Fittko, Lisa (1909–2005)
Fittko, Lisa (1909–2005)
Austrian-born Jewish resistance leader. Born Lisa Eckstein in Uzhorod (then Austria-Hungary, now Ukraine), Aug 23, 1909; died Mar 12, 2005, in Chicago, Illinois; grew up in Vienna and Berlin; m. Johannes (Hans) Fittko (anti-Nazi journalist), c. 1934 (died 1960).
In partnership with husband, was active in resisting Nazism as exiles, living a precarious existence in Czechoslovakia, then Austria, Switzerland, Netherlands and France (1930s); remained at great risk from the Nazis, who continued to occupy the northern region of France, and met Varian Fry; played a crucial role in saving the lives of almost 1,500 endangered refugees, many of them world-famous artists and intellectuals, including Marc Chagall, Jacques Lipchitz, Max Ernst, Wanda Landowska, Hannah Arendt and André Breton (1940–41), helping them flee Nazi-occupied France over a perilous Pyrenees escape route known as the F-Route (Fittko-Route); with husband, escaped to Cuba (1941), finally settling in US; lived in Chicago and was active in the peace movement. Awarded Distinguished Service Medal, 1st Class, by Federal Republic of Germany (1986).
See also memoirs Escape Through the Pyrenees (1991) and Solidarity and Treason: Resistance and Exile, 1933–1940 (1993); and Women in World History.