Jura Soyfer

Jura Soyfer (8 December 1912, Kharkov, Russian Empire – 15/16 February 1939, Buchenwald concentration camp, Germany) was an Austrian political journalist and cabaret writer.

Jura Soyfer was the son of the industrialist Vladimir Soyfer and his wife Lyubov.

The well-to-do Jewish family employed French- and English-speaking governesses for Soyfer and his older sister Tamara.

Soyfer's third play is Astoria, a reaction to the problematic use of the word Vaterland which had been discussed in Austria since 1918.

"Astoria" is a non-existent land which is the focus of the hopes and aspirations of the characters in the play.

Their utopic dreams are constantly destroyed by reality.

This point is made clearly at the end of the play by a song of praise the actors sing about the country when they are actually being sent to prison.

In 1921, the family fled from the Bolshevist revolution and arrived in the town of Baden near Vienna.

They later moved to Vienna.

At the age of 15, Soyfer began studying socialist writings and became a staunch Marxist.

In 1927, he joined the Verband der Sozialistischen Mittelschüler (the Association of Socialist Mittelschule pupils).

His early experience with languages meant that Soyfer soon developed a feeling and love for language and wordplay.

In 1929, this led to his becoming a member of the Politischen Kabarett der Sozialdemokraten (Political Cabaret of the Social Democrats) where he gained his first experience in writing for the stage.

From December 1931, Soyfer wrote two weekly political satires, one in the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Workers' Newspaper) and the other in the social-democratic weekly Der Kuckuck (The Cuckoo).

He also wrote two articles for the Politische Bühne (Political Stage, a socialist newspaper connected to the Red Players group of actors).

These demanded that theatre become more politicised, and that it should stop producing mere distraction and entertainment.

In this respect Soyfer approaches Bertolt Brecht's "epic theatre".

Soyfer also satirised the key authoritarian figures of the Austrofascist (1933/4 to 1938) period like Engelbert Dollfuß, Ernst Rüdiger Starhemberg and Kurt Schuschnigg.

In August 1935, through the writer and theatre critic Hans Weigel, Soyfer was introduced to Leon Askin, an actor and director at Vienna's popular "ABC Theatre", a political cabaret.

This is where most of Soyfer's pieces were later performed.

Soyfer's first work, Der Weltuntergang oder Die Welt steht auf kein' Fall mehr lang ("The End of the World", or "The world is certainly not going to last much longer") was first performed in the early summer of 1936; the last performance took place only a short time later on 11 July 1936.

It shows humanity before the Apocalypse, the destruction of the world by a comet – the violent repression of the revolutionary masses and the blindness of the people waiting for the end of the world.

In the end, the comet does not find the heart to destroy the world, which gives the play a positive ending, but also underlines the frustrating incorrigibility and stupidity of human beings.

His second work, Der Lechner Edi schaut ins Paradies (translated into English as "Journey to Paradise") depicts an unemployed person who sets off to find those guilty for his distress in the past, with the help of a time machine.

Eventually he discovers that the cause for his condition is the creation of humanity.

The play ends, however, with a call to people to make decisions, including political ones.

In this way, Soyfer connects pathos with the typical element of cabaret, political criticism.

In 1937, Soyfer was mistaken for Franz Marek (a leader of the Communist Party of Austria) and arrested.

When it was discovered that Soyfer himself had also written incriminatory pieces, he was imprisoned for three months.

In 1937 Soyfer wrote Vineta.

In this piece he leaves behind traditional Austrian theatre and portrays absurd actions and speech which lead irretrievably to downfall and destruction.

The protest against facts which are seen as unchangeable, and the idea of "not wanting to know" are both themes of the play.

Vineta is a warning against war and against illusions which are created to suppress people.

On 17 February 1938, he was freed as part of an amnesty for political prisoners.

He remained freed for only 26 days.

On 13 March 1938, he was arrested as he tried to cross the Austrian border at St. Antonien Joch above Gargellen into Switzerland.

He was later transported to Dachau concentration camp.

Here, Soyfer met the composer Herbert Zipper, and together they wrote the famous Dachaulied, the Dachau song, which cynically took up the Nazi motto Arbeit macht frei ("work liberates"), written above the entrance to such camps.

In the autumn of that year, Soyfer was transferred to Buchenwald concentration camp where he died of typhoid fever the day after his release was granted, on 16 February 1939 at age 26.

His remains were sent to the United States and are buried at the Hebrew Free Burial Association's Mount Richmond Cemetery.