Lilly Kramer (Kovler)

Born:	08-11-1918
Faculty:	Philosophical School
Category:	Expelled student

Lilly KRAMER (married KOVLER), born on August 11^th, 1918 in Vienna/Austro-Hungarian Empire (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), daughter of Josef Kramer (1876-1941, pharmacist) and Grete Kramer, née Pollak (1891-1941), lived in Vienna's 4^th district, corner Trappelgasse 11/Wiedner Hauptstrasse 75/12. In summer 1937, she had graduated at the humanistic Gymnasium in Vienna's 5t^h district, Rainergasse 39 (Elisabethgymnasium, today: Rainergymnasium) and in the fall term 1937/38, she began studying pharmaceutics at the University of Vienna. She was last enrolled in the spring term 1938 at the Philosophical School in the 1^st year and took courses in pharmaceutics and chemistry. In 1938 she was forced to quit her studies and to leave the University of Vienna for racist reason after the takeover of power of National-Socialism. Her brother Mag.pharm Fritz Kramer (1914-1992), pharmacist too, who had also been expelled from the University of Vienna in 1938, wrote to their cousin Rudolf Gleissner, the son of a sister of their father and a pharmacist in New York, immediately after the "Anschluss", asking how things were in the USA, and her brother received an affidavit from him within a few weeks so that he could leave for the USA. While her brother was able to obtain a visa for the USA in Vienna as late as May, it was not until almost a year later that she was able to get out of Austria and to Great Britain on a housemaid's visa and lived and worked in Northaw/England. She was then able to obtain a U.S. visa at the U.S. Embassy in London on February 28^th, and left on the ship SS Aquitania via Southampton, England, on April 8^th, 1939, arriving in New York, USA, on April 14^th, 1939.
Already before that, their father's pharmacy ("Haydn-Apotheke" in Vienna's 5^th district, Margaretenguertel 98) in Vienna had been "Aryanized" - expropriated by forced sale far below value - and soon after their departure, their apartment was also "Aryanized" and both parents were forcibly relocated to a Jewish collective apartment in Hollandstrasse in Vienna's 2^nd district, Leopoldstadt. In 1941 both parents were deported from there to Litzmannstadt [Łódź/Poland], where her father still worked briefly as a pharmacist - both parents did not survive long. Lilly Kramer first moved to the USA to live with her brother in Richmond, Virginia, soon after she found employment as a maid with a famous cartoonist - Harry ("Bud") Fisher (1885-1957), in Deal, New Jersey and her brother moved in with her. In April 1940 she lived as a boarder with Austrian born Abe and Celia Speer in 1528 St. Johns Place in New York City, Kings, NY and worked as a waitress in a restaurant. Attempts to bring their parents to the U.S. as well failed, as they were born in the former Czechoslovakia, thus falling into the very small Czech immigration quota. They learned from an aunt that the parents had been deported to Łódź and had perished soon after. Lilly Kramer got married to Richard Irving Kovler (1910-2006) on October 24^th, 1940 in New York, NY, and they moved to Waterbury, Connecticut. She became a U.S. citizen as Lilly Kovler and in December 1942 their daughter Dorothy (later married Harris) was born, and in 1954 their son Kenneth Jay Kovler. Lilly Kovler, née Kramer, died on February 5^th, 1990 in the USA and was buried at Har Sinai Cemetery in Owings Mills, Baltimore County, Maryland, USA.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/Enrollment forms ("Nationale") PHIL 1937-1938; Austrian State Archive, OeStA/ Archive of the Republic, AdR / E-uReang / VVSt / VA / 18759; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 421; information from Dr. Liesl Fritsch, Vienna 2013; FRITSCH 2007, 63; LEIMKUGEL 1999, 74 u. 221; Alfred Fehringer, Arisierung und Rückstellung von Apotheken in Österreich, Göttingen u. Wien 2013, 142-144; Benedikt Zanzinger, "Arisierung" und Restitution der Wiener Apotheken, ungedr. phil. Dipl. Univ. Wien, Wien 2013, 46, 85-90; www.ancestry.de; findagrave; information from her niece Marion Dole, Los Angeles 01/2019 and 03/2021; interview from Marion Dole with Frederick Kramer from April 19^th, 1989.

Herbert Posch