“For George, vision, worldview and poetry were paramount. We had to raid every savings account, pension, etc. and do what we loved. is.
George Michael Barteniev was born on January 23, 1933 in Berlin to dancer Michael and Irmgard (Prim) Barteniev. His father was Jewish, and when things got dark in Nazi Germany, his parents went to the United States to try to establish a life, leaving George and his brother Igor in the care of an aunt.
“I’m half Jewish, so I hid in the German half of my family,” Barteniev said. explained in oral history Recorded in 2015 for the Off Primary Stage of the Broadway Oral History Project.
He attended school in the mountains of Bavaria, which was a little removed from the chaos elsewhere in Germany. He remembered it fondly, especially the pageants that the school staged on various holidays.
“It made me realize that storytelling is as important as living,” he said of those sights.
His parents settled in Pittsfield, Massachusetts and used their expertise in dance to start a physical therapy business, bringing boys to join them in 1939. It was a time when German immigrants in the United States faced suspicion, which the local newspaper, the Berkshire Eagle, sought to dispel in 1940 with an article about a young newcomer.
“Neither child spoke a word of English when their parents met them on the New York pier,” the newspaper said. Got to learn good and honest “United States”. George is in his senior year at Mercer School. 6th Igor. Either of you can say “I’m sure” and “OK” faster than you. “
