Anita Rose

Her childhood was transformed by the Second World War. William Hurwitz, a leather merchant, First World War veteran and prominent member of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen, was deeply concerned about the consequences of a German invasion for British Jews. In August 1940 he sent Anita and Helen to Chicago, initially to live with their uncle Leslie Hurwitz. They sailed on the Eastern Prince on 19 August. William had intended to accompany them but gave up his passage to a German Jewish refugee who had just obtained a visa to join her fiancé in New York.

William attempted to follow his daughters a month later aboard the SS City of Benares. On 17 September 1940 the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat and sank in the Atlantic. William, aged 46, was among the 258 passengers and crew who died. Anita and Helen consequently remained in America without their father, while their mother Renee remained in Britain. Renee died in 1951.

After returning to London in 1946, Anita married Laurence Melville Rose, who was born in May 1922 and worked as an architect and planner. They had three children, William, Rosalind and Shelley. They lived for a while in Woodlands, Golders Green, before moving to Edgware in North-West London, and later to St John’s Wood.

Anita retained a strong interest in her own past. In December 2021, by then in her mid-nineties, she returned to South Hampstead High School, which recorded her memories for its archive and published an extract from her autobiographical writing. She recalled not only her school work but the minutiae of 1930s school life: the uniform, assemblies, cookery lessons, lost-property fines and an ill-fated attempt to play a Sousa march at assembly. She observed that, although her Domestic Science teacher had despaired of her, she later became a competent and enthusiastic cook.

Her recollections also became important to the preservation of her family history. Nigel Thorpe, researching a biography of her father, made several visits to interview Anita, whom he describes as the only person then living who had known William Hurwitz. Her daughter Shelley also assisted him with photographs and other material. Thorpe records that Anita was able to see his completed account of her father before she died, and that it meant a great deal to her.

Anita eventually told her own story in My Life: A Memoir, published by PostcardBooks. The book returns to the experiences that had determined so much of her life: the outbreak of war, her removal from London to Chicago, separation from her family and the loss of her father, and the building of a career and voluntary activities during her married life. She died 11 November 2024, six months before her hundredth birthday.