Irene Runge was born in Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York.
16 Facts About Irene Runge
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Irene Runge's German born father, Alexander Kupfermann ran a book and picture shop in Times Square, down in the subway station, working as a translator and journalist under the pseudonym Georg Friedrich Alexan.
3.
Irene Runge had emigrated to Paris in 1931 as the political skies darkened in Germany, and he had relocated again, to the USA in December 1937, anticipating the return to war in Europe which followed two years later.
4.
Irene Runge had married Irene's mother, Maria Krotz in 1937.
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Irene Runge had converted to Judaism ahead of their marriage which had taken place in Palestine, and although her parents were not strictly religious in their habits, awareness of her Jewishness has been a strong theme in her life.
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Irene Runge took them not to Mannheim, which was where he had grown up and was now in the US occupation zone, but to Leipzig, which after 1945 had found itself in the Soviet occupation zone.
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Irene Runge's mother died in 1951, and during her school years, she and her father moved homes several times.
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Irene Runge's father led a sociable life and had a large circle of intellectual friends: the home was always buzzing with visitors, although things became more difficult after her father remarried.
9.
Irene Runge supported herself by undertaking filing and clerical work for the national press agency, interspersed with some writing and interpreting assignments: her former mother in law was more than happy to look after Stefan.
10.
Irene Runge married her second husband, an opera director, in 1967.
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Between 1970 and 1975 Irene Runge studied Sociology and Economics at Humboldt University of Berlin.
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Irene Runge remained in Berlin for her doctorate which she received in 1979 for a dissertation on Social Aspects of Aging among the elderly.
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Irene Runge stayed on to undertake research work and teach Sociology till 1990 and was project leader for Social Gerontology.
14.
Between 1983 and 1989 Irene Runge was an active member of the East Berlin Jewish Community.
15.
Irene Runge lost her university post in 1990, shortly after reunification, when the opening up of the Ministry for State Security files indicated that for seventeen years she had been an "informal collaborator", identified in Stasi files as "IM Stefan".
16.
Irene Runge had received 250 Marks for the information and her friends had received prison sentences.