Personal Papers of Gertrude Elias, 1913 - 1998

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Personal Papers of Gertrude Elias, 1913 - 1998

c. 1933 - 1998

Gertrude Elias, artist and political activist, was born in 1913 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. Elias attended the RG8 grammar school for girls followed by the College for the Applied Arts, both in Vienna, before becoming a knitwear designer at a factory in Oberlungwitz, Germany, in 1929. She returned to Vienna in 1933 in direct response to Adolf Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany, but the deteriorating political and economic situation within Austria forced Elias to flee to London in 1938.

In 1941 Elias submitted a propaganda cartoon depicting Nazis as pigs misruling a farm to the British Broadcasting Corporation, at which Eric Blair [George Orwell] was working. Elias’ work was rejected, but in 1945 Orwell published Animal Farm, using a similar premise.

Elias worked in various capacities as an illustrator and textiles designer in England. From the mid-1950s Elias became increasingly interested in anti-colonial struggles. During the 1960s Elias edited the anti-colonial journal South Arabia, and from 1965 to 1972 she co-edited Liberation, the magazine of the Movement for Colonial Freedom; many illustrations and articles by Elias appear in these periodicals.

From 1975 Elias exhibited her work, beginning with her role as exhibition organiser for the Camden Council for International Co-operation’s UN Decade for Women exhibit, titled The World as We See It. In 1979 her photographic exhibition Child and World was staged at the Swiss Cottage Public Library, and in 1982 Women’s Contributions to the Liberation of Humanity was displayed at the Edinburgh Festival.

Gertrude Elias' papers were donated to the Marx Memorial Library following her death.

The papers mostly consist of notes, press cuttings, and typescripts relating to Elias’ political activism. Palestine, Zionism, and Nazism are the most common topics, but there is also much material on Jewish, Middle Eastern, and European history as well as South African and Russian politics and history. Smaller series cover Elias’ correspondence, child psychology, art exhibitions, and non-political essays and stories.

Most material is in English, with a significant minority in German, and occasional items in French and Arabic.

Series and file titles in inverted commas are those from the original folders, and do not always have any connection with the contents of these files. Square brackets denote title information added by the archivist to correct or clarify these original titles. However, as files frequently contain notes and cuttings relating to a huge variety of subjects, researchers are advised to check file-level descriptions for a proper indication of each file’s contents.

Each series has been arranged in chronological order by start date.

Not Public Record(s)

English, German, French, Italian, Arabic

3 boxes