Sister Maria was born in Berlin in 1903.
She moved to the UK and worked in the Ashford Sanatorium and in Quare Mead, which was a convalescence home for Boys with tuberculosis. At least 40 of the Boys had contracted the disease.
Sister Maria had very close ties to the Boys in the sanitorium, often acting as a maternal figure to the many who had lost their parents, and she was said to ‘rule with a firm but warm hand’. She nursed them back to health whilst also helping them to overcome the trauma of the Holocaust and begin to adjust to life in Britain.
Sister Maria married the father of one of the Boys (who was called Jacob) and moved to the USA. Eva Kahn Miden replaced her as head sister of Quare Mead in 1949.
This profile was written by Ruby Kwartz.