Curth, Helen Ollendorff

Helen O. Curth (1899-1982, born Helene Ollendorff in Breslau and nicknamed "Lene," later known as Helen in the United States) studied in Freiburg, Berlin, and Munich, and became a medical doctor and assistant to the noted physician Abraham Buschke (1868-1943). She married William Curth, another of Buschke's assistants, in 1927. They moved to the United States in 1931, and successfully continued their medical careers, primarily in dermatology. Their daughter Elisabeth married Edgar Lehman.

Helene was the daughter of Isidor Ollendorff (d. 1911) and Paula Ollendorff (1860, Kostenblut, Silesia - 1938, Jerusalem). Paula was a socially active liberal in Breslau, and among the co-founders of the Jewish Women’s Association (Jüdischer Frauenbund) in 1905. Their children were Friedrich (1889-1951) and Helene.

Paula Ollendorff's brother, Georg Ollendorff (1870-1940) was born in Kostenblut, Silesia (today Kostomłoty in Poland). Their older brother, Victor, left Germany for the United States a year before Georg was born, and the two brothers never met. In 1907 Georg became the director of the Breslau branch of the Rudolf Mosse publishing company. In 1908 he married Margarete née Muhr (1883-1973). Her older sister, Anna Muhr, was a close friend of Leo Baeck’s wife, Natalie. Georg and Margarete Ollendorff had two children, Ilse (1909-2008) and Robert (1912-1973). During World War I Georg served as an NCO first on the Polish and Danish borders, and from 1917 to the end of the war on the French front, for which he received the Iron Cross. Georg and Margarete emigrated to England in September 1939.

From the guide to the Helen Ollendorff Curth Collection, 1932-1997, bulk 1933-1934, (Leo Baeck Institute)