Ulla Berkéwicz (Ursula Unseld-Berkéwicz: born Ursula Schmidt) is a German actress, author and (more recently) publisher. The name "Berkéwicz", which she adopted in 1968 as a stage name, and by which she has since become generally known, is derived from the family name used by her Jewish grandmother, "Berkowitz".
Life
Ursula Schmidt was born at Gießen, a midsized traditionally prosperous town in the hills to the north of Frankfurt. She was born on 5 November. For a number of years she told reporters she had been born in 1951, but the evident implausibility of this birth year in view of other conventional staging posts during her childhood and adolescence has become a talking point among commentators. That she was born on 5 November is relatively uncontested. Ursula Schmidt was born in the aftermath of the war during which the town had suffered heavy bombing. Her father was the physician-author Werner Schmidt, whose career opportunities had been brutally truncated during the twelve Hitler years due to a government decision to classify him as "half-Jewish". After the Hitler nightmare ended he took a position at the main hospital at Hanau where in 1965 he accepted an appointment as "Ārztlicher Direktor" ("Medical Director"). Ursula's mother, Herta Stoepel, was an actress. The child grew up with her family in a large first floor "Jugendstil" apartment in Hanau shared with parents, grandparents and a much younger brother, impatient to grow to adulthood and follow her mother into the acting profession. Berkéwicz would later describe her childhood in an autobiographical essay as having taken place "somewhere between anarchy and milkshakes". The "Hanau 67 Milk Bar" was a focal point of her adolescence. Childhood tensions were created by contrasting familial backgrounds, combining "fanatical Nazis" and a Jewish grandmother through whom she was related to Holocaust victims. In 1966, after successfully completing her secondary schooling at a remarkably young age, she progressed to the "Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main" (HfMDK / "... University of Music and Performing Arts") in nearby Frankfurt am Main, where she remained as a student for three years.
She made her stage debut as Ulla Berkéwicz in 1970 at the Stuttgart State Theater, appearing in a Peter Palitzsch production. During the 1970s she undertook a succession of increasingly prominent stage engagements at major theaters in, most notably, Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne, Hamburg, Bochum and West Berlin. At around the same time she launched herself on a parallel career as a translator, specialising in classical drama. Playwrights whose works she translated into German included Calderón, Shakespeare and Synge. She was also undertaking occasional film work. In 1979/80 she took the lead role in "Geburt der Hexe" ("Birth of the witch"), a production from the set designer and film director Wilfried Minks, to whom, at that time, she was married. The production was inspired by historical themes.
In 1982 Ulla Berkéwicz published her first short story, "Josef stirbt" ("Josef dies"), a narrative in the first person, recalling the death of a ninety-year-old father. It was actually inspired by the death of her father-in-law. A paperback edition followed in 1985. The theme of death was one to which she would return. 1982 turned out to be the year during which she left the stage, relaunching herself as a freelance author and translator.
In 1987 she relocated to Frankfurt am Main. Her first written piece for stage, "Nur Wir", completed in 1991, received its premier at the Munich Kammerspiele (theatre) in April of that year, in a production staged by Urs Troller.