Lotte Strauss, (born Lotte Schloss; August 2, 1913 – September 6, 2020) was a German-born author who wrote about her experiences as a Jewish woman in

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

Biography

Strauss was born to Louis Schloss (1881–1967) and Johanna Bildesheim (1885–1942) in

Braunschweig Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( , from Low German ''Brunswiek'' , Braunschweig dialect: ''Bronswiek'') is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the Nor ...

, Germany in August 1913. She had a brother named Helmut (1915–1991). She was married to Herbert Arthur Strauss (1918–2005). Between 1942 and 1943, Strauss and her husband hid in Berlin to avoid arrest by German authorities. They were finally able to flee to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

with the help of her uncle Ludwig Schöneberg. In 1946, the couple had a daughter, Jane Helen. That same year, they immigrated to the United States, moving to New York. In New York, Strauss worked as a secretary at the New York State

League of Women Voters The League of Women Voters (LWV or the League) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan political organization in the United States. Founded in 1920, its ongoing major activities include registering voters, providing voter information, and advocating for vot ...

. The film ''We Were German Jews'' (1981), directed by Michael Blackwood, followed Strauss and her husband as they fled Germany. In 1997, Strauss published ''Over the Green Hill: Personal Memoir, Germany 1913-43''. Strauss died in September 2020 at the age of 107.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Strauss, Lotte 1913 births 2020 deaths 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American writers American centenarians German centenarians German emigrants to the United States Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to Switzerland Writers from Braunschweig Women centenarians 21st-century American women