Jewish RAF mechanic who fled Nazi persecution finally receives medals aged 101

The following Saturday morning after the Nazis won the 1933 election was when everything changed for Klauber. Instead of going to synagogue, the family packed up their bags and got on a train to Belgium. After three months, they left for Britain.

“A lot of people thought it would blow over,” Klauber said. “I’m forever grateful to my parents for taking the longer view and not being seduced into that way of thinking.”

All the same, saying farewell to her friends in Germany was tough: “It was all very tense. We weren’t really allowed to speak. I remember feeling that I would never be happy again.”

By 1941, the “bookish and academic” 17-year-old found herself settled in England and eager to join the war effort.

“I could have been a cook and I thought, no thank you”, she said. “I could have been a batwoman – someone who looks after officers’ uniforms – and I said, no, I can’t do that. And they said, ‘Well, you can be a flight mechanic’. And I thought, this would be interesting. I’ll go for that.”

After four months of classes on welding, woodwork and hydraulics in 1942, she went from being barely able to hold a spanner to a mechanic posted at RAF Sleap in Shropshire.

And within in a decade of her arrival, despite not speaking a word of English when she landed on British shores, Klauber became a member of an RAF crew fixing the bombers that helped the Allies turn the tide of the war.

Day to day, she was responsible for inspecting, repairing and refuelling the bombers, which would fly into German territory to carry out raids. At first, she worked on the lighter Wellington bombers before moving on to Halifax and Lancaster aircraft.

Klauber’s fellow mechanics were mostly men from heavy industry, but that didn’t faze her. “There was never any attempt to put me down or any improper suggestions of any sort,” she recalled.

The one difference was that it was the men who were asked to accompany pilots on test flights to make sure the repairs had been correctly done. “But I loved flying in those days,” she noted. “I always got myself a parachute and would ask the pilot if it’s OK to come. He always said yes.”

Asked if she ever raised any suspicions for being a German-born Jew, Klauber said: “They didn’t know my history. I was entirely for this country. Never for a moment did I have any regrets about not being back in Germany. I refused to speak German during the war.”

Speaking publicly about her wartime experiences for the first time, Klauber told The Telegraph that didn’t apply for the medals when fighting finished because she felt what she had done was not “exceptional”.

“I felt it was very important to make a contribution towards the war against Hitler and the Nazis. I didn’t think I felt that all this required medals,” she said.

But her daughter, Sue Klauber, came up with the idea of checking if her mother was still eligible for medals, and got in touch with the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (Ajex) earlier this month.

Ajex confirmed that Klauber was indeed entitled to both the UK War Medal and the UK Defence Medal for her service and sourced original versions of both to award her.

The former psychotherapist has now been recognised for her contribution to the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and has been invited to No10 and Buckingham Palace to mark the achievement.

Looking back on her contribution to the war effort, the grandmother said: “We had been given a new life in this country. It was important to do something for the country and against Hitler.”

Sue has now written two historical novels, Zinc and Cobalt, detailing her father and uncle’s respective experiences as a codebreaker and special forces soldier during the war.

She said of her mother: “She could have not done anything at all during the war, but she chose to do something completely counter to her character.”

“I think she was incredibly courageous and deserves to be acknowledged for that.”