Curt Lowens

Curt Lowens (17 November 1925 – 8 May 2017) was a German actor of the stage and in feature films and television, as well as a Holocaust survivor and a rescuer who saved about 150 Jewish children during the Holocaust.

Life and career

Born Curt Löwenstein in the East Prussian town of Allenstein (now Olsztyn, Poland), his father was a respected lawyer, and his mother was active with several local Jewish community organizations. His father's career declined due to loss of clients after the Nazis' takeover of Germany, so the family moved to Berlin hoping that the city's large Jewish community could provide more protection. Young Curt continued to receive an education and to prepare for his bar mitzvah under the guidance of Rabbi Manfred Swarsensky of the Fasanenstrasse Synagogue. After the violence of Kristallnacht (also known as the November Pogrom) in November 1938, the Nazis closed his school. In early 1939, Lowens received his bar mitzvah in a school auditorium with 34 other youths.

Lowens' older brother Heinz successfully emigrated to Britain a few months before the start of World War II. Curt and his parents planned to emigrate to the United States via the neutral Netherlands in early 1940. While waiting to depart from Rotterdam, however, the Germans invaded the Netherlands on the intended day of their departure. During the first two years of the German occupation, Curt's father worked at a desk job for the Jewish Council in Amsterdam, which initially saved the family from deportation to Auschwitz. Nonetheless, Curt and his mother were rounded up, unexpectedly, and deported to Westerbork in June 1943, but they were released through his father's connections.

The family subsequently went into hiding, each separately since individuals were more readily placed in homes of rescuers. Curt took on the false identity of "Ben Joosten". He managed to visit his mother when she, also under a false name, was treated at a hospital run by Catholic nuns; she died in January 1944. Curt, meanwhile, had become active in a network of Dutch rescuers, including and , aiding Jewish children in hiding. By war's end, some 150 Jewish children were rescued by this group alone. Curt Lowens also aided two downed American Army Air Corps flyers, for which he later received a commendation from General Dwight D. Eisenhower. After liberation, he joined the British Eighth Corps as an interpreter, aiding the British in their house arrest of the remaining Nazi leaders in Flensburg, Germany in mid-May 1945.

In 1947, Curt, his father, and step-mother emigrated to the United States. Under the name Curt Lowens, he trained to become an actor, studying at the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York. He appeared in over 100 films and TV shows since 1960. Lowens died on 8 May 2017 at the age of 91 in Beverly Hills.

Selected filmography

* 1960 '' Two Women''
* 1961 ''Francis of Assisi'' as Friar (uncredited)
* 1961 '' Werewolf in a Girls' Dormitory'' as Director Swift
* 1961 ''Barabbas'' as Disciple (uncredited)
* 1962 '' The Reluctant Saint''
* 1962 '' The Four Days of Naples'' as Sakau (uncredited)
* 1962 '' Imperial Venus''
* 1963 '' Il processo di Verona'' as German Captain
* 1966 '' Combat!'' (Episode: "Ask Me No Questions") as Captain Haus
* 1966 '' Blue Light'' (Episode: "Invasion by the Stars") as Colonel Dietrich
* 1966 '' Torn Curtain'' as VOPO Officer At Roadblock (uncredited)
* 1967 ''Hogan's Heroes'' (Episode: "Hogan and the Lady Doctor") as Gestapo Captain
* 1967 ''Tobruk'' as German Colonel
* 1968 ''Counterpoint'' as Captain Klingerman
* 1968 '' Garrison's Gorillas'' (TV Series) as Major Sturm / Colonel Krueger / Colonel Broiler
* 1969 ''The Secret of Santa Vittoria'' as Colonel Scheer
* 1971 '' The Mephisto Waltz'' as Agency Chief
* 1973 '' Trader Horn'' as Schmidt
* 1974 ''M*A*S*H'' (TV Series) as Luxembourg military Officer Colonel Blanche
* 1975 '' The Hindenburg'' as Elevator Man Felber
* 1976 '' The Swiss Conspiracy'' as Korsak
* 1977 '' The Other Side of Midnight'' as Henri Correger
* 1979 '' Missile X – Geheimauftrag Neutronenbombe'' as Russian Scientist
* 1979 ''Battlestar Galactica'' (TV series) "Greetings from Earth" episodes 19/20
* 1980 '' The Secret War of Jackie's Girls'' (TV Movie) as Dr. Kruger
* 1982 ''Firefox'' as Dr. Schuller
* 1982 ''The Entity'' as Dr. Wilkes
* 1983 '' To Be or Not To Be'' as Airport Officer
* 1983-1987 ''The A-Team'' (TV Series) as Soviet Embassy Official
* 1985 '' Knight Rider'' as Dr. Von Boorman
* 1988 ''Private War'' as Paul Devries
* 1989 ''Night Children''
* 1991 ''Paid To Kill'' as Spinosa
* 1992 '' A Midnight Clear'' as Older German Soldier
* 1993 '' Mandroid'' as Drago
* 1993 '' Necronomicon'' as Mr. Hawkins (part 2)
* 1993 ''Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight'' as Drago
* 1994 ''Babylon 5'' (TV Series) as Varn
* 1995 '' Aurora: Operation Intercept'' as Dr. Zaborszin
* 1997 ''The Emissary: A Biblical Epic'' as Judas
* 1997 '' A River Made to Drown In'' as The Landlord
* 2005 '' The Cutter'' as Colonel Speerman
* 2006 '' Ray of Sunshine'' as The Count
* 2007 '' Hellsing Ultimate'' as Van Hellsing (English version, voice)
* 2008 '' Miracle at St. Anna'' as Dr. Everton Brooks
* 2009 ''Angels & Demons'' as Cardinal Ebner
* 2011 '' Supah Ninjas'' as Mechanov
* 2012 '' She Wants Me'' as Grandpa Arnie

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Lowens, Curt
1925 births
2017 deaths
People from Olsztyn
Male actors from Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship
Actors from East Prussia
20th-century German Jews
American male film actors
American male stage actors
American male television actors
German emigrants to the United States
Westerbork transit camp survivors
Jewish American male actors
20th-century American male actors
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American Jews