About Irene Hellmann-Redlich

Irene Hellmann-Redlich, born in Moravia, was married to Paul Hellmann, the Austrian owner of a textiles factory, who died in Vienna shortly before the Second World War. They both played an important role in Vienna’s cultural life.
Paul Hellmann was one of the financiers of the Salzburger Festspiele. In addition, Irene and Paul supported numerous artists and institutions such as the Wiener Werkstätte. Their house in Vienna and their country house in Alt-Aussee, near Salzburg, were meeting-places for artists of all kinds. Their circle of friends included the author Hugo von Hofmannsthal, the composer Richard Strauss, and the opera singer Friedrich Schorr. The letters exchanged by Hofmannsthal and Irene Hellmann were preserved by the German Schiller Society.
The English politician Mary Agnes Hamilton referred to Irene Hellmann in her memoirs, Remembering my good friends (1944): ‘Irene gathered to her everything that was most interesting in the artistic life of the most artistic city in Europe. (…) She, with her triangular face, black hair, and immense, wide-apart grey-blue eyes, had a Slav beauty, and the style that one then saw in greater perfection in Vienna even than in Paris.'
In 1939, Irene Hellmann fled to the home of her eldest son, Bernhard, who had been living in Rotterdam for some time. During the years of occupation, Irene spent some time living in Bilthoven. She then went into hiding in Amsterdam, where she was betrayed and then captured by the Germans. Irene was murdered in Auschwitz. Her son Bernhard was killed in Sobibor. Irene’s daughter-in-law and grandson survived the war.
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