Lotte Weiss (1923–2021)

Lotte Weiss, née Charlotte Frankl, was born to a Jewish family in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia (in present-day Slovakia), a daughter of Bertha and Ignatz Frankl. She had five siblings: Lilly, Erika, Renee, Karl, Morris. This happy, close-knit family was the first of her two lives. After Nazi Germany invaded her country in World War II, the Jews were forced into a ghetto. On March 22, 1942, 18-year-old Lotte and two of her sisters were deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp. All of her family later died in the camp. Lotte was sent through a series of camps to Terezin (Theresienstadt), and survived to be liberated by the Red Army in May 1945. That day, she said, her second life began. Returning to Bratislava, Lotte met Alfred (Ali) Weiss, also a camp survivor. The couple were married in 1947 and emigrated to New Zealand. Many years later, in 1979, Lotte was approached by New Zealand National Radio to tell her story. This was the first time she spoke publicly about surviving the Holocaust, but not the last. She gave interviews to television, radio, and print media. In 1986, Lotte followed her two sons to live in Sydney, Australia, where she became a founding member and guide with the Sydney Jewish Museum and spoke to thousands of schoolchildren and adults about the Holocaust. At age 80, she wrote her memoir, My Two Lives, published in 2003. Inspired by the book, her daughter-in-law Thea created a series of art exhibitions at which Lotte joined her in telling the story to hundreds of visitors. A film on both Thea and Lotte, entitled Creative Responses to the Holocaust, was screened at film festivals around the world.