Born: Luisa Leiterweiss
July 1, 1937
Vienna, Austria
Luisa Kopinsky was born in Vienna, Austria where her mother worked as an attorney and her father as a banker. Kopinsky was only eight months old when Austria was joined to Nazi Germany during the Anschluss of March 1938. Kopinsky’s family left Austria soon afterward, using forged documents that Luisa’s father obtained from the Liberian Embassy in Austria. The family was able to leave for Czechoslovakia and from there headed for Switzerland and Marseilles, France. Luisa and her parents caught a ship for Uruguay in the summer of 1938. They established themselves in the capital of the country, Montevideo, where Luisa’s mother repaired rayon pantyhose to earn money. Because of the lack of work in Uruguay, in 1944 the family moved to Argentina where Luisa attended college and married. In 1984 the whole family emigrated to the United States.
Parents:
Hans Leiterweiss, survived
Anna Wassing Leiterweiss, survived
Siblings:
Nicholas, b. 1945 in Uruguay