Ina Benita

Ina Benita (1 March 1912 – 9 September 1984[1]) was a popular Polish actress of the interwar period. She was born Inna Florow-Bulhak in Kiev, then part of the Russian Empire.[2] Her father was Mikołaj Gerwazy Bułhak and her mother was Helena Jeszczenko. Both of Benita's parents considered themselves Poles and were going to move to Cracow, but when World War I broke out their plans were delayed.

Ina Benita
Born
Inna Florow-Bulhak

(1912-03-01)1 March 1912
Kiev, Russian Empire, now Ukraine
Died9 September 1984 (aged 72)
Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.
OccupationActress
Years active1931–1944
Spouse(s)
Jerzy Dal-Atan
​
(
m. 1931; div. 1933)

Stanislaw Lipinski
​
(
m. 1938, divorced)

Hans Georg Pasch
​
(
m. 1945;
murdered 
1945)

Lloyd Fraser Scudder
​
(
m. 1954;
died of cancer 
1964)
Children3

Biography

In 1920 the future actress and her family have finally moved to newly resurrected Poland. Some time in the late 1920s, Benita left for Paris and graduated from the Sacré Cœur School. After returning to Poland, she continued her education in Warsaw. Ina debuted on stage on 29 August 1931, with the Warsaw Theatre group "Nowy Ananas" ("New Pineapple"), in the show Paradise for Men (“Raj dla mężczyzn"). One year later she debuted in Ryszard Briske's film Puszcza. From then on she performed mainly in movies. Benita, however, also appeared on stage, mostly in Warsaw's revues, such as Cyrulik Warszawski (1937), Wielka Rewia (1938–39), and Ali Baba (since spring 1939).[3][4]

During World War II, in German-occupied Poland, Benita played in German-sponsored theaters, which resulted in allegations of collaboration with the Nazis. Sometime in 1943 she began a relationship with an Austrian Wehrmacht officer (his name remains uncertain—according to some sources he was Otto Haver, but according to this[2] research his actual name very likely was Otto Hauer), with whom she left for Vienna. In the summer of 1944 Benita's partial-Jewish ancestry (Jewish grandmother from her father's side) came to the attention of Gestapo, and both of them were accused of "Rassenschande"—crime against racial purity—which, under German laws in occupied Polish territory meant a death sentence. However, most certainly due to the backstage pressures from Benita's German admirers, they were judged according to the laws governing in Vienna at the time, and he was sent to the Eastern Front instead, while pregnant Ina Benita was imprisoned in Warsaw's Pawiak heavy prison. There she gave birth to her son with Hans Georg Pasch, Tadeusz Michał, on 7 April 1944.[3]

Released on 31 July 1944 with her newborn baby, Benita was last seen during the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944. She and Tadeusz allegedly went down a sewage canal and drowned. For many years the exact date and place of her death remained undetermined. This version, however, was overturned, the documents released in November 2018 by the Pasch family show that at the end of the war, in April 1945, she and her son fled to Hohegeiss in Goslar, Lower Saxony, where in June that year she married Hans Georg Pasch, with whom she was in an informal relationship from 1943, and adopted the name Inna Pasch. The couple had one more child—daughter Rita Anna, born on July 28, 1945, died three days after birth. On November 15, 1945, her husband was murdered shortly after she decided to leave Hohegeiss in the summer of 1946 or 1947 and then she moved to France, where she married an American, Lloyd Fraser Scudder. On July 25, 1950 in Nice her second son, John, was born. Next, Ina (as Ina Scudder) moved to Morocco and Algeria with her family; in June 1960 to the U.S.. She lived in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, where she died in 1984.

The sons of Hans Georg Pasch from the previous marriage and the half-brothers Tadeusz Michał Pasch were Ingo Pasch, minister in the first democratic government of Slovenia (1990–1992) and his twin brother Boris Pasch, a Slovenian diplomat in Berlin, both born in 1941.[3]

Filmography
  • 1932 – Puszcza ("The Wilderness")
  • 1933 – Jego ekscelencja subiekt ("His Excellency, the Clerk")
  • 1933 – Przybłęda ("The Stray")
  • 1933 – Maryjka ("Mary")
  • 1934 – Hanka ("Hanna")
  • 1935 – Jaśnie pan szofer ("Sir Chauffeur")
  • 1935 – Dwie Joasie ("Two Joannas")
  • 1936 – Miłość wszystko zwycięża ("Love Conquers Everything")[5]
  • 1937 – Trójka hultajska ("Three Rascals")
  • 1938 – Ludzie Wisły ("People of the Vistula River"; "River People" – U.S. VHS title)
  • 1938 – Gehenna
  • 1938 – Serce matki ("Mother's Heart")
  • 1938 – Moi rodzice rozwodzą się ("My Parents Are Divorcing")
  • 1939 – O czym się nie mówi... ("What is Not to Said")
  • 1939 – Doktór Murek ("Doctor Murek")
  • 1940• – Sportowiec mimo woli ("Involuntary Athlete"; "The Sportsman Against His Will" – U.S. VHS title)
  • 1941• – Ja tu rzadzę! ("I'm in Charge Here!")[6]
  • 1946• – Czarne diamenty ("Black Diamonds")

• – Films made and scheduled for release in 1939, but premiered in later years due to outbreak of World War II

References
  1. https://www.fold3.com/record/21454017-ina-scudder
  2. "Bułhak, Janina – Ina Benita" (in Polish). Ilustrowany Tygodnik Polski. Retrieved 16 May 2017.
  3. "Ina Benita" (in Polish). FilmPolski. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  4. "Ina Benita" (in Polish). FilmWeb. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  5. "Love Conquers Everything (1936)". IMDB. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
  6. "Ina Benita Filmography". IMDB. Retrieved 19 March 2016.
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