Anni Eisler-Lehmann

The trained opera singer Anni Eisler-Lehmann, born in Mainz, has her first singing engagement in Würzburg in 1932/33. After the National Socialists come into power, she moves to Austria in May 1933 and then to Czechoslovakia in 1935. Despite her achievements, she is forced to flee to France, where she is capture and imprisoned. She survives her ordeal, partly due to her involvement in concerts in the concentration camp. Her music gives people hope. She returns to Mainz in 1958 and founds the Anni Eisler-Lehmann Foundation for young Jewish singers in 1997. In 1999 she is awarded the Gutenberg-Plakette of the City of Mainz for her work with the foundation.