- Hilde Zadek was born on December 15, 1917 in Bromberg, Posen, Germany [now Bydgoszcz, Kujawsko-Pomorskie, Poland]. She was an actress, known for Großstadtnacht (1950), Unsterblicher Mozart (1954) and Was wurde aus...? (2011). She died on February 21, 2019 in Karlsruhe, Germany.
- Opera singer (soprano).
- She also sang at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and other leading opera houses.
- She was a star of the Vienna State Opera in the post-WWII period.
- When she was 16, a fellow schoolgirl in Germany spoke an anti-Semitic slur; Hilde knocked her front teeth out. Fearing arrest, she fled to Palestine, where she trained in pediatric nursing while taking voice lessons. She had to return to Europe for a career in opera, since Palestine had no opera houses. Eventually, the director of the Vienna State Opera hired her to sing the title role in "Aida." She accepted the job despite criticism from family and friends for choosing to sing in Austria, still a "nest of Nazis" in 1947.
- I had to show that Jews don't stink, that they don't have hunched backs, long noses or anything else. These young people aged 17, 18, who grew up under Hitler, had never seen a Jew in their lives! And then suddenly this young and good-looking woman comes onto the stage and then proceeds to sing beautifully and they ask, "This is a Jew?" Forget the old Nazis. But I hope I was able at least to change the image for the youth.
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