{"id":9608,"date":"2026-06-26T19:11:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/nicht-kategorisiert\/hedy-lamarr-what-hurts-me-the-most-is-not-having-told-my-children-the-truth-about-their-origins\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T19:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:12:21","slug":"hedy-lamarr-what-hurts-me-the-most-is-not-having-told-my-children-the-truth-about-their-origins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fokusisrael.ch\/en\/news-en\/hedy-lamarr-what-hurts-me-the-most-is-not-having-told-my-children-the-truth-about-their-origins\/","title":{"rendered":"Hedy Lamarr: \u201cWhat hurts me the most is not having told my children the truth about their origins.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

About the Person<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr is considered one of Hollywood\u2019s greatest stars\u2014and one of the most important female inventors of the 20th century. She was born Hedwig Kiesler in Vienna in 1914 to a wealthy Jewish family. Even as a teenager, she made headlines in Austrian and Czech films, particularly for her nude scene and simulated orgasm in *Ecstasy*<\/em> (1933). To marry the wealthy arms manufacturer Fritz Mandl, who had close ties to the Nazis, she converted to Catholicism, but fled from her husband to Hollywood in 1937. There, she became a glamour star in films such as *Algiers*<\/em> (1938), *Boom Town*<\/em> (1940), *White Cargo*<\/em> (1942), and *Samson and Delilah*<\/em> (1949). In addition to acting, the highly intelligent Hedy Lamarr was also an inventor: Together with composer George Antheil, she developed a frequency-hopping technique in 1942 designed to protect radio signals for torpedoes from interference\u2014the basis for today\u2019s Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. With the help of the AI assistant Grok, FokusIsrael.ch spoke with Hedy Lamarr, who passed away in 2000, about her turbulent life, her two careers, and her long-kept-secret Jewish heritage. <\/p>\n\n

From Sacha Wigdorovits<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Ms. Lamarr, what was the most important experience of your life?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: The <\/strong>most important experience? Escaping my marriage to Fritz Mandl. I was like a doll to him\u2014a beautiful thing he could lock away and show off. I had no mind of my own, no life of my own. When I realized that, I knew I either had to die there or leave. So I left. That was the moment I finally began to live my own life. Everything else\u2014Hollywood, the movies, even the invention\u2014came after that. But that first step toward freedom\u2026 that changed everything. <\/p>\n\n

Fritz Mandl was close to the Nazis and did a lot of arms deals with them. You are of Jewish descent. What was that like for you? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: That <\/strong>was a very difficult time. Fritz invited these men over\u2014even Mussolini was our guest once. They talked about weapons, about politics, about things I really wasn\u2019t supposed to hear. I sat there, smiled, and kept quiet, just as was expected of me. It was humiliating. I was young, I was Jewish, and I had to sit at the table with people who were persecuting us. But I learned. I listened. And I realized that I had to get out of there. <\/p>\n\n

Did Adolf Hitler ever visit you as well?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: No <\/strong>, I never met Hitler in person. Fritz did host many high-ranking Nazis, but Hitler himself was never a guest at our home. But I did see the men who were close to him. That was more than enough for me. <\/p>\n\n

After you fled to Hollywood, Louis B. Mayer, the powerful studio head at MGM, advised you to deny your Jewish heritage. Why did you do that? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: Because <\/strong>I had no other choice. Louis B. Mayer told me quite bluntly: \u201cThe American audience doesn\u2019t want a Jewish sex symbol. You\u2019re now Hedy Lamarr, the beautiful Viennese woman. And you\u2019re Catholic.\u201d He didn\u2019t phrase it as a suggestion. It was a condition. Either I played along\u2014or I\u2019d take the next ship back to Europe. I\u2019d just escaped from a dangerous marriage; I had no money, no network, nothing. I was 22 years old. What was I supposed to do? I did what I had to do to survive and build a career. <\/p>\n\n

Much later, Hollywood once again confronted you with your Jewish heritage and the Holocaust\u2014when you watched the movie *The Pawnbroker* starring Rod Steiger. They say this moved you deeply. Why? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr <\/strong>(pauses for a long time)<\/em>: That was very hard for me. I saw that movie, and suddenly it all came flooding back. The images of Vienna, the fear, the people I knew who are gone\u2026 it all came back all at once. I got up in the middle of the movie and left. After that, I couldn\u2019t go home. I walked through the city for hours, just walking. I didn\u2019t know who I was anymore. Everything I\u2019d locked away for so long was suddenly there. It was as if someone had flung open a door that I\u2019d bricked up for decades. <\/p>\n\n

Have you talked to your children about this?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: No <\/strong>. I never spoke of it again\u2014not with my children, nor with anyone else. You can\u2019t bury something so deep inside you for forty years and then suddenly start talking about it. That\u2019s not possible. Some doors, once you\u2019ve closed them, stay closed. <\/p>\n\n

