A fashionable couple

Lothar Prager and his Aryan girlfriend Grete Brix worked together in the Prager family business in the garment industry. They met in 1925, when Lothar was a travelling salesman and Grete the model accompanying him on each trip.

The fashionable couple are depicted here on holiday in Swinemünde, Germany (now Swinoujscie, Poland). Lothar was employed as a traveling salesman of women's clothing between 1921 and 1937. Lothar and Grete drove two cars, one full of stock. Travelling frequently for work afforded easy holiday opportunities. We can imagine that the pair could have been nearly inseparable.

By early 1935 Lothar and Grete decided to move in together before getting married. Lothar renovated his unit to suit their new lifestyle.

In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were passed, which excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying persons of ‘German or related blood.’ Couples of mixed relationships were denounced, often paraded on the streets and humiliated.

On 13 December 1935, on the 10-year anniversary of the day they first met, Grete wrote a farewell letter to Lothar from her home in Leipzig; the final end to their relationship.

“My Dear Lothar, In spite of all our differences, I have the desire to direct these lines to you with the request never to think of me in the manner you usually did: either very well or very badly. Maybe you can decide on a ‘middle way’… I will always be very grateful for everything… I also already know that I will not encounter during this life another man who has been so exceptionally good to me as you have been. But only you could have found a happier fate for both of us…”

After the farewell letter, Lothar and Grete never communicated or contacted each other again.

Lothar emigrated to Uruguay in September 1938. His parents, Wilhelm and Wanda Prager, and his sister Marie Kohn (nee Prager), were murdered during the Holocaust.