She was petite and very slim – the ideal figure for her passion, horseback riding. Kitty Neustätter was born in 1902 to Otto and Olga Herz, née Großmann, in Vienna. In 1909, after her mother’s death, Kitty moved with her father and his second wife, Berta, to Troppau in Silesia (today Opava). In 1920 the family moved to Munich, where Kitty Herz completed high school and began to study national economics. Shortly before graduation, she broke off her studies to work as an assistant to her father, who had become a director at the Phönix Life Insurance company. On March 15, 1928 Kitty Herz married Rupprecht Neustätter, an authorized representative in his family's paper mill. The couple moved to Äußere Prinzregentenstraße 17 (today Prinzregentenstraße 83). In her free time, Kitty Neustätter took part in horse races and tournaments, and met the tournament rider Friedel Lahs. The two women became fast friends, and Kitty Neustätter could often be found in Friedel Lahs' country house near St. Heinrich on Lake Starnberg. Her husband took countless photographs of Kitty Neustätter on horseback or at the horse ranch. The beginning of the Nazi regime saw the life of Kitty Neustätter's Jewish family change drastically. In March 1933, SS men forced their way into her father's apartment. In May 1938, her husband's family had to sell their paper mill. In the course of the “Kristallnacht” pogroms on November 9, 1938 Rupprecht Neustätter was imprisoned in Dachau concentration camp. Kitty and Rupprecht Neustätter tried to secure papers to emigrate to Australia. But the required permissions were slow in coming. Probably from August 1941 on Kitty Neustätter had to perform forced labor in the Flachsröste (flax factory) Lohhof. On November 20, 1941 the Gestapo (Secret Police) deported Kitty and Rupprecht Neustätter to Kaunas in Lithuania. Members of a SS special unit shot them on the morning of November 25, 1941. (text Ingrid Reuther, editor C. Fritsche, translation T. Axelrod)
