Lewin , Helga , b 1916 , musician

Helga Lewin (née Krebs) was born in 1916 in Berlin of Jewish parents. From the age of 6 she took private piano lessons and it became apparent early on that she was very talented. She went on to study the piano more intensively, later becoming a piano teacher from 1937 to 1939. She fled Nazi Germany in April 1939 to England where she worked as a servant until she was interned as a German citizen in Jun 1940. After her release she worked as waitress in a café in Manchester. In 1946 she began work as an accordion player but had to give this up on account of the pain it was causing her back.

During the course of the next few decades she was awarded compensation for loss of potential earnings from the Entschädigungsamt (1229/16-17), succeeding in her attempts to claim compensation for physical disability and mental illness.