Maria Aloysia Löwenfels
Maria Aloysia Löwenfels (5 July 1915 – 9 August 1942) was a German nun. She converted from Judaism to Catholicism. In 1936, she fled to the convent of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ in Lutterade, Netherlands. In 1938, she was confirmed as a novice. On 9 August 1942, she was murdered in the gas chambers of concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. In 2015, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Limburg announced that a beatification process had been started. Biography. Löwenfels was born on 5 July 1915 in Trabelsdorf, Bavaria, Germany as Luise Löwenfels in a Jewish family. She went  to high school at the where she became attracted to Catholic faith. On 25 November 1935, Löwenfels was baptised in the convent of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ in Mönchengladbach against the wishes of her family. She started to work as a teacher. Löwenfels had been planning an escape to Great Britain. In 1936, one of the children accused her of being Jewish, and threatened to expose her to the Gestapo. Löwenfels fled the next morning to Geleen in the Netherlands. In Lutterade near Geleen, there was a convent of the Poor Handmaids which was founded by German nuns  who had fled Germany in 1875 during the "Kulturkampf". Löwenfels joined the convent, learned Dutch and started to work as a kindergarten teacher. On 17 September 1938, Löwenfels was confirmed by the Bishop of Roermond as a novice and named Maria Aloysia. Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940. Löwenfels was contacted by her brother that the family was trying to escape to the United States, however she decided to remain. In 1942, she was ordered to wear the Star of David. In February 1942, there was an audience of the religious leaders of the Netherlands with "Reichskommissar