Curt Lowens

Curt Lowens (November 17, 1925 – May 8, 2017) was a German-born American actor who performed on Broadway, in feature films, and in television, as well as a Holocaust survivor who participated in the rescue of approximately 150 Jewish children during World War II.

Born Curt Löwenstein in Allenstein, East Prussia (now Olsztyn, Poland), Lowens grew up in a family shaped by professional and civic life. His father practiced law and held a respected standing in the community, while his mother was involved with several local Jewish organizations. Following the Nazi rise to power, his father's legal practice suffered as clients withdrew, prompting the family to relocate to Berlin, where the city's larger Jewish population was expected to offer some measure of security. Lowens continued his education there and prepared for his bar mitzvah under Rabbi Manfred Swarsensky of the Fasanenstrasse Synagogue. After the violence of Kristallnacht in November 1938, the Nazis shuttered his school, and in early 1939 he received his bar mitzvah in a school auditorium alongside 34 other young men.

His older brother Heinz emigrated to Britain in the months before World War II began. Lowens and his parents attempted to reach the United States by traveling through the neutral Netherlands in early 1940, but German forces invaded the Netherlands on the very day the family was set to depart from Rotterdam. During the first two years of the occupation, his father held a desk position with the Jewish Council in Amsterdam, an arrangement that initially shielded the family from deportation. In June 1943, however, Lowens and his mother were unexpectedly rounded up and sent to the Westerbork transit camp, from which they were released through his father's connections. The family then separated and went into hiding individually, as single individuals were more easily placed with rescuers. Lowens assumed the false identity of Ben Joosten. He was able to visit his mother, who was being treated under a false name at a hospital operated by Catholic nuns, before her death in January 1944.

During this period, Lowens became an active participant in a Dutch rescue network that included Hanna Van de Voort and Nico Dohmen. By the end of the war, this group alone had helped bring approximately 150 Jewish children to safety. Lowens also assisted two downed American Army Air Corps flyers, an act for which he later received a commendation from General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Following liberation, he served as an interpreter with the British Eighth Corps, assisting in the house arrest of remaining Nazi leaders in Flensburg, Germany in mid-May 1945.

In 1947, Lowens emigrated to the United States with his father and stepmother. He trained as an actor at the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York and built a stage career that brought him to Broadway between 1951 and 1965. His Broadway credits include Stalag 17, The First Gentleman, and Postmark Zero. He went on to appear in more than 100 films and television productions beginning in 1960. Lowens died on May 8, 2017, in Beverly Hills at the age of 91.