Josepha Kraigher Porges (1857 - 1937)

"Lebenserinnerungen einer alten Frau" by Josepha Kraigher-Porges printed by Grethlein & Co., Leipzig/Zürich, copyright 1926 Josepha Kraigher Porges (née LEDERER) Born 1857 in Maria Elend / Austria died 1937 in Bern /Switzerland Writer, wife of theater playwright Karl Porges.

Writer, self-taught person. Learned to read and write while working as a nanny.
Later, she became a successful writer and an active lecturer in Switzerland, Austria and Bavaria.
She was the niece/ granddaughter (?) of Pietro Craighero and Maria Morocutti of Ligosullo, who emigrated to Carinthia in 1810.
She published her work under the name of her mother Anna Kraigher and under the name of her second husband, the playwright Karl Porges.
In 1932 she was awarded the gold–medal of the Austrian society of literature.

Source : Wolfgang H. Porges (2003) :
"On a Berlin flea market I bought the following book:
"Lebenserinnerungen einer alten Frau" by Josepha Kraigher-Porges
printed by Grethlein & Co., Leipzig/Zürich, copyright 1926"

A message from Gisela Porges of Vienna (2001) :
Some weeks ago my aunt gave me two volumes of the autobiography of Mrs. JOSEPHA KRAIGHER-PORGES :
(Lebenserinnerungen einer alten Frau. Kindheit(Vol.I.)
Kreuzwege des Lebens (Vol.II.)Leipzig, 1926, 1927.).
The books are written in an very old-fashoned way.
There are hardly any points of contact with current events, not even dates.
Mrs. Kraighers second husband, "GENERAL PORGES", is mentioned only on the last pages.
Perhaps you are interested : he lived (in the 1920's?) in the city of Graz (Styria)and
was a general.
He also was a dramatist, his pen-name was Carl Hilm.
Some of his dramas are mentioned: "Spartakus", "Giordano Bruno", "Hypathia" and a
"Satansdrama".
All the best, yours
gisela

Josepha Kraigher-PORGES
Memories of an old woman
I.   Childhood
II. Crossroads of life

Leipzig/Zürich 1926

"General PORGES" is mentioned on the last two pages of the second volume (p. 332-336).
J osepha Kraigher went to Graz where she met General Porges, whom she knew already as a dramatist.
She had read his books "a Satansdrama", "Spartacus", "Giordano Bruno" and "Hypzthia".
S he found him a very quiet and unassuming man.
A very lonely man too.
General PORGES wore civilian clothes and in time Mrs. Kraigher started to call him with his pseudonym "Carl Hilm".
As a widow, she had to sell her possessions in Vienna.
She married Porges and they went to live together with her daughter by her first marriage and grand'son in Meran, South Tyrol.

A message from Eberhard Kraigher, Klagenfurt (2004) :

Josepha Kraigher-Porges (1857-1937) writer, emancipationist and philanthropist, coming from Carinthia, married as a widow the Austrian general major Karl August Porges on18.5.1930 in the Hungarian town of Pozsony ( today Slovakian Bratislawa) .
He was born on 3.9.1854 in (then Austrian) Florenz (today Firenze,Italy).
He lived at the time in the Austrian city of Agram (today Zagreb,Croatia), moved to Graz in 1907, later to Meran/South-Tyrol, Korneuburg, Krems, Baden near Vienna, then Bern and Zürich/Swizerland.
He died in Salzburg on 19.2.1953.

He was a friend of the formerly Austrian general and later Federal President Theodor Körner.
His religion was initially Roman-Catholic, then Greek-orthodox then evangelic after 1916 .
His father was the Austrian military officer Heinrich Porges, Roman-catholic, born in Prague in 1806.
He married (4.2.1852) Louise Ludowika Dubowsky and died in Graz on 9.1.1886.
"There is no indication that the ancestors of Karl August Porges were members of mosaic religion".
This is the information from the Austian state archives in Vienna on 29.10.1980, when I contacted them for my Kraigher-research.
I don't beleave this is true, because Josepha Kraigher-Porges books were forbidden during the NAZI-period.
Hope this is interesting news for you.

Eberhard Kraigher, Klagenfurt (2004)