Maria Aloysia Löwenfels

Maria Aloysia Löwenfels (* July 5, 1915 as Luise Löwenfels in Trabelsdorf , Upper Franconia , † August 9, 1942 in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp ) was a German Roman Catholic nun . She was murdered with many other Christians who had converted from Judaism to the Catholic Church , including the Carmelite Teresia Benedicta of the Cross ( Edith Stein ), who was canonized in 1998 , in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp .

Life

Luise Löwenfels was born into a Jewish family in Trabelsdorf near Bamberg . In Ingolstadt she attended the secondary school for girls at Gnadenthal Abbey . During her training as a kindergarten teacher in the Franciscan monastery Maria Stern in Nördlingen , she received convert classes. This was followed by a brief activity as a childcare worker in a Jewish family in Recklinghausen and in a Jewish children's home in Frankfurt / Main . In this city she also met the Dernbacher sisters ("poor servants of Jesus Christ", ADJC) from Dernbach in the Westerwald , who had several branches in Frankfurt. In 1935, at the age of 20, Luise was baptized in a monastery of the order in Munich-Gladbach-Hehn . Because of the threat posed by the Nazi racial policy and after a student from a school supervised by the sisters threatened to inform the Gestapo about her involvement in Luise Löwenfels' baptism, she fled to the Netherlands. A friend and her father from Recklinghausen helped her across the border. In 1937 she joined this community in a convent of the poor maidservants in Geleen in the Netherlands. She received the religious name of Sister Maria Aloysia . Although the order offered her to travel to England, she stayed in the Dutch monastery. She passed exams for shorthand and typewriter and from then on worked as a teacher for typing and shorthand.

At the beginning of July 1942, the mass deportations of Jews from the Netherlands began, who, according to official reports, were allegedly brought to "labor camps". On July 11, the Dutch churches protested against these measures in a joint telegram to the Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands , Arthur Seyß-Inquart . Seyß-Inquart reacted with the surprising assurance that Jews of all Christian denominations baptized before 1941 would be exempted from deportation if the churches did not make their protest public. Unimpressed by this offer, the Reformed State Church (as the largest Christian denomination) and the Catholic bishops of the Netherlands published their protest telegram on Sunday , July 26th, 1942. The Catholic Archbishop of Utrecht , Johannes de Jong , sent one across the country on the same Sunday Read out a pastoral letter dated July 20, which denounced the actions of the Germans against Jews. In response to this, 244 former Jews who had converted to Catholicism , including Rosa and Edith Stein as well as Lisamaria Meirowsky and Elvira Sanders-Platz , were arrested by the Gestapo on August 2, 1942 , and via the Amersfoort transit camp to the Westerbork transit camp and finally to the Auschwitz extermination camp -Birkenau deported . According to the sworn testimony of two Dutch witnesses, Löwenfels was murdered there on August 9, 1942 in the gas chamber .

Luise Löwenfels was accepted into the German martyrology of the 20th century as a witness of faith .

Beatification process

On October 20, 2015, the Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Limburg , Auxiliary Bishop Manfred Grothe , opened the process of beatification . For the postulator of the process the Dernbacher sister Christiane Humpert was appointed. The episcopal delegate is the Jesuit Georg Schmidt, who heads the test procedure.

literature

S. Michael Westerholz: Luise Löwenfels and her family in the collection sheet of the Historisches Verein Ingolstadt , 111th year, 2002, pp. 189–270.
S. Michael Westerholz: The fate of the Jewish nun Luiese Loewenfels from Trabelsdorf - The Path of the Poor Maid to Auschwitz , in: MESUSA 4/2004, Traces of the Jewish Past at Aisch, Aurach, Ebrach and Seebach, pp. 269–309.

A. de Haas, Art .: Sister M. Aloysia (Luise) Löwenfels , in: Helmut Moll (Ed. On behalf of the German Bishops' Conference), Witnesses for Christ. Das deutsche Martyrologium des 20. Jahrhundert , Paderborn et al. 1999, 7th revised and updated edition 2019, pp. 1068-1071, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 .

Web links

Entry in the Central Database of the Names of Holocaust Victims at the Yad Vashem Memorial

Individual evidence

↑ Felix M. Schandl: "I saw the Church grow out of my people". Edith Stein's Christian relationship to Judaism and its practical consequences. In: Teresianum 43 (1992/1), pp. 53-107; here: p. 103 f.
↑ ^a ^b Beatification proceedings opened. Dernbacher's sister murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. In: press release. Diocese of Limburg , October 20, 2015, accessed on September 18, 2018 .
^ Arnolda de Haas: Sister M. Aloysia (Luise) Löwenfels. In: Helmut Moll (ed.): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. Volume II. 7th, updated and revised edition, Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , pp. 1068-1071.

personal data
SURNAME	Löwenfels, Maria Aloysia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Löwenfels, Luise (maiden name); Löwenfels, Maria Aloysia Luise (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German nun and victim of the Holocaust
DATE OF BIRTH	July 5, 1915
PLACE OF BIRTH	Trabelsdorf , Upper Franconia
DATE OF DEATH	August 9, 1942
Place of death	Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp

[1] Felix M. Schandl: "I saw the Church grow out of my people". Edith Stein's Christian relationship to Judaism and its practical consequences. In: Teresianum 43 (1992/1), pp. 53-107; here: p. 103 f.

[Verf-2] Beatification proceedings opened. Dernbacher's sister murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942. In: press release. Diocese of Limburg , October 20, 2015, accessed on September 18, 2018 .

[3] Arnolda de Haas: Sister M. Aloysia (Luise) Löwenfels. In: Helmut Moll (ed.): Witnesses for Christ. The German martyrology of the 20th century. Volume II. 7th, updated and revised edition, Schöningh, Paderborn u. a. 2019, ISBN 978-3-506-78012-6 , pp. 1068-1071.