Edith Johanna Leuchter

Edith Leuchter, who narrowly escaped death as a 12-year-old in Nazi Germany then went on to live long enough to become a great-grandmother who brought joy and laughter to everyone she knew, died February 10, 2026, at her Boynton Beach home. She was 98.

Her husband of 75 years, Kurt, was at her side. Both survived the Holocaust and went on to build a life together filled with love, family and friends, first in New York then in Florida.

Edith devoted herself to her husband and children. She was a fabulous cook and her homemade cakes and cookies were legendary. She laughed easily and often.

She always loved music and more recently belonged to a community choir. Just days before she died, she joked with her daughter about the music of Johann Strauss and was surprised that her daughter knew the composer!

Edith never took for granted the freedoms and opportunities she enjoyed as an American. At the same time, she never shied away from sharing her experiences during the Holocaust as a warning about hate.

Edith Loeb lived a comfortable life in Bruchsal, Germany, where she was born on December 31, 1927, to Max and Julie (Weil) Loeb. She and her younger brother, Heinz, were very close. But her childhood ended on October 22, 1940, when all Jews in Bruchsal were ordered to report to the train station.

They were among 6,500 Jews from the Baden region of Germany deported to the Gurs internment camp in the Pyrenees Mountain foothills of France.

Her father had already emigrated to New York, hoping to send for his family. Heinz had been sent away to a school in Frankfurt.

Decades later, footage emerged from that chaotic day of a young, frightened girl holding a hat box – Edith was forced to walk to the train station with her mother and grandmother, Mathilda Weil.

The local theatre saw the footage and subsequently, a German playwright tracked down Edith and interviewed her and her family about her survival and the destruction of Bruchsal's Jewish community during the Nazi era. A play based about Edith's life, "The Girl With the Hat Box" premiered in Bruchsal in 2022 in time for the 82nd anniversary of the deportation.

Edith's two adult daughters and their husbands attended the play.

The memories were painful - conditions in the Gurs camp were wretched. Edith was later taken to another camp, Rivesaltes, in the south of France. From there, her mother signed Edith over to a French underground organization that saved over 5,000 Jewish children. They helped her hide from the Nazis.

She was in an orphanage in France where she briefly met another young refugee - Kurt Leuchter. She wasn't particularly impressed. She was also hidden in Christian schools and eventually became a French Girl Scout toward the end of the war. After the war, she emigrated to New York, arriving in 1946 and reuniting with her father. One day in January, 1947, Edith went on an outing to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. Right outside the museum she was shocked to see a familiar face- Kurt Leuchter, the young refugee she had briefly met in a French orphanage.

They began dating and married on August 13, 1950. They settled in Queens and bought a home in the Long Island community of Commack in 1960. Edith focused on her family, which soon included daughters Julie and Debbie. A third daughter, Miriam, died in infancy.

Edith held part time jobs selling household goods. Her children were always the center of her life and she was determined to give them the safe and secure childhood that she didn't have.

After Kurt retired in the late 1980s, the couple moved to Boynton Beach, where Edith enjoyed swimming. They loved to travel. Their daughters and husbands and four grandchildren and great grandson were frequent visitors. Just last week, she met her three great-grandchildren for the first time.

In addition to her husband, Kurt, of Boynton Beach, she is survived by her daughters, Julie Thum, and son-in-law, Steve, of Brooklyn and Debbie Stueber and son-in-law, Mark, of Pittsburgh; grandchildren Jen Thum (James Grice), Jeremy Yellon (Amanda Rosenholtz) Nathan Yellon (Sara Bakowski) Amanda Herman Thum (Zev Herman) and great-grandchildren Sadie, Nissim and Violet.