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Wharton, Karin M., 1915-2014

 Person

Biography

Half-sister of Henry Lowenstein. Formerly Karin Steinberg. She was born March 16, 1915, in Helsinki to Maria and Erich Steinberg. Her mother was an artist who had studied at the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Her father, an architect, served in the Russian army constructing fortifications and buildings for Tsar Nicholas II in Helsinki. When the Russian Revolution broke out in 1917, the family fled to Estonia and then Germany. Wharton's widowed mother moved to Berlin, where she met and married Dr. Max Lowenstein, a physician who loved theater and art. Wharton was 10 when Henry was born, and the children enjoyed the culture of Berlin in its golden days of the 1920s. German composer Kurt Weill often visited their home, along with many others in the thriving art scene: musicians, dancers, painters and architects. But that all stopped when Adolf Hitler came to power. Although Wharton's parents were not Jewish, her stepfather and half-brother were Jewish, so she was considered the same. In 1943, she and her mother joined one of the most significant events of opposition to the Holocaust: the Rosenstrasse Protest. Shortly after the Germans were defeated in the Battle of Stalingrad, the Gestapo rounded up the last Jews living in Berlin — about 1,800 Jewish men, almost all married to non-Jewish women. Wharton's stepfather was among those men. Hundreds of German women faced off with Gestapo agents holding machine guns and demanding that their husbands be released. Four weeks after the war ended, Wharton went to work as an assistant to Otto Grotewohl, who became a leader of the Social Democratic Party in Germany. One day, she became part of a secret meeting between Grotewohl and Wilhelm Pieck, leader of the German Communists. Hearing of their plans against the Western Allies, she made an extra copy of the plan and passed the information to an American contact, which put her in great danger. The next day, she was riding in Grotewohl's limousine — one of the few in Berlin — when Russian soldiers surrounded it, then took control, ready to take her to prison. But when the Russians stopped at various places to show the limousine to their friends, the chauffeur hit the gas and escaped to the American zone. Because Wharton had betrayed the Communists, her life was in danger, so the Americans arranged for her and her family to emigrate to the U.S. in 1946. In New York, she worked at the Museum of Natural History. One day, she planned a lunch date with a friend, diplomat Richard Sears, whom she had met in Berlin when he worked as a top official at the U.S. Office of Military Government. Sears, who later co-founded Friends of Chamber Music in Denver, suddenly had to fly to Berlin, so he sent a friend in his place for the date. Karin fell in love with that friend, a journalist named James Wharton, and they were married until his death in the mid-1960s. Their son, Jeffery Wharton, is an archaeologist based in Aztec, N.M. In 1967, she moved to Denver to join her half-brother, who was producing shows for the Bonfils Theatre, later called the Lowenstein Theater.

Found in 15 Collections and/or Records:

Clothing Ration Card, between 1940-1945

 Item
Identifier: B333.02.0001.0002.00024
Abstract

Clothing ration card issued to Karin Steinberg. The front cover of the card is filled out by hand with Karin's name and address and stamped with the name and address of a shoemaker, "Clemens Polley, Bülowstraße 3." The back cover is stamped with the date, June 19, 1940. The inside of the card contains lists of articles of clothing and their value. The edges of the card were ration coupons and most are missing.

Dates: between 1940-1945

Heinrich Loewenstein and Karin Steinberg, 1939 May 1

 Item
Identifier: B333.01.01.00012
Abstract

Heinrich Loewenstein [Henry Lowenstein] and Karin Steinberg pose together on a sidewalk in Berlin, Germany on May 1, 1939, May Day. May 1 was declared National Labour Day and adopted by the Nazi's as one of their holidays. On May 1, 1939, Hitler and other Nazi Party leaders gave speeches at Berlin's Olympic Stadium and Nazi flags were hung around Berlin. A few weeks after this photograph was taken Heinrich left Germany on the Kindertransport.

Dates: 1939 May 1

HUNGER, 1945

 Item
Identifier: B333.02.01.00006
Abstract

"HUNGER," a drawing by Marie Loewenstein. Marie drew this picture of her daughter Karin Steinberg on a piece of scrap paper with a bit of burnt wood from bomb damage.

Dates: 1945

Hunger, 1945

 Item
Identifier: B333.08.0003.00005
Abstract

Charcoal drawing on paper of young woman sitting on single bed (Maria Loewenstein's daughter Karin Steinberg. Her shoulders are hunched and her lower arms rest on the top her thighs. She looks off behind the artist’s right side with a vacant stare. The bed has a pillow and blanket but the rest of the area is bare. The drawing was done on wall paper with charcoal from bombed buildings in Berlin.

Dates: 1945

Karin Steinberg and Monica, circa 1941

 Item
Identifier: B333.02.01.00002
Abstract

Left to right: Karin Steinberg and Monica sit on a park bench with their arms around each other. Monica moved in with the Loewenstein family after her Jewish mother died as her father was a Nazi. She later committed suicide.

Dates: circa 1941

Loewenstein Family Portrait, 1939 May

 Item
Identifier: B333.01.0001.0001.00007
Abstract

Left to right: Heinrich Loewenstein [Henry Lowenstein], Karin Steinberg, Max "Vatchen" Loewenstein, and Marie "Mautzy" Loewenstein pose for a family portrait in Berlin, Germany shortly before Heinrich left for England on the Kindertransport.

Dates: 1939 May

Loewenstein Family Portrait, circa 1929

 Item
Identifier: B333.01.01.00007
Abstract

Left to right: Max Loewenstein, Heinrich Loewenstein [Henry Lowenstein], Karin Steinberg, and Marie Loewenstein posed for a family portrait.

Dates: circa 1929

Loewenstein Family Portrait, 1939 May

 Item
Identifier: B333.01.01.00013
Abstract

Left to right: Heinrich Loewenstein [Henry Lowenstein], Karin Steinberg, Max "Vatchen" Loewenstein, and Marie "Mautzy" Loewenstein pose for a family portrait in Berlin, Germany shortly before Heinrich left for England on the Kindertransport.

Dates: 1939 May

Lowenstein Family Papers and Art

 Collection
Identifier: B333
Abstract Ernst Heinrich Loewenstein [Henry Lowenstein] was born in Berlin, Germany in 1925 to a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. To escape Nazi brutality, he was sent on the Kindertransport to England in 1939. His parents, Dr. Max and Maria Loewenstein, and his half-sister, Karin Steinberg, remained in Berlin during World War II. Shortly after the war the family emigrated to the United States to avoid persecution. Materials in this collection include legal documents and correspondence,...
Dates: 1848-2014; Majority of material found within 1939-1948

Oral History Interview with Henry Lowenstein, 2011 February 5-20

 Item
Identifier: B333.07.0001.0007.00002
Abstract

An unedited video interview with Henry Lowenstein on three DVDs. A fourth DVD holds the MP4 copies of the interview.

Dates: 2011 February 5-20