Before speaking about herself, Veronika Mayen would first talk about her father, Walther Mayen (1881–1957), who grew up in Breslau and studied Natural Sciences there, before moving to Munich to study Philosophy. It was at the Munich Congress in 1907 that he heard Rudolf Steiner speak for the first time and from then on dedicated himself to Anthroposophy. He became one of the Threefold Social Order speakers personally selected and trained by Rudolf Steiner for Upper Silesia. At the time, he considered becoming either a Waldorf teacher or a priest of The Christian Community. In addition, he also had professional ambitions in Brazil.

In 1922, Rudolf Steiner supported Mayen’s move to Brazil to help establish a solid foundation of Anthroposophical work there —a task to which he devoted the next five years. Walther Mayen gave numerous lectures in Brazil and tried to resolve conflicts within the groups in Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. In 1927, he returned to Germany and began studying medicine. At the same time, he continued his intensive lecture activities, especially in Munich and Breslau. In 1933, he set up his medical practice in Breslau.

It was in Breslau that Veronika Mayen was born and grew up under increasingly unsettled political circumstances. She fondly recalled deeply formative experiences in the local Christian Community. After fleeing in January 1945, the family settled in Marburg on the Lahn River. There, Veronika Mayen was enrolled in the Waldorf School, which had reopened in October 1945. Growing up as an only child during the harsh postwar period, she found it difficult to make friends with neighbourhood children and classmates as a “refugee from the East”.

Friends from Brazil who had searched for him for a long time eventually found Walther Mayen in Marburg and asked him to return to Brazil and continue the work for the Anthroposophical movement. He agreed. At Easter in 1949, the family boarded a ship, embarking on an adventurous and, from young Veronika’s perspective, dangerous crossing. They settled in Porto Alegre. At the end of 1950, the family moved to São Paulo and in 1955 returned to Germany. During the years in Brazil, Veronika Mayen attended a private school whose fees her parents could barely afford. She received a scholarship from a wealthy upper-class woman but in return had to achieve excellent grades and was also subject to strict supervision. It was a lonely and socially isolated time, exacerbated by very high performance expectations. 

After finishing school in Germany, she went on to study Literature and teacher training, which she completed successfully with a doctorate. She became a high school teacher in Mainz, where she spent most of her life. Her longing for the wider world, which later expressed itself through extensive travel to all continents, led her to take a teaching position at a German international school in Florence. There, she spent many happy years, exploring the art and culture of Tuscany with a close friend. Her years in Italy were among the happiest of her life.

Throughout her life, Veronika Mayen engaged with Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy, sometimes studying it alone, at other times in study groups, and in other contexts. It was a great comfort to her that she felt at home in the working groups led by Dr. Virginia Sease at the Goetheanum.

After her retirement, she volunteered as a “Green Lady” (a hospital volunteer) and at the State Museum in Mainz. She also spontaneously helped people she met, took a keen interest in the worldwide Waldorf movement, and sponsored several children—especially in Brazil—through an educational sponsorship programme with the Friends of Waldorf Education. She often called to share her own assessments of various events she followed, which often did not align with the opinions of others. This independence in forming her own judgments was one of her hallmarks, but it also led to misunderstandings, which caused her pain. As a result, her kind, sensitive, and deeply curious nature was not always fully recognized.

We owe her a great deal and will continue to remain loyal to her memory in the future.

Nana Goebel