Lili Kraus

She enrolled at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music, and at the age of 17 entered the Budapest Conservatory where she studied with Zoltán Kodály, and Béla Bartók.

In the 1930s, she continued her studies with Severin Eisenberger, Eduard Steuermann in Vienna and Artur Schnabel in Berlin, who focused her interest in the classical tradition.

Her early chamber music performances and recording with violinist Szymon Goldberg helped gain the critical acclaim that launched her international career.

In 1940, Kraus embarked on a tour of Asia where, while in Java, she and her family were captured and interned in a concentration camp by the Japanese from June 1943 until August 1945.

Kraus's husband was Otto Mandl (1889–1956), a wealthy Jewish (later converted to Catholicism) mining engineer and philosopher.