 Her oldest brother promised to watch over her for the rest of her life, but was later killed when his ship was sunk by a Japanese submarine.The daughter of a Lutheran mother and a Jewish father, she left Germany to study at the Liverpool College of Art in 1936, as she could not study art in her home country under the restrictions imposed by Nazi Germany.She later studied at the Hammersmith School of Art and at the City and Guilds of London Art School, where she learned stone carving.