As co-founder, associate director and trustee of the Holocaust education charity, Generation 2 Generation (G2G), Lesley Urbach, who has died aged 69, was determined that the story of her German family of origin, the Wohls, should not die with her. That history, so tragically truncated by the Nazis, inspired her efforts on behalf of the organisation she helped launch ten years ago, to keep family histories alive between the generations.
Under its aegis, Lesley gave scores of illustrated talks to schools and community groups, reaching perhaps tens of thousands of young people. She passed on her expertise to aspiring presenters, who speak of her kindly support and the high standards she demanded. The team she helped build up of nearly 30 descendants of Holocaust survivors now regularly bring their stories and the history of the persecution of their families to school pupils.
An active member of two Jewish communities, Beit Klal Yisrael and Finchley Progressive Synagogue (FPS), she led projects linked to refugee welfare and support. She was a council member of FPS, co-editor of its newsletter, and leader of the Welfare Group. She was proud of her involvement in the shul becoming a Synagogue of Sanctuary.
In a constant quest for new initiatives, Lesley pioneered G2G Presents, an ongoing series of monthly online events showcasing the charity’s work, and discussing issues of contemporary relevance.
Lesley’s parents, Eva Wohl and Arnold Urbach, married in July 1943, soon after their arrival in Britain. Her brother Peter was born on October 3, 1944 and Lesley on May 21, 1957. Eva was the daughter of Leonhard Wohl from his second marriage to Clara Jacobi. She had a sister, Ursula (Ulli) and stepsisters, Ilse and Käte, born to Leonard’s first wife, Erna Margoniner. The Wohl family had lived in the former Prussian market town of Bublitz since the 1840s.
Leonhard had been awarded the Iron Cross, fighting alongside I00,000 German Jews in the First World War, and the family were proud, patriotic Germans. Lesley’s mother and her aunts remembered those early years as idyllic, with summers of dazzling white sands and carefree fun. They attended the local school and played with non-Jewish friends.
Eva was ten years old when Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany on January 30, 1933. It was a day that she never forgot. Lesley recalled her saying: “People who we were friendly with turned against us overnight.”
After the Nuremberg Laws were passed in September 1935, the family business collapsed and life in Bublitz became unbearable. At 14 Eva left for Berlin to attend a Jewish commercial school, while Käte went into domestic service in southern Germany. Eleven-year-old Ulli remained in Bublitz, the last Jewish child in the town, and she recalled that she “had no one to play with… I was terribly lonely”.
On December 14, 1938, five days after Eva’s 16th birthday, she and 13-year-old Ulli boarded a train at a small Berlin station. Leonhard and Clara were barely able to speak for weeping as they bade farewell to their two daughters. It was the last time they would ever see them.
The ship carrying Eva and Ulli and many other children docked at Harwich in Essex the next day, and from there they were taken to Dovercourt Holiday Camp. At the beginning of 1939 they were moved to Wyberlye Ladies Convalescent Home in Burgess Hill, Sussex. Käte arrived on a domestic service visa at the age of 19.
“The letters from my grandparents during this time are full of longing. ‘My thoughts are only with you… How we can be together again as quickly as possible? …We had to part from our little children, which brought us untold suffering.’”
Meanwhile, at Wyberlye, Eva and Ullie gathered around the radio at 11am on September 3, 1939, and heard Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announce that war had been declared against Germany. “In that moment my mother knew instinctively that we wouldn’t see our parents again,” Eva recalled.
Once war began, girls over 16 had to leave Burgess Hill, as the area became restricted. Eva and Ulli both worked in a factory making uniforms for the British Army. “There, on day one, my mother met her husband-to-be, my father, Arnold Urbach, another Jewish refugee from Germany. They married in July 1943.
“My parents had three more children, two of whom predeceased them. The family line continues only through Ilse’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren,” said Lesley.
Lesley went on to achieve success as a careers adviser, but her passion for history, no doubt a reflection of her family’s experiences, led her to take a BA at University College London and, post-retirement, an MRes in Jewish History and Culture at Southampton University. where her hard work was rewarded with a Master’s degree. Her supervisor there, Professor Tony Kushner, wrote recently that he “thought extremely highly of Lesley as an excellent scholar, a brilliant researcher and a lovely person”.
Lesley’s degree dissertation was on Eleanor Rathbone, the independent MP who had championed the cause of refugees during, before and after the war. She also initiated numerous commemorative projects, including co-founding the Remembering Eleanor Rathbone Group. In 2013, she enabled a plaque to be installed at Golders Green Crematorium celebrating Rathbone’s work for refugees.
“Lesley was greatly moved by the surviving generation’s lives as refugees.” said Peter. “She became an authority on the Nazi period and on the Kindertransport. Seeing modern-day refugees through the lens of those that escaped the Nazis, she helped and nurtured several young refugees.”
She ensured the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust Gallery devoted a considerable space to preserving and illustrating her parents’ families. “Our maternal grandparents had prepared to escape to South America and packed all their domestic possessions in three trunks which were sent ahead. Alas, doors then closed and then in February 1943 they were deported to Auschwitz. One of the trunks is now displayed in the IWM Holocaust Galleries, together with some of its original contents.
“Wyberlye House, where our mother and many other Kindertransport refugees found sanctuary, was later demolished. “Until, that is, Lesley persuaded the local council to erect a prominent remembrance board on the site of the old house. It was unveiled in June 2019 with great fanfare by the town’s mayor, who lavished high praise on Lesley.
“Lesley also organised some 15 Stolpersteine in Berlin and Potsdam to remember members of our family who had perished under the Nazis. She still had some Stolpersteine in the planning pipeline when she died. These will be installed in Berlin this October.”
Lesley was equally drawn to understanding current crises such as those concerning the Tutsis, the Uyghurs and the Sudanese. As part of G2G Presents, she created two important collaborations: one with René Cassin, the Jewish human rights organisation, and the other with HIAS+JCORE, which supports refugees in the light of Jewish ethics. They are both due to continue, as part of Lesley’s legacy.
“I first met Lesley around ten years ago when she approached me, as director of René Cassin, to introduce me to the newly formed G2G”, writes Mia Hasenson-Gross. “What began as a professional connection quickly grew into a deep friendship that I treasured, both personally and professionally… Lesley joined René Cassin’s Fellowship Programme, where she explored her activism through a Jewish human rights lens. She chose her final project to be on the largely unknown and forgotten trafficking and exploitation of Jewish women, determined, as always, to highlight the injustice caused.”
In a tribute Anita Peleg, G2G director said: “Lesley was always pushing the boundaries, combining a great sense of urgency and a can-do, optimistic attitude. She achieved what she did by being quirky and fun, as well as seriously committed to her vision of a better world. I know that all of us at G2G will aspire to continue her legacy in her honour, and to cherish her memory.”
Reflecting in her testimony on her grandparents’ decision to send Eva away, Lesley recalled her mother making the following comment: “Could I have done that with my children, send them away? I don’t think I could. I don’t think I could.” To which Ulli added: “It’s unbelievable.”
Lesley is survived by her brother Peter and extended family.
Lesley Urbach: born: May 21,1957. Died: June 24, 2026
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