Mariella Mehr

Mariella Mehr - A Biography

by Roger Russi

1947	Born in Zürich, the daughter of a Yenish (Roma). Immediately removed from mother by social workers of the assimilation project Hilfswerk für die Kinder der Landstrasse (Charity for the Children of the Country Road - a subsidiary of Pro Juventute). For the first few month placed in a home for mentally retarded infants in Zürich.
ca. 1952	After a brief, unhappy marriage, Mariella Mehr's mother is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and permanently committed to an insane asylum.
1952 -1956	Placed with foster parents in Altendorf, SZ (town in Canton Schwyz). Sexually abused by foster father. Flees.
1958	In a thesis called Die Familie Plur. Wiedereingliederung einer Vagantenfamilie [The Family Plur. Reintegration of a Family of Vagrants] by Elsy Schwegler at the Schweizerischen Sozial-caritativen Frauenschule Luzern [Swiss Social-Charitable School for Women] Schwegler describes Mehr under a changed name: "Marianne, born 1947, a child born out of wedlock by Marliese Edeltraut, spent its first five years in homes for children where she drew attention to herself especially through nervousness and an inclination to fight. Although a family placement at the home of foster-parents with a very good reputation at first seemed to promise success, gradually more and more difficulties in trying to educate her (especially through clever lying and stealing) surfaced, so that the girl had to be committed to an institution for psychological observation" (cited by Mehr in Kinder der Landstrasse [Children of the Country Road],145).
1964	Compelled to look for work by Pro Juventute and thus released from the psychiatric clinic Waldhaus, works in a gay bar disguised as a young man.
1965	After having spent most of her first 18 years of life in foster-homes, institutions and clinics, Pro Juventute (her legal guardian) prevents Mehr, who is pregnant, from marrying a foreigner of Jewish, Romani parentage; instead she is committed to a penitentiary for women at Hindelbank (canton Bern).
1966	Her son Christian is born; placed into foster care by social workers of Aktion Kinder der Landstrasse.
1967	Mehr is released from prison.
1968	At the foster-home, Christian suffers a terrible accident when left unattended; spends almost a year in intensive care; Mehr marries to gain her own guardianship; gains custody of her son; divorce after three months. Benedikt Fontana, who has held the post of Director of the Psychiatric Clinic Waldhaus in Chur as late as 1987, publishes his small dissertation Nomadentum und Sesshaftigkeit als psychologische und psychopathologische Verhaltensradikale: Psychisches Erbgut oder Umweltsprägung [Nomadic and Sedentary Lifestyles as Psychological and Psychopathological Behavior-Patterns: Psycho-gentical Inheritence or Effect of Environment]. He compares animal behaviors to those of the Gypsy cultures and proposes that the nomadic drive of the Gypsies may be a stoppable mechanism.
1969	Mehr works in a chemical factory.
1970	Lives in a trailer in Bern; her attempt to find peace among her own people fails.
1972	The Swiss newspaper Beoachter [Observer] reveals the nature of the project Hilfswerk für die Kinder der Landstrasse [Charity for the Children of the Countryroad]; among its 619 victims are Mehr and her own son Christian].
1973	Founding of the Radgenossenschaft der Landstrasse (RG) [Wheelcompany of the Countryroad]; 1973-1978 Mehr works as the Wheelcompany's secretary. The umbrella organization Pro Juventute shuts down its assimilation project; Mehr begins her work as a writer, poet, novelist, and journalist.
1979/80	Begins to rewrite her diary which she begun in 1976 at the suggestion of her therapist.
1981	Steinzeit, Mehr's first novel, is published.
1983	Mehr's mother dies in the insane asylum of heart failure; someone sends Mehr one of her personal dossiers from the Kinder der Landstrasse files; she and her film-director friend Marianne Pletscher travel to Spain hoping to make a documentary about two women bullfighters. The Swiss television ultimately rejects the film proposal. Mehr publishes her writings/report as Das Licht der Frau in 1984. Mehr also publishes her first poetry collection in diesem traum schlendert ein roter findling.
1987	Mehr publishes Kinder der Landstrasse:: Ein Hilfswerk, ein Theater und die Folgen in which she documents her fight to gain guardianship of her son Christian. Marianne Pletscher visits the rehearsal and creates a film by the same name which airs on Swiss television.
1994	Mehr publishes her novel Zeus oder der Zwillingston [Zeus or the Twinsound: Novel.]. Because she has published it through a friend with whom she has a falling out, only ca. 500 copies are sold, before the publisher has the rest of the copies destroyed. Marianne Pletscher creates a follow up interview to her 1987 documentary on Mariella Mehr.
1995	Mehr is invited to the Ingeborg Bachmann Preisverleihung, where she reads the concluding chapter of her unpublished novel Daskind; she receives an "honorable mention" for her reading.
1997	Mehr participates at a panel discussion where she reiterates among other statements her demand for restitution for the federally subsidized genozide against the Yenish. On her way home she is assaulted and brutally beaten by two unidentified men shouting Nazi slogans. Moves to Lucignano, Italy.
1998	Publishes Nachrichten aus dem Exil/Nevipe andar o exilo, a bilingual edition of poetry in German and Romni and Brandzauber [Firemagic], the second novel in the trilogy that begun with Daskind. University of Basel awards Mehr with an honoray PhD. Preparation of a film adaptation of steinzeit.
2001	Completes her latest novel Malik, which should be available [hopefully] by Spring 2002. With Malik, Mehr concludes her trilogy that includes Daskind and Brandzauber.

