The Loewenstein Family: A Story of Survival

In 1938, Dr. Max Loewenstein applied to the United States Consulate General in Berlin for immigration papers for the family.  The Consulate assigned numbers that reserved a place on the waiting list for permission to apply for visas in 1943 or 1944. It was becoming increasingly obvious to the Loewensteins that time was of the essence.

The Loewensteins’ good friends, Dr. Ernst and Dr. Elisabeth Eylenburg, had arranged to send their fifteen-year-old daughter Erna to France in February 1939.  Henry was to go with her on the train to Paris.  However, the day they were to leave, Henry had come down with an illness and developed a high fever.  His mother refused to let him travel as no one had a firm idea who would care for the children once they arrived in Paris.

Erna (15-years-old) was sent to France on March 30, 1939.  She later went to the Netherlands where she was apprehended by the Nazis, deported to Auschwitz, and murdered there in 1942.  

Both her parents and younger brother Walter were deported from Berlin to the Theresiennstadt concentration camp, which was in German occupied Czechoslovakia.  On October 19, 1944, they were deported to Auschwitz where the entire family was killed.