Helen Lewis (1916-2009) was a pioneer of modern dance in Belfast and a survivor of the Holocaust. Born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (now the Czech Republic), she moved to Prague in 1935 to study dance. There, she taught dance and experimented with choreography, marrying Paul Hermann.
During World War II, Lewis was sent to Auschwitz and later to Stutthof concentration camp in northern Poland, where her husband died in 1945. In 1947, she married Harry Lewis, a Czech with British nationality whom she had known from school. The couple moved to Belfast the same year.
In Belfast, Helen Lewis became a prominent choreographer and founded the Belfast Modern Dance Group in 1962. Her memoir, detailing her experiences before and during the war, was published in 1992. She passed away at the age of 93 in 2009. In her honour, a dance studio at the Crescent Arts Centre in Belfast is named after her.
If you fancy learning more about the Queen’s Quarter, come on my tour of the area! Details are here.