Lotte Marcus was born May 9, 1927 in Vienna, Austria to Oskar and Margarete Lustig. Lotte recalls having a very happy childhood; she spent a lot of time with her extended family and her days were filled with many joyful activities. Among which was figure skating, a beloved sport Lotte competed in.

Her parents were not religious, and Lotte only attended services out of respect for her devout grandfather. Looking back, Lotte would have described her childhood self as a “devout atheist.” Despite her own non-attachment to it, following the annexation of Austria in 1938, religion became an issue in her everyday life. Lotte was soon banned from her favorite activities, including figure skating, for being Jewish.

The Lustig family left Vienna on January 13, 1939 and eventually made their way to Shanghai and lived there for the remainder of the war.

You can read Lotte’s full story in the article below, entitled, From Polite Betrayal to Moral Courage: A Psychological Journey with Lotte (née Lustig) Marcus (May 9, 1927 – November 19, 2022), written by Professor Kevin Ostoyich.

 

 

Left: Lotte Marcus (center) with Danny Spungen (left) and fellow Holocaust survivor, Harry Katz (right). June 2, 2017.

 

 

 

[Note: Our website is a work in progress. More photos and artifacts of Lotte’s will be added to this page. In the meantime, if you have any questions about Lotte or the following article, please send an email to Mikayla Hoppe at: mikayla@spungenfoundation.org]