Anna Eller


Anna Eller, born on December 24, 1887 in Hosszúpereszteg, Austria-Hungary and executed by German occupational forces in 1942 in Osiek Grodkowski, Poland, was an Estonian pianist. She is best known as a spouse to Heino Eller, a prominent Estonian composer and composition teacher.

Life

Anna grew up in Warsaw, Poland, studying piano in private classes with Aleksander Michałowski. In 1906 she married her first husband, Rafael R. Kremer. In 1907 she moved to Saint Petersburg to study piano at Saint Petersburg Conservatory. She enrolled in the class of Nikolai Abramõtsev, and graduated in 1915. In 1908 she met Heino Eller, her lover and future husband, who studied violin at the same conservatory. After her graduation in 1915 she refused to return to Warsaw and worked as a piano teacher in Tartu. In 1920 Anna remarried to Heino Eller. This marriage lasted until 1927, due to an affair between Heino and Anna's student Ellu Meriva, who later became Heino's second wife. In the mid 1930s Anna returned to Poland, where she died in a concentration camp in Osiek Grodowski in 1942 at the age of 54.