Julia Kerr


Julia Kerr, was a German composer and pianist. She also used the name Julia Kerwey. She also worked as a translator during the Nuremberg trials.

Biography

Kerr was born in Wiesbaden August 28, 1898 as Julia Anna Franziska Weismann to the Prussian prosecutor Robert Weismann and his wife Gertrude, née Reichenheim. Kerr studied music with Wilhelm Klatte in Berlin. Kerr married theater critic Alfred Kerr in 1920. They had Michael and Judith Kerr. The family were Jewish and it became necessary to flee Germany in the 1930s. Initially they fled to Switzerland and then France before settling in England in 1935. In London Kerr worked in secretarial jobs until the end of the war. Once the war was over she took roles as an interpreter and secretary in the Nuremberg war crimes trial. Kerr had returned to live in Germany after the war and was living in Berlin when she suffered a heart attack and died.
Alfred wrote the libretto for Kerr's opera Chronoplan which was delayed due to her emigration. Another of her opera's was Die schoene Lau written and performed in the 20s. Kerr also composed songs.