Elisabeth Lunau

The following text is from the guide to Elisabeth's papers from the Leo Baeck Institute, Center for Jewish History:

Elisabeth Lunau, neé Marum, was born in Germany in 1911. She was the daughter of Ludwig Marum, who served as a Minister in the Weimar republic, and who was killed by the Nazi government in 1934.

She was one of the last German Jews to earn a law degree before WWII, but did not have a chance to practice due to the new law barring Jews from that profession.

Elisabeth Lunau left Germany in 1936 and went to France to join other members of her family. There she was interned in a number of concentration camps but was released and came to New York in 1941.

In New York she became executive housekeeper at a number of Manhattan hotels. She was the author of two books: "Ludwig Marum: Briefe aus dem Konzenrationslager Kislau," a collection of her fathers letters, and "Auf der Flucht in Frankreich: 'Boches ici, juifs là-bas' - der Briefwechsel einer deutschen Familie im Exil 1939–1942," a collection of her and her relatives letters. She died in New York on June 5th, 1998.

• Profile data source: http://ka.stadtwiki.net/Elizabeth_Marum-Lunau

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• MARUM-LUNAU, Elizabeth
• Re: Anna (Ännchen) Pfeffer
• RG 50.233.0086
• Interviewed December 27, 1991

Abstract

Elizabeth Marum-Lunau of New York City talks mainly about her paternal aunt Ännchen who was born in Frankenthal on November 19, 1885. When Ännchen was one or two years old, her father died, leaving the mother almost penniless. The family moved to Bruchsal to join the mother’s married sister. When Ännchen was 20, she married Salo Pfeffer, a director of Tietz department store in Düsseldorf. They had two children, Heinz, born in 1906, and Ernst, born in 1910.

Salo was fired from Tietz with all the other Jewish employees in 1935. Ännchen and Salo left in 1939 for Holland to join their son Heinz and his Dutch wife. Salo died in Holland. The rest of the family was taken to Westerbork camp in Holland, then to Theresienstadt, and then to Auschwitz, with one or two relatives going to Bergen-Belsen, and another to Dachau. No one survived. Ännchen’s two sons, two young grandsons, and daughter-in-law were killed in Auschwitz. Ernst died in Dachau in February 1945.

Elizabeth’s immediate family had lived in Karlsruhe. Her father, Ännchen’s brother, was a Social Democratic Party member serving in the Reichstag. He gave an anti-Nazi speech on March 5, 1933, and was arrested on March 10. Two months later, he was sent to a concentration camp where he died in 1934. Through this time, the family talked about what could be done to get him out or to help him in other ways. “We decided we wouldn’t let anyone get us down. I think that was (Ännchen’s) attitude and mine and certainly my father’s…We were strong.”

Elizabeth graduated from law school just when her father was arrested. Elizabeth’s brother left Karlsruhe in 1933, and her mother and Brigitte left for Paris in 1934. Ännchen had gone to Karlsruhe to help Elizabeth’s mother leave for France. Elizabeth left for Paris in 1936, and thought she would never see her aunt again. However, the families vacationed together in 1936 or 1937 at a beach in either Holland or Belgium.