The Loewenstein Family: A Story of Survival

A young Marie (Maria) Loewenstein (née Bäetge), in 1915. Marie was later called "Mautzy" by her children.

Maria Lilli Margarete Bäetge was born to Arthur and Therese Bäetge on April 9, 1894 in Tallinn (Reval), Estonia. As a young woman, Maria studied art in St. Petersburg, Russia, where she met her first husband, Erich Steinberg, an architect. He served in the Russian army as an architect designing buildings on the Sweaborg Island Fortress in Helsinki’s harbor. Maria and Erich were married in 1914, and Maria gave birth to their only child, Karin, in Helsinki, Finland in 1915. In 1917, as the Russian Revolution began, the Steinberg family escaped to Germany. When Erich died in 1920, Maria moved to Berlin where she could support herself and Karin working as an artist and designer. Maria met Dr. Max Loewenstein and they were married in January of 1925. Maria and Max had one child together, a son they named Heinrich, later known as Henry. Maria and her daughter Karin suffered persecution and the dangers of living in a Jewish household during World War II.

After the war, the Loewensteins immigrated to the United States. Once in America, Maria (called “Mautzy” by her children) changed the spelling of the family name “Lowenstein," dropping the first “e” in "Loewenstein" to "make things easier for our American friends," as she put it. However, she made a point of refusing to change the obviously Jewish last name that had made her the subject of persecution. She said, “I have suffered with this name, and I am proud of it.” She became a well-known artist and teacher in both Pennsylvania and Colorado. She passed away in Denver on October 29, 1982.