Katharina or the art of finding work

In 1933, the writer Anna Seghers, born in Mainz, had to flee the National Socialists for Paris. In search of new material, she remembered a newspaper article from her home town of Mainz that told of Maria Einsmann, who for many years had lived and worked undetected as a man. From this true story she developed the screenplay “Hier gibt's keine Katharina” (There's No Katharina Here). It tells of Katharina Rendel, who, after her husband's death, puts on his clothes to find work and feed her two children.

The screenplay was long believed lost, until it was rediscovered in the mid-1980s at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It became the starting point for Barbara Trottnow's film “Katharina oder die Kunst Arbeit zu finden” (Katharina, or the Art of Finding Work). The film interweaves dramatised scenes based on the screenplay with documentary glimpses into the difficult living conditions of Anna Seghers in Parisian exile, the story of Maria Einsmann and the situation of a woman after German reunification.

Katharina, Maria, Anna and Gudrun
Four women, four life stories – invented and true, played and observed, then and now.

Katharina lives with her two children in the Mainz of the crisis year 1932. She keeps the family afloat by washing laundry. Her husband has been unemployed for years when a wartime comrade finds him a job in another town. But he is gravely ill and dies on the way to the interview. Katharina puts on his clothes, presents herself in his place at the mine and is hired as a watchman. In this way she can earn a living for her two children. An acquaintance poses as his wife. Only many years later, after a tragic accident, is Katharina's true identity discovered.

Katharina's story is invented – but it is based on true events. Maria Einsmann came to Mainz in 1919 with her friend Helene, after separating from her husband. Because she could find no work as a woman, she simply tried her luck in men's clothing. Her very first application was successful. For twelve years the change of gender went undetected. Maria and Helene passed as a married couple. When Helene had two children, Maria took on paternity at the registry office. And when her identity finally became known in 1931, the story made headlines. The photograph of the Einsmann family was displayed for weeks in a Mainz photo shop. In the film, scenes from this story are re-enacted. An actress takes on the role of Maria Einsmann.

Anna Seghers presumably knew this story from the newspaper. In Parisian exile she reworked the material into a screenplay in which her own experiences are also reflected. Born in Mainz in 1900, she had studied in Heidelberg and then moved to Berlin. After fleeing the National Socialists, she lived with her children Ruth and Pierre in the Paris suburb of Bellevue. Her daughter was then five, her son seven years old. Reconciling family and writing was not easy. She often went to a café to write. At the same time she was beset by grave financial worries, as numerous letters to publishers attest. After her husband László Radványi was interned in France, she had to cope alone in exile. Many of her own worries as a mother and writer are reflected in the figure of Katharina. It was during her Paris years that her famous novel “Das siebte Kreuz” (The Seventh Cross) was written.

In the film, her children Ruth and Pierre Radványi remember their mother and describe how she lived and worked during the exile. For the shoot, Pierre visits the house in Paris where the family lived at the time. Ruth recalls this period in her mother's Berlin flat, where she lived after returning from exile and which is today a memorial.

Another woman's story leads into the period after German reunification. Gudrun Selent grew up in the GDR and worked for many years as a milling machinist – an occupation regarded as a man's job. After the fall of the Wall she lost her work. As a single mother she found it especially hard to find a new position. Her situation recalls those of Maria Einsmann and Katharina Rendel: even decades later, women – and mothers above all – faced considerable obstacles in the labour market.

Barbara Trottnow filmed excerpts from Anna Seghers' screenplay “Hier gibt's keine Katharina” at original locations in Mainz, the writer's birthplace. For the shoot, a so-called “Wäschbrigg” was specially rebuilt – a raft on which women once washed their laundry in the Rhine. The footage shows how physically demanding the work was that was traditionally assigned to women.

The film interweaves the dramatised scenes, some of them shot underground in a mine, with documentary observations and recollections. And it asks: how far must women go to find work in hard times?

The questions raised by “Katharina oder die Kunst Arbeit zu finden” remain relevant today. Women still frequently earn less than men, especially in the so-called women's professions. And balancing family and career remains a challenge.