“Julia”–and Muriel Gardiner

Many of our readers will remember that Muriel Gardiner, together with her husband Joseph Buttinger, a leader of the Austrian Socialist underground in the 1930s, were among the early and then continuing supporters of Dissent. The following interview with her was conducted by her former private secretary.—Eds.

Shortly after the publication of Lillian Hellman’s book Pentimento in 1973, Muriel Gardiner began hearing from friends who asked if she were “Julia,” the heroine of the story of that name in the volume. In the course of an interview I conducted with her a few months before her death in February 1985, she recalled the first inquiry: “I first learned about Julia from Anna Frank, who had once been...