In the part of Underground I wrote today, it’s April 4, 1937. Austria has had a Fascist government for several years, anti-Semitism is rising rapidly, and the possibility of Germany taking over Austria is becoming very real.
As they walk along a path in the Vienna Woods, Anna confides in Gisi that she recently wrote to their old acquaintance, Edith Suschitzky, now Edith Tudor-Hart. Anna is hoping that Edith can help her find an Englishman to marry, as Edith had found Alexander. For Anna it would be solely a marriage of convenience— it would get her a visa.
Edith is a secondary character in Red Vienna. She’s one of the real people scattered throughout the narrative. I have no idea if my parents, on whose story the books are based, ever knew the real Edith Suschitzky, though they may have. She was living—and taking the photographs described in the book— in Vienna at the time that I wrote her into my story. Her father did own the Social Democratic bookstore, her brother Wolf is real. It’s true that Edith married Alexander Tudor-Hart, that she was arrested, and that they moved to England.
Today, while checking the spelling of her name, I came across a documentary about Edith Tudor-Hart that hadn’t been released when I did the research for Red Vienna. It’s called Tracking Edith, and it’s available on Vimeo.
Wow. I knew I wanted to include Edith in my book the first time I read about her, and I knew much of what’s in the film, but there’s so much more. There are things I wish I’d known when I wrote about her, and things that I got wrong. And by no means have I told Edith’s whole story, just a tiny bit of what could have happened. Much of the really juicy part of her life hadn’t happened yet, or it was happening then, but there’s no way my characters could have known about it. I don’t want to spoil Red Vienna for those of you who haven’t read it, so all I’ll say here is that Edith’s story is probably the biggest of any of the characters in my books.
Do look her up, and watch the video. And read Red Vienna, too.
Eve Neuhaus 
Wow! I wondered about Edith and thought about what you told me about Ida’s marriage when we were walking at Arroyo del Oso, how thin she looked in her picture, about the marriage of convenience that saved her, etc. Haven’t watched the doc yet. But thanks for filling in the parts you too are learning about!
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The documentary is really interesting. Mostly I wish I’d looked at more pictures of her when I wrote Red Vienna because I didn’t imagine her so tall and thin.
“Red Vienna” did arrive, and I have been immensely enjoying getting to know its characters! Having just finished Chapter 18, I am now in the part of the book in which Edith appears from time to time, and her appearance in Chapter 18 made me realize that she and Joe Schwartz are kindred sprits–perhaps right now spirits in conversation with each other! Having had the immense privilege of knowing Joe in person, I now look forward to learning more about Edith, both through historical sources and through your books, in which you are assuring us Edith will grow to have a prominent place!
There is much else in “Red Vienna” that speaks to us today, and I need to hit “send” and go on reading!
I’m so glad, Eric. Her goals and her style were similar to Joe’s. Did you order the book through Coalesce?
A visit to Coalesce is a rare treat for me, since the round trip via Route 9 and Route 12 eats 3 hours of a day not counting the precious time in the bookshop itself. Much though I would have liked to give them the business, the brief time interval between two meetings in SLO made Barnes and Noble the practical choice, and now that Red Vienna is in my hands, I have no regrets about starting the process the way I could, when I could!
One thing Joe and Edith both knew was that racism was, in the early 20th Century, not so much a product of ignorance, which the “educated” could smugly look down on, but, in that earlier era, was being deliberately propagated as “the science” by a morally compromised educational establishment serving the nefarious purposes of elites. When not swayed by this ideological assault, the common people knew better. Harvard was one of the worst spreaders of racism as “the science” in the US, infecting those with the most economic and political power with a manufactured pseudo-scientific fraud whose legacy has caused lasting harm to this day.
The inherent wisdom of the common people doing what they can to build community warms the heart in “Red Vienna” as it does in “Folk Photography.” From both, we should be able to derive advice and inspiration on how the solidarity of community can and must be strengthened to resist the forces that profit from the dissolution of the bonds among us in all our beautiful variety.