Lore Krüger

Lore Kruger (1914–2009) was a German-Jewish photographer and Nazi resistor, known most notably for the photographs taken in pre-World War II Europe. Born in Magdeburg, Germany, as Lore Heinemann on March 11, 1914, Kruger was part of a Jewish-German family. She grew up taking photographs for fun and soon it became her career. As her family fled from rising Nazi sentiment in Germany, Lore Kruger and her camera captured emigration and resistance in turbulent pre-World War II Europe.

Biography

Lore Heinemann was born into a non-practicing Jewish family in Magdeburg, Germany. Her father was an engineer. As Nazi sentiment rose, so did the anxiety for Jewish families throughout Germany. After her father lost his job at a bank, her parents relocated. Kruger travelled to London, Mallorca, Barcelona, Paris, Marseille, Trinidad, New York, Wisconsin, and Berlin. This was all in escape of Nazi sentiment as well as the second World War. Lore Kruger brought her camera with her and took pictures in all of these places. She became an icon of the emancipated women in the avant-garde movement of the 1930s and 1940s.

Career

Kruger fled Germany in 1933 to move to London. While there, she worked as an au pair. After London, she followed her parents to Mallorca where they had relocated after her father lost his job. Next, she moved to Barcelona where she studied photography with Zerkowitz. The next move was to Paris, where she studied in a Bauhaus studio under Florence Henri. While in France, she practiced her photography and was shown to excel in portraits. She worked to perfect her trade and soon entered into the group of great female photographers of the time. She stood with the anti-Nazi agitators at this time as well. However, Kruger was still a German in France, while France was at war with Germany. She was therefore was considered an enemy. Kruger was sent to an internment camp in 1940 where she stayed for six months. After being released, she fled with her fiancé, Ernst Kruger, on a ship destined for Mexico. With both Mexican as well as U.S. visas, Kruger, her fiancé, and her sister, Gisela, hoped to gain refuge in North America. Unfortunately, on the journey, the ship was seized by the Dutch army. The three were placed in a British interment camp outside in Trinidad. After released, Kruger emigrated to New York. Lore Heinemann married Ernst Kruger in New York in 1942. Her and her new husband founded a newspaper called the German-American Newspaper. This was all done while still in exile from Nazi Germany. She worked primarily as an interpreter and translator, but also was a portrait photographer. Kruger and her family returned to Germany after the war in 1946 in hopes it would they would be able to "create anew" after the war. She worked as a translator of prolific American literature during this time to include the authors Mark Twain, Joseph Conrad, and Henry James.

After death

Kruger's photography career basically ended upon her return to Germany in 1946. Throughout her travels during her exile, she had collected 250 photographs ranging from gypsies to farms to prolific lawyers in New York. Irja Kratke and Cornelia Bastlein viewed her work shortly before Kruger's death, however Kruger was not interested in the publicity of an exhibition. After Kruger's death in 2009, Kratke and Bastlein worked hand in hand with C/O Berlin to be the first institution to exhibit this artist's work.