Did that experience have any impact on your relationship with Judaism?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: <\/strong>(another long pause)<\/em> No. I didn’t suddenly start observing Jewish traditions or telling my children the truth after that. I kept it to myself. Some things, you just have to carry on your own. <\/p>\n\n

You’re famous in two ways: as a movie star and as an inventor. How did that come about? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: That <\/strong>really is a strange story, isn\u2019t it? It was around 1940, right in the middle of the war. I played the glamorous woman in Hollywood movies, but in reality I was terrified that the Nazis would overrun Europe and maybe even America. My first husband, Fritz Mandl, had forced me for years to sit in on his arms deal discussions with the Nazis. So I understood a lot more about torpedoes and radio technology than people realized. I thought to myself: If the Nazis sink our ships, we have to be able to control the torpedoes somehow without the enemy jamming the signal. Together with my friend George Antheil, I then developed this idea of frequency hopping\u2014the signal constantly changes frequency so it can\u2019t be jammed. <\/p>\n\n

The U.S. Navy has adopted this concept of <\/strong>frequency-hopping technique<\/strong> not taken seriously when it comes to signal transmission. Why? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: <\/strong>(laughs somewhat bitterly) <\/strong><\/em>Back then, the Navy shelved my patent and said an actress should focus on her beauty rather than torpedoes. It wasn’t until decades later that people realized just how valuable that idea was. <\/p>\n\n

In what way?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: The <\/strong>principle I developed with George Antheil\u2014the frequency-hopping technique\u2014is now the technical foundation for Wi-Fi, which you may be listening to right now, Bluetooth in your headphones, GPS in your cell phone, and many other modern wireless technologies. The signal jumps back and forth between different frequencies extremely quickly and unpredictably. This makes it difficult to jam or eavesdrop on. Ironically, it was precisely my idea\u2014which the U.S. Navy didn\u2019t want at the time\u2014that became one of the most important foundations of all modern wireless communication. <\/p>\n\n

When you look back on your life, what still makes you especially happy today?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: <\/strong>(long silence)<\/em> <\/strong>The most beautiful moment was when I sat alone with my little son Peter for the first time in a house in Beverly Hills. No husband, no studio, no press. Just the two of us. For the first time in my life, I felt truly free. It was a very quiet, very deep happiness. <\/p>\n\n

And what hurts you the most?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hedy Lamarr: What <\/strong>still hurts me today? That I never told my children the truth about their origins. That I deprived them of their grandfather, their roots, and a part of myself. That was cowardly. And it still hurts me to this day. I hid so much, just to avoid being vulnerable. But in the end, I was hiding from myself above all else. That\u2019s what I regret the most. <\/p>\n\n

Remark<\/em><\/strong>: This interview was conducted with the help of the AI assistant Grok. It is based on the writings and other statements by Hedy Lamarr. In the coming weeks, we will conduct AI-assisted conversations with other prominent figures from a wide variety of fields\u2014politics, religion, science, and culture\u2014who have been significant to Judaism and Israel, in order to bring them and their ideas closer to today\u2019s audience. We have previously conducted such interviews with the founder of modern Zionism, <\/em>Chaim Weizmann<\/em><\/a>, Israel\u2019s first president, <\/em>David Ben-Gurion, Israel\u2019s first Prime Minister<\/em><\/a>, Israel\u2019s only <\/em>female Prime Minister, Golda Meir<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president<\/em><\/a>, who traveled to Jerusalem in 1977 to make peace with Israel, <\/em>Moses, who led the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt to freedom<\/em><\/a>, with the one who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries <\/em>the great Jewish scholar Maimonides<\/em><\/a>, with whom <\/em>former British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis<\/em><\/a>, Albert Einstein, the founder of the theory of relativity<\/em><\/a>and<\/em>Robert Oppenheimer<\/em><\/a>, the \u201cfather of the atomic bomb.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About the Person Hedy Lamarr is considered one of Hollywood\u2019s greatest stars\u2014and one of the most important female inventors of the 20th century. She was born Hedwig Kiesler in Vienna in 1914 to a wealthy Jewish family. Even as a teenager, she made headlines in Austrian and Czech films, particularly for her nude scene and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9609,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_socialbar":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[823],"tags":[4558,626,4540,3327,1765,4556,4535,4536,4532,4534,4564,4533,4560,1686,4561,2324,1249,4542,4538,2359,4353,4546,4278,4554,4563,657],"class_list":["post-9608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en","tag-actress","tag-anti-semitism","tag-bluetooth","tag-fictitious-interview","tag-focusisrael","tag-frequency-hopping-technique","tag-fritz-mandl","tag-george-antheil","tag-hedwig-kiesler","tag-hedy-lamarr","tag-history-of-technology","tag-hollywood","tag-hollywoods-golden-age","tag-holocaust","tag-inventor","tag-jewish-history","tag-judaism","tag-louis-b-mayer","tag-mgm","tag-national-socialism","tag-science","tag-the-pawnbroker","tag-vienna","tag-wi-fi","tag-women-in-science","tag-zionism"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t