Ernst Loewy (1920–2002)

Ernst Loewy was born to a Jewish family in Krefeld, Germany. His parents were Erna and Richard Loewy. He left gymnasium (high school) in 1935 without a degree after being met with anti-Jewish hatred during the Nazi regime. His parents sent him for safety to the British Mandate of Palestine, where he first lived in Kiryat Anavim, a kibbutz near Jerusalem, and worked in agriculture. He then trained as a bookseller in Tel Aviv and became a librarian. In 1944, he married Regina Schaller, with whom he had three sons. The family moved to Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, in 1956. There he worked in Goethe University Frankfurt's library and headed its Judaica Department. He published the book Literatur unterm Hakenkreuz (Literature under the Swastika) in 1966, followed by Das Dritte Reich und seine Dichtung (The Third Reich and Its Poetry), which went through several editions. Letters he wrote home to his parents between 1935 and 1938 were published in 1997 under the title Jugend in Palästina: Briefe an die Eltern, 1935–1938 (Youth in Palestine: Letters to Parents, 1935-1938). In 1984, Loewy became one of the founding members and the chair of the Gesellschaft für Exilforschung (Society for Exile Research), and publisher of the group's newsletter, Exil.