Nora Kronstein-Rosen was born to Robert and Ilona (née Neumann) Kronstein in 1925, probably in Vienna. In 1938, her mother fled with Nora and her older sister Gerda Kronstein to Vaduz, Liechtenstein. From 1939 onwards, Nora Kronstein-Rosen lived in Switzerland. She went to the Ecole d'Humanité (the School of Humanity), a reform pedagogic oriented boarding school. She studied art in Lausanne and at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zuerich (Zurich Art School) under Johannes Itten. After her mother's death Nora went to New York and London. Later she moved to Israel. Nora's sister is the historian Gerda Lerner.
Her mother, Ilona Kronstein (née Neumann), was born in Budapest in 1897 to Sigmund and Emma (née Deutsch) Neumann. In 1918, she met Robert Kronstein. The couple married a year later and moved to Vienna. In 1939, she moved to a small town near Nice, France and solely devoted herself to art. While Ilona tried many different art forms, she predominantly produced drawings. It was in Nice that she became friends with the painter Rudolf Ray Rapaport. In 1940 she was detained in the concentration camp at Gurs for several weeks. From 1941 onwards she began to show signs of multiple sclerosis. Her family managed with great difficulty to get her back to Liechtenstein in 1942 and to obtain medical assistance for her in Switzerland. She died in Zurich in 1948.
Ilona's sister, Margit Neuer (born 1899) was a physician and perished in Auschwitz. Her second sister Klara (born 1903) married Alexander Mueller, a psychiatrist and close co-worker of Alfred Adler. As a stateless person he was denied residence in several countries and forcibly sent across the border back to Germany, until he finally obtained residence in the Netherlands. After the Nazi takeover of the Netherlands, he and his wife fled to Budapest. After the end of the war they first returned to the Netherlands, and then found refuge in Switzerland, where Alexander Mueller accepted a position at the University of Zuerich. Klara and Alexander Mueller both died in 1968.
From the guide to the Nora Kronstein-Rosen Family Collection, 1937-2005, bulk 1938-1967, (Leo Baeck Institute)
