Lee Ramer, our longtime friend, supporter, and member of the advisory board and board of directors of Villa Aurora, passed away at the age of 90 in Los Angeles. We will miss her dearly. Our heartfelt condolences go to her three children, Stephanie, Susan, and Douglas, her grandchildren, and the entire family.

She was a steadfast supporter of our two institutions in Los Angeles, especially Villa Aurora. Together with her husband Larry Ramer, who passed away in 2012, Lee supported the Villa from the very beginning as members of the Advisory Board. Freimut Duve provided the contact to Lee and Larry in the mid 90´s.

When I presented our concept in Los Angeles, they were immediately enthusiastic about the idea of preserving Villa Aurora as a cultural monument of exile and continuing voluntarily what the emigrants had been forced to do after their expulsion from Europe: promoting cultural exchange between Los Angeles and Europe through artists, writers, filmmakers, photographers, and composers. The idea of reconciliation and cultural exchange was so close to their hearts that in 1998 they founded the Lawrence and Lee Ramer Institute for German-Jewish Relations at the American Jewish Committee in Berlin, the first Jewish-American institution in reunified Germany.

In the following years, there were many encounters in Berlin and Los Angeles, where Lee’s connections in both politics and the Los Angeles art scene proved to be particularly helpful.

She was a prominent figure there. She served for many years on the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Commission, at times as its president, and from 1999 for several years as the protocol chief of the then-mayor of Los Angeles. She was involved in many cultural institutions, including the UCLA Hammer Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Arts, the Getty Center, and Disney Hall.

She was open-minded and receptive to everything new, a warm, kind-hearted personality, full of integrity, grace, joy for life, and humor. She was not only interested in all facets of art but also in politics. It was always enriching and a pleasure to exchange ideas with her.
We will miss her, but we will not forget her.

Marianne Heuwagen