Curt Lowens

Curt Lowens (born 17 November 1925 - 8 May 2017) was a stage, feature film, and television actor, as well as a Holocaust survivor and rescuer who saved approximately 150 Jewish children during the Holocaust.
Born Curt Löwenstein in the East Prussian town of Allenstein (now Olsztyn, Poland), he had a father who was a respected lawyer and a mother who was active in several local Jewish community organizations. His father's career declined due to the loss of clients following the Nazi takeover of Germany, prompting the family to move to Berlin in the hope that the city's large Jewish community would offer greater protection. Young Curt continued his education and prepared for his bar mitzvah under the guidance of Rabbi Manfred Swarsensky of the Fasanenstrasse Synagogue. Following the violence of Kristallnacht (also known as the November Pogrom) in November 1938, the Nazis closed his school. In early 1939, Lowens received his bar mitzvah in a school auditorium alongside 34 other youths.
Lowens' older brother, Heinz, successfully emigrated to Britain a few months before the start of World War II. Curt and his parents planned to emigrate to the United States via the neutral Netherlands in early 1940. However, while waiting to depart from Rotterdam, the Germans invaded the Netherlands on their intended day of departure. During the first two years of the German occupation, Curt's father worked a desk job for the Jewish Council in Amsterdam, which initially saved the family from deportation to Auschwitz. Nonetheless, Curt and his mother were rounded up and deported to Westerbork in June 1943, though they were released through his father's connections.
The family subsequently went into hiding, each separately, as individuals were more easily placed in the homes of rescuers. Curt assumed the false identity of "Ben Joosten." He managed to visit his mother when she, also under a false name, was treated at a hospital run by Catholic nuns; she died in January 1944. Meanwhile, Curt became active in a network of Dutch rescuers, including Hanna van der Voort and Nico Dohmen, aiding Jewish children in hiding. By the end of the war, this group alone had rescued some 150 Jewish children. Curt Lowens also aided two downed American Army Air Corps flyers, for which he later received a commendation from General Dwight D. Eisenhower. After liberation, he joined the British Eighth Corps as an interpreter, aiding the British in the house arrest of the remaining Nazi leaders in Flensburg, Germany, in mid-May 1945.
In 1947, Curt, his father, and step-mother immigrated to the United States. Under the name Curt Lowens, he trained to become an actor, studying at the Herbert Berghof Studio in New York. His career remained active until his last days, with appearances in well over 100 films and TV shows since 1960.