Dresden III; Lithograph over Monoprint, 70 x 100 cms, Unique, 2013.

Dresden III refers to aspects of the Isakowitz family’s urban life in Dresden. After various temporary addresses, they rented a spacious first floor apartment at Werderstrasse 44, in the north-eastern part of Dresden Plauen. Amongst their neighbours was the lawyer Martin Reichenbach and his family, who lived next door at no 42. Also Jews, their son Peter escaped to England and first alerted me to this connection. The houses and the street shown in the print no longer exist, destroyed by the bombing. Stolpersteine ‘stumbling blocks; laid outside the previous location of the houses for members of both families, the Isakowitz’s and the Reichenbach’s, were consecrated in September 2015.

Plauen was a recently developed suburb area south of the Altstadt (Old Town) and the main railway station. Characterised by large detached villas with handsome facades and spacious gardens, it was taken up by the middle and professional classes. Werderstrasse 44 was on the corner of the Lukas Platz, close to the Lukas Kirche, an imposing, now reconstructed, late Victorian Lutheran church and important Dresden landmark. Number 44 contained a number of apartments, and was centrally heated. The Isakowitz family apartment had a bathroom, a conservatory known as the ‘winter garden’  maid’s quarters and telephone.

From 1926 Lore attended the Deutsche Oberschule in Plauen, now the Gymnasium Dresden Plauen. Built in 1896, it remains largely unchanged. Lore kept a remarkable archive of her time at school including school reports, photo albums of school events and trips, and her Abitur certificate, taken in spring 1933. A promising, though by no means outstanding, student, Lore wanted, like her father, to study medicine. When she realised the impossibility of this aspiration in 1933, as a Jew under National Socialism, she turned to languages, for which she had a natural facility. Her efforts in this direction can be seen in the context of her relationship with Professor Victor Klemperer. Lore also kept photo albums of her foreign travels with her parents, many of which were by car.

When the family emigrated they were able to do so with all of their possessions, at a price. The family archive contains copious lists of every item shipped to London including jewellery, furniture and pictures for which the regime charged a considerable fee.  When the family  moved to London, Lore kept up her friendships with all those fellow pupils and friends who had managed to emigrate, including her classmate Leo Jelinek. Many German Jewish émigrés choose to settle in North West London, where they formed a distinct and distinguished community. Their impact on British life and culture was immense.