The Waldmann-Mandels were a blended family. Maurice Donat Waldmann was a Jew from Berlin who came to the UK in about 1938 to avoid persecution. In April 1940 he married Helena Mandelbaum, but this marriage was dissolved. Together they had a daughter.

Maurice married Rita Munter in February 1947. Rita was from a village in Bartenstein. However, after being expelled for refusing to give the Nazi salute, she attended the Jewish Goldschmidtschule in Berlin. Here she became friends with Lilli Krieger née Jacobsohn. Rita came to the UK on a Kindertransport aged 17. She trained as a nurse. With Maurice, Rita had two daughters.

In 1958 Maurice died. Rita married Ludwig Mandel one year later. Ludwig was born in Primasens in Rheinland-Pfalz in 1916. He wanted to immigrate to the USA in 1937 to join the US Army, but the medical required for this revealed that he had TB. He was sent to a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland, where he remained until 1952. As a Jew, he was unable to return to Germany; his parents were murdered in the Holocaust. In 1952 he received Swiss citizenship and moved to the Netherlands where he worked in metals. In 1957 he settled in Düsseldorf. In 1958 he met Rita Munter. The next year they married, and Ludwig moved to London. Together they had another daughter. Ludwig died in 2000.