{"id":1314,"date":"2020-11-24T17:44:40","date_gmt":"2020-11-24T16:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/?p=1314"},"modified":"2020-11-27T16:53:54","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T15:53:54","slug":"barbara-goettingen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasteuropeans.eu\/en\/barbara-goettingen\/","title":{"rendered":"Barbara: G\u00f6ttingen"},"content":{"rendered":"

European Diary, 24.11.2020:<\/strong> Twenty-three years ago today, Barbara Brodi died. Born in 1930 as Monique Andr\u00e9e Serf, she was known, of course, primarily under the name with which she conquered the chanson stages of the world: Barbara.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Barbara in Amsterdam, \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a019. October 1965<\/p><\/div>\n

Her father Jacques Serf came from Alsace, her mother Esther Brodsky from Odessa. In 1940 she fled with her Jewish family out of the German-occupied part of France. She was finally able to go into hiding in a small rural community in southeastern France, and in 1944 she experienced liberation in hiding, now near Paris. A music teacher from the neighborhood heard her singing, and soon she received singing and piano lessons. She had her first musical appearances in a Parisian cabaret and soon moved to Brussels where she sang chansons by Edith Piaf and Juliette Greco. Back in Paris she also performed songs of her new friends Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of July 1964, even before her big breakthrough one year later, Barbara came to a guest performance at the “Young Theatre G\u00f6ttingen”. She had only hesitantly accepted, and finally, perhaps to put the seriousness of this first invitation from Germany to the test a little, insisted on playing on a grand piano. When she entered the stage on July 4, 1964, however, there was only a little piano – and she refused to perform. The grand piano was finally borrowed by an old lady in G\u00f6ttingen and carried through the city by ten students. The concert began two hours late. And Barbara stayed for a week. On the last day she wrote a song that was to become a melodious symbol of French-German peace and friendship, sung by a Jewish singer: “G\u00f6ttingen”. In 1967, when she was to perform again in G\u00f6ttingen and this time in the sold-out Stadthalle, the municipal concert hall, the concert was broadcast live in France.<\/p>\n