Sperber, Liselotte, 1912-

Ida Ehre was born in the Moravian town of Prerau (now Přerov, Czech Republic) on July 9, 1900; her father was a hazzan. Her parents resettled in Vienna in 1901, where she grew up and studied at the Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst (1916-1919).

In 1918 she debuted as Iphegenie in Goethe's Iphegenie auf Tauris in Bielitz (Silesia). During the following years she worked at theaters in Bielitz, Czernowitz and Bukarest (1920) before she went to Cottbus (1921). From 1922 onwards she worked in theaters in Frankfurt, Bonn and Königsberg (1923-1925) where she worked with Leopold Jessner. Her next engagement was in Stuttgart (1925-1926) where Ehre met her husband, gynecologist Bernard Heyde. She married him while she was working in Mannheim (1927-1931). Their daughter Ruth was born in 1929.

In 1931 her career led her to the Lessing Theater in Berlin. Two years later Ehre was forced to leave the stage due to the Nazi racial laws. She moved to Böblingen near Stuttgart with her husband, where she assisted him in his medical practice.

In August 1939 they tried to immigrate to Chile. Ehre's non-Jewish husband got papers as an agricultural laborer and Ida Ehre obtained a baptismal certificate from a Catholic priest in order to procure a visa. They boarded the Roda, a small German ship. When they reached the Azores the war broke out and the ship returned to Germany, where they stayed in Hamburg. In Fall 1943 Ehre was reported to the Gestapo. She was sent to the women's camp in Fuhlsbüttel which she was allowed to leave after eight weeks.

On December 10, 1945 Ida Ehre opened the Hamburger Kammerspiele on Hartungstraße, where she was director together with Erich Rohloff. Draußen vor der Tür (The Man Outside) by Wolfgang Borchert was one of the earliest pieces. Other early works included works by Thornton Wilder, Jean Anouilh and Jean Giraudoux.

In 1971 Ehre received the Schiller Prize from the city of Mannheim. In 1985 her memoir Gott hat einen großen Kopf, mein Kind was published. She died February 16, 1989 in Hamburg.

From the guide to the Ida Ehre Collection, 1928-1989, bulk 1981-1986, (Leo Baeck Institute)