A Woman of Valour

Sonia Newell – Development Officer – Alumni & Community Relations

A woman of valour: Lotte Weiss
28 November 1923 – 12 February 2021

Lotte with Project Heritage students in 2013 – from the Emanuel School archives

As many of you know, each year our Year 6 students participate in Project Heritage, where in groups of five or six peers, they interview a Living Historian and then produce a manuscript/video and/or other medium of that Historian’s life. This is then presented to the whole Year Group as well as to their parents, grandparents and all the Living Historians of that year.

Over the years, Lotte Weiss who passed away last Friday, aged 97, was one such Living Historian, long before she had a direct family connection with the School. Lotte was the sole member of her family to survive the Holocaust, and for many years she volunteered as a survivor guide at the Sydney Jewish Museum, from the museum’s inception in 1992 until a few years ago, due to ill-health. She was a woman of great courage and resilience, very generous with her time to enlighten and educate some of our students about her, her life as a survivor, and her family. Little did Lotte know at those times of being one of our Living Historians for Project Heritage, that she would eventually have two great granddaughters here as students. There was a most enlightening interview with Lotte and her daughter-in-law Thea Weiss in the Sydney Morning Herald published in September 2018.

Thea is married to Lotte’s son John and they are grandparents of Nava Weiss, Year 4 and her sister Kayla in Year K. Lotte was a living, breathing inspiration to her family and to the countless other people she encountered. May her memory be a blessing.

Love is in the air

Rosa and Sigi with their children Alice and Philip, Zuric, December 1946. (SJM Collection)

Last Sunday, on Valentine’s Day, there was a post on The Sydney Jewish Museum’s Facebook page that caught my eye for a number of reasons – not just that it acknowledged true love, but also because it featured Emanuel grandmother and child Holocaust survivor, Alice Loeb and her parents. The first thing her parents (Rosa and Sigi) did when they fled Vienna for safety in Switzerland was to get married, first in the Registry Office and then in the Synagogue on the 15 July 1938.

When they wrote to Rosa’s parents to say they were married, Rosa’s mother baked a Chocolate Torte and sent it to them. When Rosa and Sigi cut the cake, they found gold wedding rings inside to replace the wrappers of Swiss chocolates that they had been using as wedding bands.

Mazal tov

Mazal tov to our Emanuel student winners of the 2020 B’nai B’rith/JNF/AJN Changemaker Awards, as featured on my page in Ma Nishma last week. Year 12 students Lara Fosbery, Chloe Miller and Liat Granot received their winner’s trophy and cheque at the official presentation on Tuesday evening.

Well done to them and all other winners and nominees, and we look forward to seeing more Emanuel nominations for this year’s event.