YVA

Yva at work

Else Ernestine Neuländer-Simon (1900-1942) was born in Berlin where she opened her first photo studio in 1925. Yva soon became a popular fashion and portrait photographer and published in many prestigious newspapers and magazines such as Die Dame, Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung and Münchner Illustrierte Presse. At the height of her career, she employed up to ten employees in her studio.

Due to her Jewishness, Yva was prohibited from exercising her profession (Berufsverbot) after the Nazis had seized power in January 1933. Her studio was now officially run by her "arian" friend Charlotte Weidler. In 1936, the later famous photographer Helmut Newton began his apprenticeship in Yva's studio. Two years later, Yva had to finally give up the studio. She then worked as a radiographer in the Jewish Hospital in Berlin. In 1942, Yva and her husband, Alfred Simon, were arrested and deported to the Majdanek concentration camp where they were killed most probably in 1942.