13 Facts About Yva

Yva was the professional pseudonym of Else Ernestine Neulander-Simon who was a German Jewish photographer renowned for her dreamlike, multiple exposed images.

Yva was deported by the Gestapo in 1942 and murdered, probably in the Majdanek concentration camp during World War II.

Yva's father died when she was twelve and her mother supported the nine siblings with her hatmaking.

Yva's brother, Ernst Neulander, was a co-owner of the modeling salon Kuhnen and he hired her to shoot his models.

Yva was able to publish ten photographs in Die Dame in 1927, which served as a breakthrough to the top fashion magazines of the day.

Yva had been contracted to produce 27 montages, but only 20 appeared before the magazine was forced to close.

In 1933, even though the Nazi Party began shutting down Jewish owned businesses and published her name on a list of undesirables, Yva decided to expand her business.

Yva hired a young assistant, Helmut Neustadter in 1936, who would later become the well-known fashion photographer Helmut Newton.

Yva made plans to emigrate, after receiving an offer of employment from Life to work in New York City.

Yva's husband convinced her to abandon the plan and remain in Germany, hoping that things would improve, because he could not envision starting over in a new place in which he didn't even speak the language.

Simon had guessed wrong, as in 1938 Yva was banned from practicing photography by a new series of regulations and forced to close her studio.

Yva worked as an assistant in the radiography department of the Jewish Hospital of Berlin until 1942.

In 2001, a retrospective of Yva's work was featured at the Hidden Museum in Charlottenburg.