Lola SERNAU HUMM

Lola Sernau- Humm (1895-1990)

She was Lion Feuchtwanger’s faithful secretary from 1926 to 1941 and saved some of the author’s manuscripts before the Nazis came to loot and confiscate his house in Berlin. In 1933, she followed him into exile in Sanary.

During Feuchtwanger’s internment at the Milles camp, she typed the third volume of the Josephus trilogy. In 1940/1941, she was interned in the Gurs camp, despite her marriage to a Swiss citizen. She then moved to Switzerland, where she lived until her death in 1990, translating American and British literature into German.

Lola Sernau, who had worked for the author since 1925 and was not only his devoted collaborator but also his mistress, soon followed him into exile in Sanary. On her arrival, she stayed in the Villa Lazare rented by the Feuchtwangers, but given the strained relations with Marta, she took her own place and moved into the small Villa Ker Colette (‘Si petite’ villa). She soon got down to work, and Lion dictated his novel The Oppermann Children to her. He was used to working in stages. For hours on end, he would dictate to Lola whatever came into his head: the outline of the new novel, the characters, a conversation he had had with another writer, etc. Then she would have to read it back to him and Lion would change, shorten and add to it, sometimes several times. Then she starts transcribing, a first version on pink paper, then yellow, then green, blue and finally on white paper when the chapter finds favour with its author.

In 1939, after the outbreak of war, German-speaking exiles were sent to internment camps, first the men and then the women. Despite marrying Fritz Humm, a Swiss citizen, in 1938, Lola was interned in Gurs in 1940/1941. After her release, thanks to the intervention of the Swiss consul and while the Feuchtwanger couple were emigrating to the United States, Lola finished typing the Josefus-Trilogie and sent it to the publisher in New York. Once again, she managed to salvage a few books from Feuchtwanger’s library in Sanary, which she sent to him across the Atlantic via Lisbon.

In 1957, Lola traveled to the United States and visited Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger at their Californian home, “Villa Aurora.” It was a reunion after sixteen years. Upon her return to Europe, she settled in Ascona, Switzerland. She published numerous translations in German, mainly of American literature, such as works by Henry Miller and Ian Fleming. Lola Humm-Sernau died in the late 1990s in Locarno.