• MY friend Helen Gregory of Tottenham Street in Fitzrovia died last Wednesday morning.

She was at least 90 years old, a Jewish refugee and child survivor of the Holocaust or Shoah. I am not aware that she has any living relatives.

Helen had not been seen for a few days, so on February 6 neighbours who feared she may have become ill in her flat, called the police who broke in and found her on the floor alive, but unconscious.

She was taken to University College Hospital, where she died. I just happened to be in London on the day she died, but as I knew her better than most, I was contacted and went to see the doctor at UCH.

Some of your readers may have known her or one of the associations working for refugees in Camden may recall receiving her from Germany.

Helen was quite a private woman but she knew many people in Camden. She was well-loved by people she came into contact with at local shops and cafés.

I am not aware of her attending any synagogue. We know very little about her life other than she was a prisoner of the Auschwitz concentration camp complex.

After she came to London she worked as a researcher and at a newspaper cuttings service. Until her death she continued to read many newspapers every day. She had lived in Tottenham Street since at least as early as 1964. Before that, she may have lived in Tolmers Square.

We all miss Helen and I would hope that information about her life in Germany, imprisonment at the Nazi camps, her journey to London, and finally settlement here could be saved.

It is important for us to record, document, and keep alive the memory of those terrible events in the last century. I hope you readers can help us do so.

FIONA GREEN
& friends of Helen Gregory
fionaskene@hotmail.com