Paula Fürst qualified as a teacher in 1914 and went on to study French and history in Berlin. During her studies, she came into contact with Montessori teaching methods. She attended training courses and received a Montessori diploma. In 1926 she began running the first Montessori class in Berlin.
All Montessori schools and classes were closed in 1933. As a Jew, Paula Fürst could not find employment in the public school system. She became the head of the Zionist-oriented Theodor Herzl Private School. The school was vandalized during the 1938 November pogroms and officially closed at the end of March 1939. In response, the president of the Reich Association of German Jews, Leo Baeck, offered Paula Fürst a position running the association’s schools department. It was there that she met Hannah Karminski, who became her partner.
Paula Fürst accompanied a kinder transport to Britain on August 3, 1939. Despite the danger, she then returned to Berlin. In June 1942 the Reich Association building was surrounded and Paula Fürst was arrested. She was taken to Minsk and murdered at the nearby Maly Trostenets extermination site.
