Dorli Meek obituary

Dorli Meek’s journey to the UK in the late 1930s was organised with a young Englishman whom her mother had spotted on the U-bahn reading the Times Photograph: family handout

My mother, Dorli Meek, who has died aged 98, arrived in Britain as a refugee from Nazi Germany aged 12. Although she had been baptised, under the Nazi regime three Jewish grandparents meant that she was Jewish.

At school in Berlin she was subjected to racial purity tests. An SS officer visited the school, seeking girls to stand as an honour guard for Adolf Hitler. Dorli was selected – she had blond plaits and blue eyes – and although her teacher said that she was not Aryan, it made no difference. Swastika hair ribbons were issued. After Kristallnacht, Dorli was expelled.