Paula Lehmann was born on November 8, 1876, in Munich to Isaak Lehmann and his wife Julie, née Bernheim. She probably attended a higher girls’ school. In 1898 she married the orthopedist Arthur Dreyer, who ran a “medical-mechanical private sanatorium” in Karlstraße. A daughter, Mathilde, was born two years later.
With the Nazi takeover of power, life changed fundamentally for Paula Dreyer and her family. The pressure placed on Jewish doctors saw Arthur Dreyer give up his sanatorium in 1933. In the same year, Paula Dreyer’s daughter Mathilde and her husband Sally Grünebaum fled to Palestine. In 1934 Paula and Arthur Dreyer moved into the ground floor apartment at Johann-von-Werth-Straße 2. There they became friends with the merchant Hanns Ebner and his wife, who were not Jewish. Although the couple were subject to animosity for their friendship, the Ebners refused to bow to pressure and maintained their relationship. Paula and Arthur Dreyer were terrorized repeatedly by the Gestapo: on several occasions Gestapo officials ransacked their apartment and stole gold and silver jewelry. Shortly after tenant protection laws were rescinded for Jews, the Dreyers received their notice and were forced to move out in October 1940. They found a new place to stay at the Pension Patricia in Goethestraße 54. Because they could not take their furniture with them, Paula and Arthur Dreyer were forced to auction many pieces. The dining room furniture, which featured delicate carvings, passed into “Aryan” ownership for the ridiculously low price of 300 Reichsmark. The proceeds from the sale went to the local finance authority.
Mit Beginn der NS-Herrschaft änderte sich das Leben von Paula Dreyer und ihrer Familie grundlegend.
It was presumably difficult for Paula Dreyer to adjust to the cramped confines of the pension. Forced to undergo an operation, she was unable to recover. Paula Dreyer died on November 27, 1940, and was buried at the New Israelite Cemetery in Munich. Her husband Arthur Dreyer was deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto in 1942, where he died as a result of the catastrophic conditions on February 24, 1943. (Text Ingrid Reuther, editor C. Fritsche, translation P, Bowman)
