Karin Rademacher Loewy

Died of natural causes at age 95 on Sept. 7, 2020 in Philadelphia, surrounded by her children. She was born on Sept. 2, 1925 in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland). She survived Nazi Germany and the Second World War, coming to Philadelphia and re-uniting with her father in 1947. Karin graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951. She married biologist Ariel Loewy and together they raised four children in Haverford, PA where he was professor at the college. They spent sabbaticals in Berkeley, CA, and Zagreb, Yugoslavia, and summers in Vermont. Karin was a life-long pacifist and anti-war activist. She was also a wonderful mother. At the age of 48, she decided to learn how to repair violins but could find no Philadelphia violin master who would train a middle-aged woman. Accordingly, she apprenticed herself over five summers to masters in Munich and Lübeck, Germany, and established a successful violin repair shop at her home in the Germantown section of Philadelphia. In her sixties Karin rekindled her love of rowing, which she had taken up as a girl in Germany, and joined the Philadelphia Girls Rowing Club. She won the gold medal in many regattas on the Schuylkill River, racing into her seventies. She also competed out-of-state, several times even strapping her boat on top of her Honda Civic and driving to Boston to race in the annual "Head of the Charles" regatta. Karin's parents were Hans Rademacher, a widely recognized professor of Mathematics, and Susanna Brenner-Rademacher (nee Gaspary), a renowned translator of American novels. Karin was separated from her father in 1935 when he emigrated to the US to teach Mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania after being forced out of his Breslau professorship for speaking out against Nazism. She remained in Germany with her mother until two years after the end of World War II. According to her close friend Elizabeth Brody, Karin was loved and revered by many people over her 95 years and will be sorely missed. Karin is survived by her children Michael, Andy and Daniel Loewy, and Eva Loewy Best, her grandchildren Susanna and Natasha Loewy, Paul Shin-Loewy, Jesse Loewy, Swade and Rocky Best, and her great-grandson Asher Goldman. She was preceded in death by her former husband Ariel Loewy, and by her half-brother Peter Rademacher. A memorial meeting will be held when all can safely gather, date TBA. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.