The painter Toni Ebel lived in Berlin. In the early 1930s, she met the Jewish Charlotte Charlaque. Shortly afterward, Charlaque and Toni Ebel decided to have gender-affirming surgery. They were supported by the Institute for Sexual Science. Charlaque and Ebel moved in together, and Ebel converted to Judaism.
Subject to hostility as trans women and Jews, they fled to Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary) in 1934. There, Ebel painted pictures for spa guests, and Charlaque gave language lessons. They were both under constant surveillance by the Czech police, so they relocated on several occasions. From 1939 they lived in Prague, where they hoped to be less conspicuous.
Charlaque was arrested by the immigration police in 1942. Ebel feared her friend was to be deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto, and she intervened with the authorities on her behalf. Charlaque was then transferred to Liebenau internment camp and was able to leave for the United States. Ebel remained in Prague until the end of the war. She was repeatedly interrogated by the Gestapo. She never saw Charlaque again.
In 1945 Toni Ebel returned to Berlin, where she worked as a painter.
Toni Ebel, Charlotte Charlaque, and Dora Richter (left to right), Berlin, 1933. Source: Filmarchiv Austria
Toni Ebel and Charlotte Charlaque (left to right) in their Berlin apartment, 1933. Source: Publikation: Ragnar Alhstedt (1933): Män, som blivit kvinnor. Två fall av könsväxling på operativ väg. En studie av transvestitismens väsen, Tranås
