had been subject to, the BBC genealogical documentary series Who do you think you are? details her journalistic accomplishments in reestablishing a German language woman's magazine after the war.

When the British arrived to occupy part of the liberated city, Sacher-Masoch fell in love with Major Robert Glynn Faithfull, a British Army officer and spy who called on the family to inform them that Alexander von Sacher Masoch was alive. The couple married in 1946 and late that year had their only child, daughter Marianne Faithfull (born Marian Evelyn Faithfull), and lived together at Braziers Park, Oxfordshire, before separating six years later. She also spent some time as a dance teacher at "Bylands", Stratfield Turgis, near Basingstoke, Hampshire, a boarding school for maladjusted children. She moved to Reading, Berkshire to work as a waitress at a Sally's Café, Friar Street.

She is buried in St Mary the Virgin churchyard in Aldworth, Berkshire.

• England & Wales, Civil Registration Death Index, 1916-2007

Name: Eva Erisso
Death Age: 78
Birth Date: 4 Dec 1912
Registration Date: May 1991
Registration District: Newbury
Inferred County: Berkshire
Volume: 19
Page: 166

• UK and Ireland, Find a Grave Index, 1300s-Current

Name: Eva Hermine Sacher-Masoch
Birth Date: 4 Dec 1912
Birth Place: Budapest, Hungary
Death Date: 22 May 1991
Death Place: Aldworth, West Berkshire Unitary Authority, Berkshire, England
Cemetery: St. Mary the Virgin Churchyard
Burial or Cremation Place: Aldworth, West Berkshire Unitary Authority, Berkshire, England
Has Bio?: Y
Spouse: Robert Glynn Faithfull
URL: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6826360/eva-hermine-sacher-masoch

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