Eugenie Fuchs, “Winter Landscape”, Oil on Canvas, 1931. Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin, Inv.-Nr. SM 2014-0449
Before the opening reception in late March for the new exhibit, Stolen Heart: The Theft of Jewish Property in Berlin’s Historic City Center, 1933–1945, some very special guests met to share how the expropriation of Berlin’s Jews had touched their own families’ lives. Carolyn Winchester, a grandniece of the artist Eugenie Fuchs, whose story is told in the exhibition, was not able to attend but sent a moving letter to be read in her absence. Her great-aunt was an accomplished painter who had studied with Lovis Corvinth before fleeing to Paris. Fuchs was deported from France in 1943 and murdered at Majdanek.
“Eugenie Fuchs was the cousin of my grandfather and aunt to my mother. I would love to have known her. While knowledge of Eugenie has been fragmented by time and events, letters to family members scattered and lost, her place in our family is not forgotten. Like most in our family, Eugenie was reputed to have a great sense of humor, was warm and generous. She had strong ties to her parents, her four older brothers and her extended family. It was only after the early death of her father in 1893 that the twenty-year-old Eugenie really started to paint….Most of what she painted is now either missing or destroyed. I would, on behalf of the Fuchs family, like to thank both Lutz Mauersberger at the Berlin Mitte-Archives and the Leo Baeck Institute for this celebration of the life and paintings of a much loved family member. May her memory be a blessing.” —Carolyn Winchester