1897 – 1960
Rujena was my father’s older sister. She grew up in Louny and then after her father, my grandfather died in January 1915 moved to Prague with her mother and sisters. She married Karel Stern before 1920, a successful business man. They lived a very comfortable life in Prague. Her two daughters Hana and Milena were born in 1921 and 1925. The Nazi threat soon disturbed their life. They sent the teenage daughters to England in early 1939 to be in the care of my father, while they arranged for their goods and chattels to be shipped from Prague. Karel and Rujena got to London well before the war started. Sadly, Karel died suddenly in November 1941. By the end of the war, Rujena was living in a large apartment in Greenhill in Hampstead. Hana married Pepik (Joseph) Schuck in January 1944 while Milena moved to Bombay to marry Franta Mautner in 1948. Rujena continued living in Greenhill until she died in 1960. She was buried in the Hoop Lane Cemetery in Golders Green, London.
