Evelyn Kaye: Family documents

Walter Finkler was born in 1902 in Vienna where he studied at both a music academy and at a medical institute. Although he terminated his medical training early he had already written a number of scientific papers on a variety of subjects ranging from a study of monkey glands to the sexual behaviour of flies^[1].

He arrived in England at the end of March, 1939, where he spent approximately the first year in the Kitchener Camp for refugees. Later he was interned on the Isle of Man. He was actively involved in the Kitchener Camp orchestra. In 1946 he trained as a food scientist in Manchester where the family lived until 1954 after which the family moved south. Walter died in 1960.

Hansi Finkler was born in 1906 and married Walter in 1927. She arrived in England in early March 1939 where she had several jobs as maid or cook in various parts of the country. Evelyn, born in 1930, had come to England in 1938 where she stayed at the 'Haven' hostel in Camden Town- a home for Jewish refugee children from Europe sponsored by the Lyons family. She was reunited with her mother in the early 1940s and they lived in a bedsit in West London where they did piece work to make ends meet.

Donated February 2001

Donor: Evelyn Kaye