Paula Straus

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Stumbling block for Paula Straus, Gablenberger Hauptstrasse 173, Stuttgart

Paula Straus (born January 31, 1894 in Stuttgart ; died February 10, 1943 in Auschwitz concentration camp ) was a German goldsmith and silversmith .

Life

Paula Straus was born as the second daughter of the businessman Leon Straus (d. 1925) and his wife Clara, b. Levi (1870–1943), born. She attended the State Higher Girls' School in Stuttgart and joined the Wandervogel movement early on. From 1911 to 1916 Straus learned goldsmithing at the State Higher Arts and Crafts School for the Precious Metals Industry in Schwäbisch Gmünd . From 1916 to 1919 she worked as an assistant in the gold and silversmith I. Köhler in Frankfurt am Main and then returned to Stuttgart to the Württembergische Kunstgewerbeschule am Weißenhof, where she became a master student of Professor Paul Haustein . In 1921 Paula Straus passed her master's examination as a goldsmith here. At first she continued to work as a master craftsman at the arts and crafts school and quickly gained popularity through her work.

In 1924 Straus showed some of her work in the large Stuttgart Werkbund exhibition Die Form . In 1925 the first solo exhibition followed in the Kunsthalle Mannheim , probably also through the mediation of her cousin Herbert Tannenbaum , an art dealer in Mannheim. In the same year Straus went to Heilbronn and worked for the silver goods factory Peter Bruckmann & Sons . As early as 1926, her designs for Bruckmann were highlighted on the occasion of the exhibition “Württembergisches Kunsthandwerk” in the Landesgewerbemuseum Stuttgart : “The design principle of 'Form'”, according to the Stuttgarter Neue Tagblatt , “is most clearly shown to advantage in the metalwork, the P aula S trau ß [sic] in the workshops of Bruckmann, Heilbronn. That is almost the most 'modern' thing you can see at the exhibition. The line of devices is wonderfully illuminating in its sheer clarity. ”Other exhibitions at which the work of Paula Straus were shown were the Mostra Internazionale delle Arti Decorative in 1925 , the exhibition Form ohne Ornament in Zurich in 1927, and the World Exhibition in Barcelona in 1929 1930 the Exposition de la société des artistes décorateurs in Paris. In 1929 Paula Straus was given a teaching position at the State College for Crafts and Architecture in Weimar.

In addition to her company studio in Heilbronn, Straus set up a private workshop in Gundelfingen . The Stuttgart painter Reinhold Nägele , who was friends with Paula Straus, painted two views of the village and castle Niedergundelfingen as they could be seen from Paula Straus' house.

On January 31, 1933, Paula Straus left the Bruckmann & Sons company for economic reasons. Straus had set up her own workshop on Azenbergstrasse in Stuttgart, and from February 1, 1933, she also took up a new position at the Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik in Geislingen an der Steige . However, under the pressure of anti-Jewish decrees, she had to give up this position before the end of 1933.

Paula Straus now worked as a freelance artist, whereby her scope of action was increasingly restricted. In the summer of 1935, for example, she exhibited at the Jewish art exhibition organized by the Jewish Art Association in Stuttgart. When the pressure on the Jewish Germans grew, Paula Straus also thought about emigration. A recently acquired house on Gablenbergstrasse in Stuttgart had to be sold under pressure at a ridiculous price. After the attempt to emigrate to the Netherlands failed, Paula Straus was banned from working on January 1, 1939. Together with her mother, she was sent to a so-called Jewish house in the Werfmershalde in Stuttgart. Straus had to go to the Jewish retirement home in Herrlingen near Ulm for “work assignment” ; from May 1941 she was employed as a teacher in a home in Haigerloch .

On August 22, 1942, Paula Straus was deported to Theresienstadt from Killesberg in Stuttgart , not far from her previous place of work for the arts and crafts school . On January 29, 1943, she was deported from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz on the “Death Transport” Ct and murdered there on February 10, 1943 in the gas chamber.

For Paula Straus and her mother Klara, 173 stumbling blocks were laid in front of the house at Gablenberger Hauptstrasse .

Her long-forgotten work was rediscovered through exhibitions in the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe and the Bröhan Museum Berlin. She is one of the first female industrial designers in Germany. Her estate - 500 letters, photographs and work drawings for silver implements, jewelery and Judaica - was donated to the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2015 .

literature

  • Oskar Wolfer: The organization of the Württemberg School of Applied Arts . In: Fritz Schneider, Julius Frank (Hrsg.): Art and culture in Swabia: (Stuttgarter Kunstsommer 1924) . Stuttgart: Sentus-Verlag, 1924, ill. P. 132 (“Siegelring, Paula Strauss”), p. 135 (“Neck jewelery, design: Prof. Haustein, granulation work: Paula Strauss, glass cutting: Prof. von Eiff”)
  • Eduard Reinacher: Goldsmith's work by Paula Straus. In: Decorative Art, illustrated magazine for applied arts, Vol .: 37 = Jg. 32. 1928/29, pp. 240–243 ( digitized version )
  • Silver from Heilbronn for the world: P. Bruckmann & Sons (1805 - 1973) . City Museums Heilbronn, 11.5. until 9.9.2002; Bröhan Museum State Museum for Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Functionalism, Berlin, February to May 2002; German Blade Museum Solingen, February to April 2003 / [Ed .: Städtische Museen Heilbronn. Red .: Karlheinz Fuchs] Heilbronn: Städtische Museen, 2001, ISBN 3-930811-90-1 , pp. 228–229 (biographical data), cat. No. 47, 48, 50, 99, 171.
  • Women silver. Paula Straus, Emmy Roth & Co. Silversmiths of the Bauhaus era. Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe 2011, ISBN 978-3-937345-47-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ St .: Württembergisches Kunsthandwerk: Exhibition in the Landesgewerbemuseum . In: Stuttgarter Neues Tagblatt, evening edition, Saturday, November 13, 1926, No. 532, p. 2.
  2. ↑ biography on kunsthaus-kende.de
  3. ↑ Joachim W. Storck: "... my past adopted home Gundelfingen ...". How the Stuttgart goldsmith Paula Straus found and lost her refuge . In: Roland Deigendesch (Ed.): Knights and farmers in the Lautertal. 900 years of Bichishausen, Gundelfingen, Hundersingen . 2005.
  4. ↑ Information in the victim database
  5. ^ Exhibition 2011 in the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe
  6. ^ Exhibition 2011 in the Bröhan Museum Berlin
  7. ↑ a b The Jewish Museum receives the estate of the goldsmith and designer Paula Straus. Communication dated April 20, 2015.
personal data
SURNAME Straus, Paula
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gold and silversmith
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1894
PLACE OF BIRTH Stuttgart
DATE OF DEATH February 10, 1943
Place of death Auschwitz concentration camp