Born: 28 February 1905, Germany
Died: 6 April 1957
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Nancy or Nanny Krotoschin
Before moving to the United States in 1939, Berlin-born chess champion Nancy Roos was active at the Cercle l’Echiquier (Chess Circle) in Brussels, where she also married her husband in 1936. Coming from a Jewish family, Roos’s sister, Eva Krotoschin Beim, was murdered in the Holocaust, while their brother Heinz “Henry” Kent survived and would later provide testimony to the USC Shoah Project.
Roos tied to win the 1955 U.S. Women’s Chess Championship with Gisela Kahn Gresser, both scoring 9–2. She came in second at the 1954 Pan-American Tournament, and tied for second at the 1942 U.S. Women’s Championship.
At the time of her death from breast cancer in 1957, she was the second highest rated woman in the U.S. Chess Federation.