Full Name: Straus-Ernst, Luise
Gender: female
Date Born: unknown
Date Died: unknown
Place Born: Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Place Died: Auschwitz, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland
Home Country/ies: Germany
Subject Area(s): Modern (style or period)
Overview
Straus was born to a middle-class Jewish family. She married Max Ernst in 1918. Her husband soon began an affair with Gala Eluard (who later married Salvador Dali). The couple divorced and she continued with her art history career, caring as well for their son. The ascension of the Nazis to Germany in 1933 caused Straus to flee to Paris where she remained and later had a comfortable life in the countryside. She sent her son to London in 1938. After France’s fall to the Nazis in 1940 Jews were again being arrested there. Straus attempted to leave France herself. In 1943, after 2 years of moving from Paris and the South of France to Drancy, under increasing threat and aware that she was watched, Luise Straus-Ernst was finally captured. In June 1944 she was deported on the next-to-last train to Auschwitz where she was executed.
Sources
- Straus-Ernst, Louise. Richter, Marilyn and Marietta Schmitz-Esser, trans. The First Wife’s Tale: a Memoir by Louise Straus-Ernst, Art historian, Critic, Journalist, Intimate of Europe’s Avant-garde Artists in the 1920s and 30s. New York: Midmarch Arts Press, 2004.
Archives
- Personal diary, written from 1941-1942.
Contributors: Lee Sorensen