Books

steinzeit: roman. [stoneage: a novel.] Bern: Zytglogge Verlag, 1981: based on Mehr’s own life and specifically her diary entries recorded during therapy sessions, the novel traces the traumatic story of Silvia-Silvio-Silvana]

in diesem traum schlendert ein roter findling: gedichte. [in this dream strolls a red foundling: poems.] Bern: Zytglogge Verlag, 1983: a series of poems.

“Mariella Mehr,” in Schweizer Schriftsteller persönlich: Interviews. [Swiss Authors Personally: Interviews.] Frauenfeld: Verlag Huber, 1983: 222-237. The journalist Benita Cantieni presents what she calls “subjective encounters with books and the human beings who wrote them” (9).

Das Licht der Frau: Bericht. [The Light of the Woman: A Report.] Bern: Zytglogge Verlag, 1984: Mehr presents a collage of investigative pastiches and personal poems.

Silvia Z. Ein Requiem. [Sylvia Z. A Requiem.] An unpublished play which premiered 1986 at the Citytheater Chur.

Kinder der Landstrasse: Ein Hilfswerk, ein Theater und die Folgen. [Children of the Countryroad: A Charity, a Theater, and its Consequences.] Bern: Zytglogge Verlag, 1987: Through documents, newspaper excerpts, letters, excerpts from the “Gypsy files,” and a docu-play, Mehr presents her fight to gain guardianship for her son Christian; made 1986 into a TV movie “Beyond the Countryroad, Mariella Mehr, a Play in Acts” by Marianne Pletscher and aired by DRS (German Swiss TV Channel).

Geschichten aus einem ereignislosen Land: Schweizer Literaturtage in Marburg. [Stories from a Country where nothing ever happens: Swiss Literary Days in Marburg.] Ed. by Wilhelm Solms. Marburg: Hitzeroth, 1989. Mehr reads “beitrag zur geschichte der ignoranz” [contribution to the history of ignorance: 25-26] and participates at a panel discussion. Neither the preface nor reprinted write-ups from Swiss news papers mention her participation.

Rückblitze. [Backlightnings.] Bern: Zytglogge Verlag, 1990: a collection of documents, notes and esssays; the title is a pun on the words “Blick” and “Blitz,” “Rückblick” connotes “Looking Back.”

Zeus oder der Zwillingston: Roman. [Zeus or the Twinsound: Novel.] Zürich: R F, 1994: Fictionalized account of the poet Gilbert Tassaux who had himself committed to the psychiatric clinic Waldau in Berne where he was killed by fellow inmates in 1983; he was a friend of Mehr.

Daskind: Roman. [Thechild: Novel.] Zürich/Frauenfeld: Verlag Nagel & Kimche AG, 1995: Tells the story of Daskind, an apparent foundling, as she grows up in a small Swiss village; “Daskind” is the name given to the girl by the villagers.

Brandzauber. [Firemagic.] Zürich/Frauenfeld: Verlag Nagel & Kimche AG, 1998. Anna encounters a wwoman who reminds her of her girlhood friend Franziska. The meeting triggers Anna’s memories of the time they spend in juvenile ward. It is a story about victims and perpetrators, and their coping and survival skills.

Nachrichten aus dem Exil/Nevipe andar o exilo. [News from the Exile.] Translation into Romanes by Rajko Djuric. Klagenfurt: Drava Verlag, 1998. A series of Mehr’s most recent poems, many of them written at her new home in Lucignano, Italy.

The above is a compilation of materials. I have used notes from a personal interview with Mariella Mehr (Lucignano, Summer '97), the German biography written by the author, and notes from her various books. A shortened version of the German biography can be found at http://www.zuv.unibas.ch/dies/1998/hc/mehr.shtml. Comments and criticism are welcome.