Lucie Steindorff

Lucie Steindorff was born on April 1, 1879, in Dessau. She grew up with four siblings in a liberal Jewish family. As an adult, she worked in Leipzig as a piano teacher and lived at 2 Richterstraße. Because Lucie Steindorff was the sister of famous Egyptologist Georg Steindorff, there is a relatively large amount of information available about her life.

Her brother was a professor and the person after whom the University of Leipzig’s Egyptian Museum is named. As a renowned researcher, he left behind an estate comprising documents from decades of his work, as well as some personal and family-related materials. Lucie Steindorff’s fate can also be reconstructed due to her persecution as a Jew under National Socialism.

On the morning of January 13, 1941, house searches were conducted in Leipzig at the homes of Jews who were still living in the city. At that time, Ms. Steindorff was living as a subtenant at 20 Grassistraße. The Gestapo was searching for money that the Jewish population still had left. They found 500 marks on Lucie Steindorff, which she had set aside for her departure. As early as 1931, German citizens were required to pay taxes if they wanted to leave the country. Under the NSDAP, emigrating became particularly expensive for Jews. Ms. Steindorff was arrested on charges of a “foreign exchange offense” because of this discovery and imprisoned in the police jail on Wächterstraße in Leipzig.

Lucie Steindorff’s siblings had already emigrated to the USA in the 1930s and were trying to bring their sister over. Their efforts failed despite her brother’s prominence. On March 28, 1941, Ms. Steindorff was deported to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The Nazis murdered the then 63-year-old on May 10, 1942 at the Bernburg execution facility. That is where nearly 15.000 people were killed in the context of the “Euthanasia” murders – i.e. the systematic murder of disabled or mentally ill people. Also among them were about 5.000 detainees from concentration camps such as Ravensbrück.