Hirtz - Senta - 1908-1998

Senta Ruth Augusta Hirtz was born in London on 12 March 1908, where her German father worked as a chemist. In 1910 the family returned to Germany and moved several times due to her father's work commitments. When she left school she initially trained as a nursery nurse. Between 1930-1933 she retrained as a teacher in the Medau technique at the Medau School of Eurythmics and Gymnastics in Berlin.

Being part-Jewish, Senta Hirtz emigrated to London as a refugee to avoid Nazi persecutions in 1936. She taught Medau to women and children across North London but as the war approached it became increasingly difficult to obtain such work. In the Iate 1930s she was accepted at St Thomas's Hospital to retrain as a physiotherapist.

At the end of the Second World War she applied to work for the Jewish Relief Unit. She was sent to Germany and worked in one of the first relief teams in the former concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, Lower Saxony. During that time she was also reunited with her mother.

She returned to the UK in 1946 and continued to live in London for the rest of her life. Her mother moved to England to live with her in 1957. Senta Hirtz became a registered physiotherapist and specialised in the treatment of children with cerebral palsy and other special needs. She retired from physiotherapy in 1977 having been appointed at Greenwich District Hospital to work with older people in the early 1970s. In her later years she continued the study of different world religions. She also painted in the anthroposophical style of Rudolf Steiner. Senta Hirtz passed away in 1998.

From the guide to the Senta Hirtz: personal papers, 1904-1992, (Wiener Library)