Auguste (Gustchen, Gustl) Friedmann, geb. Löwengart

Auguste Löwengart was born in Nördlingen on June 13, 1898. Her father, the merchant Gustav Löwengart, died very young. After his death, Auguste’s mother Clara married Abraham Neuhof in 1903. Auguste, whom the family called Gustl, grew up with her older brothers Fritz and Max. She spent six years of her school career at what is now the Luisengymnasium high school in Munich. The sources do not reveal exactly when she attended the school. Nor is anything known about any apprenticeship or profession.
In 1921, Auguste Löwengart married the merchant Ernst August Friedmann in Munich; the marriage ended in divorce in 1933. Shortly after separating from her husband, Auguste Friedmann gave birth to her daughter Eva in 1934. The child was in care in the Red Cross hospital in Munich for over a year and was adopted by a Jewish couple in 1936. The family probably managed to emigrate. It is not known why Auguste Friedmann did not bring up her child herself. At this time she lived with her widowed mother at Haydnstrasse 4 in Munich. In 1938, because she was pregnant again, she appealed for assistance to the home of the Jewish women’s protection association in Neu-Isenburg near Frankfurt. On October 16, 1938 she gave birth to her daughter Tana Löwengart and lived with her at first in Neu-Isenburg before returning to Munich in mid-November 1938. At Auguste’s request, Tana was taken in by the children’s home in Antonienstrasse and lived there from February 1941, apparently because Auguste was unable to take care of the girl herself. A few months later, the Gestapo (secret state police) deported Auguste Friedmann and Tana Löwengart with around 1,000 other Jews from the barrack camp at Knorrstrasse 148 to Kaunas, where they were shot by the SS on November 25, 1941.
Auguste Friedmann’s brother Fritz had already committed suicide in 1938. Her brother Max was able to emigrate to Bolivia in 1940 and subsequently to the USA. Auguste Friedmann’s mother Clara Neuhof died in Munich in 1941. (TExt: barbara Hutzelmann; editor: C. Fritsche; translation: C. Hales)