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Lecture

Trudy Gold
The Empress Elizabeth: The Princess Diana of the 19th Century?

Tuesday 25.01.2022

Summary

Trudy Gold takes a look at Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie (1837–1898), the Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph I. She discusses her life and history and explains why she considers her to be the Princess Diana of the 19th century.

Trudy Gold

An image of Trudy Gold

Trudy Gold was the CEO of the London Jewish Cultural Centre and a founding member of the British delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). Throughout her career she taught modern Jewish history at schools, universities, and to adult groups and ran seminars on Holocaust education in the UK, Eastern Europe, and China. She also led Jewish educational tours all over the world. Trudy was the educational director of the student resources “Understanding the Holocaust” and “Holocaust Explained” and the author of The Timechart History of Jewish Civilization.

Look, Bay Middleton, Andrássy, there was another chap, were they really her lovers? Look, she didn’t live in a world of complete derism, as we do today. If you think of the Royal Family today, I mean, they can’t do anything without total attention being placed on them.

Pamela, there are a lot of rumours, but it seems, I think, having read quite a lot about it, I think he actually shot her, and then himself.

You know, that’s interesting. That’s a very, very good question, Arlene. I think that she would go with just her maid. She went anonymously when she was at the hotel. She didn’t check in under the name of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria. He didn’t realise who she was. You see, you got to understand, at the turn of the century, there were all sorts of strange anarchist groups, and their weapon was political assassination.