Eva Barbara Hertlein (1942- ) @museum.de

Eva Barbara Hertlein

born in 1942

Diary 1956 to 1973

Dreams, dreams, dreams!

Peter Kraus, Romy Schneider, song lyrics, petticoats and cinema films – Eva Barbara Hertlein’s diaries and her “Calendar for Youth” cover the period from 1956 to 1973. With copious photographs and newspaper clippings about stars of the period, they are the quintessential representation of a young person’s diary.

The diarist was born in 1942 in the town of Gunzenhausen, Franconia, as the only child of a photographer and a painter. At the age of five, she contracted polio, which left her with impaired mobility and led to numerous stays in hospital stays. For an extended period of time Eva Barbara Hertlein had to be home-educated. Her father died when she was fourteen, leaving her mother to support the family with her work as a photographer. The tiny family was forced to economise, with adverse consequences for young Eva Barbara.

At the age of 18, she trained as a bookseller.

4th of December 1958

I’m really looking forward to Bielefeld, though of course, I haven’t got a proper home there either. I’d love to have a real friend for once, one I could go mooching around Bielefeld with. Rather than always going with Mummy and Aunty. Of course, I have a laugh up here in the hills as well, but I’d like to have someone who really understands me. To not have to be so lonely any more. I had the feeling Knut would have understood me, he’s fairly quiet as well and is a dreamer, same as me.

Perhaps, perhaps... dreams, dreams, dreams!!