Laura Rosenfeld was the youngest daughter of Joseph Rosenfeld and Rosa Kolisch. She grew up in an assimilated family and was educated at several convent schools in Linz and Vienna.
Around 1875-1876 Laura Rosenfeld met the painter Maurycy Gottlieb. Laura and Maurycy got engaged but didn't marry each other. In the summer of 1877 the engagement was annuled. On several of Gottliebs paintings Laura Rosenfeld is portraied.
Laura Rosenfeld married Leo Henschel, a banker from Berlin. The couple had four children of which two survived the war. Leo Henschel died in 1909. After her husband died Laura Rosenfeld envolved herself in helping the poor and maintained contact with feminists.
In 1933 Laura Henschel fled to Holland. During the war she was in hiding but because of betrayel, she was send to Westerbork.
E. Kolb, Portrait of Laura Henschel-Rosenfeld painted by Maurycy Gottlieb, in: Nehamam Guralnik, In the Flower of Youth, Maurycy Gottlieb 1856-1879 (Tel Aviv Museum of Art 1991).
Laura Rosenfeld is also mentioned in the works of Richard Eilard and Lothar Helbing Gespräche mit Mutter Henschel (Amsterdam, 1952).
This person is commemorated on a memorial in Zeist. More information on this memorial can be found (in Dutch) on the website of the Nationaal Comité 4 en 5 mei.
Biography