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Paula Straus

Goldsmith, Silver­smith, Indus­trial Designer, Teacher

Paula Straus, born on 31 Jan 1894 in Stuttgart, Germany, and murdered on 10 Feb 1943 at Auschwitz extermi­nation camp, was one of the first women to work as an indus­trial designer in Germany. In the 1920s, she established her­self as a gold­smith and silver­smith in a male-dominated field.

Paula Straus received her education at the Higher State School of Arts and Crafts and Technical College for the Pre­cious Metals Industry in Schwä­bisch Gmünd; I. Köhler gold and silversmith’s work­shop in Frankfurt am Main; Royal School of Arts and Crafts Teaching and Testing Work­shops in Stuttgart, and as a master student with Paul Haustein.

Straus not only produced individual luxury items but also designed serial silver­ware for well-known companies such as Peter Bruckmann & Sons and WMF (Württemberg Metal­ware Factory). At Bruckmann & Sons, she designed both Christian and Jewish ritual objects. Despite the intensi­fying anti-Jewish legis­lation of the Nazi regime, she continued to work as a gold­smith. When her attempt to emigrate to the Nether­lands failed, she took positions in Jewish homes for the elderly.

In 1942, she and her mother were de­ported to Theresien­stadt, but were later separated when Paula Straus was sent to the Auschwitz exter­mination camp, where she was murdered.

Black and white photograph of a woman.

Pass­port photo of Paula Straus, photo: Clara Baur, Stuttgart, 1935; Jewish Museum Berlin, gift of Evelyn Grill-Storck in memory of Prof. Dr. Joachim Wolfgang Storck

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