Fritzi Löwy

Austrian swimmer Fritzi Löwy won the bronze medal at the 1927 European Championships over 400 metres freestyle, setting a new European record. She won 25 Austrian national titles in total, and also won the 5km “Quer durch Wien” (Across Vienna) race in the Danube three times.

As a Jew she fled to Italy in 1939 and then to Switzerland in 1944, after her sister was deported by the Gestapo from Italy to Auschwitz. After World War II Fritzi Löwy emigrated to Australia but returned to Austria in 1949 working as a secretary. She often became jobless and had financial problems her whole life. She never married and died from breast cancer in 1994.