My mother, Ruth Hirsch, who has died aged 87, was a childhood refugee from nazism, who went on to improve the lives of children in places as different as a Chilterns village and deprived areas of Washington DC.
She was born into a well-to-do Jewish family in Berlin, the daughter of Erwin Weissrock, a bookseller and librarian, and his wife, Charlotte. Between the ages of six and 11, she experienced a series of shocks: flight from Hitler’s Germany to the Iranian capital, Tehran; the accidental drowning of her eight-year-old brother, Bubi; return to a hostile Berlin in 1937; and escape once more, via Italy, to Britain.
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