Lena Einhorn

Lena Einhorn
Born (1954-05-19) 19 May 1954 (age 70)
Spånga, Sweden
NationalitySwedish
Notable workNina's Journey
RelativesJerzy Einhorn (father)
Stefan Einhorn (brother)

Lena Einhorn (born 19 May 1954) is a Swedish director and writer and former physician.

Early life and family

Einhorn was born on 19 May 1954[1] in Spånga, Sweden. Her mother, Nina, escaped the Warsaw ghetto during World War II and settled in Sweden, and her father, Jerzy, was a cancer specialist, politician and Holocaust survivor who wrote in 1966 a book about what he had experienced. Her younger brother is doctor and author, Stefan Einhorn.[2]

Career

After graduating from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm with a doctorate in virology and tumor biology, she worked as a doctor, specialising in tumour viruses and the causes of cancer in fetuses and newborns.[3]

She changed careers when she lived in the United States in the 1980s and began working as a medical editor at Lifetime Television where she also produced and wrote medical documentaries. She also produced scientific and medical documentaries for independent companies and for PBS until she returned to Sweden in 1994.[3]

She became an independent filmmaker after returning to Sweden. Her 1998 drama documentary, Handelsresande i liv, focused on rescue efforts during World War II and was the foundation of her first novel, also called Handelsresande i liv, which was published in 1999.[3]

A month after both of Einhorn's parents were diagnosed with incurable cancer in late 1999, she did a filmed interview with her mother about her experiences of the Warsaw ghetto during the Holocaust. Einhorn's plan was to make a feature film with her mother as the narrator however, she was not able to secure funding before her mother died in 2002 so she decided to write a book instead. She managed to secure funding six months later and released both a film and a book called Nina's Journey. The film won the Guldbagge Award for Best Film and for Best Screenplay[3] and the book won the 2005 August Prize.[2]

Einhorn co-wrote her first play, Living Room with Anette Sallmander. It premiered in 2008 at Kulturhuset in Stockholm.[3]

She released the film, A Lost Artwork, in 2012 which followed a two year long search for six paintings which were looted by Nazis from her father's childhood home in Southern Poland.[3]

Einhorn has written two books hypothesising an alternative understanding of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus - The Jesus Mystery in 2007,[4] and A Shift in Time in 2016.[5]

Einhorn is a member of the Vetenskapsforum COVID-19, a group critical of the Swedish government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden.[6]

References

  1. ^ "Lena Einhorn". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). 27 February 2005. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  2. ^ a b Liska, Vivian; Nolden, Thomas (5 December 2007). Contemporary Jewish Writing in Europe: A Guide. Indiana University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-253-00007-1.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Lena Einhorn | Nordic Women in Film". nordicwomeninfilm (in Swedish). Retrieved 23 August 2020.
  4. ^ Einhorn, Lena (2007). The Jesus mystery : astonishing clues to the true identities of Jesus and Paul. Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press. ISBN 978-1-59921-148-0.
  5. ^ Einhorn, Lena (2016). A shift in time : how historical documents reveal the surprising truth about Jesus. New York, NY. ISBN 978-1-63158-099-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Vogel, Gretchen (6 October 2020). "'It's been so, so surreal.' Critics of Sweden's lax pandemic policies face fierce backlash". Science | AAAS. Retrieved 5 November 2020.