Cecilia Sternberg (1908–1983)

Cecilia Sternberg was born Augusta Cecilia von Reventlow-Criminil in England to an aristocratic family from Schleswig-Holstein. She spent her youth in Switzerland and in Vienna, Austria, being raised by her grandmother. In 1928, at age 19, she married the wealthy Count Leopold von Sternberg, from an old Bohemian Czech noble family, with whom she had one daughter. They lived at his ancestral family chateau in Častolovice and in a palace in Vienna, with a social life of travel, hunting, entertaining, and balls. Count von Sternberg was anti-Nazi, and during World War II, the family's property was confiscated by the Germans. They lived in Prague until the end of the war, when they were allowed to return to Častolovice. In 1948, they emigrated to the USA to escape Communist rule. Her autobiography, The Journey, was first published in England in 1977. She also wrote a novel, Masquerade (1981).