The Lichtensterns were Viennese Jews who escaped Austria for the UK in the late 1930s. Victor Lichtenstern (1873-1957) was a lawyer who married Olga Löw (1883-1980); both were originally born in present-day Czechia. They had two children, Edith (b. 1906) and Käthe (1910-2009). Käthe was the first to travel to the UK; the family which supported her helped her family come to London. After marrying in the UK, Käthe took on the name Kate Fielding.

Many members of Olga’s family did not escape the continent before the outbreak of the Second World War. Her father Carl Löw (1857-1942) killed himself in Brünn when he received his deportation order. Her brother Hermann Löw, who had been Victor’s partner in a Viennese legal practice, escaped to France with his wife Erna. After the fall of France, they were deported to Auschwitz, as was Erna’s mother Minna Bernstein. Hermann was murdered while Erna and Minna survived.