A Time to Risk All

''I am truly grateful to Mary Elmes for the life I might not have had, had it not been for her brave actions to save us and many others. She was truly a heroine.'' Michael Freund

Mary Elmes was an extraordinary woman. Sometimes known as the ''Irish Schindler'', she was born in Cork in 1908 and educated at Trinity College Dublin. She won a scholarship to study at the London School of Economics and travelled to Europe in the 1930s. There, she volunteered to help refugees during the Spanish Civil War. Nothing could have prepared her for the horrific suffering she would witness, but she was determined to aid as many people as she could. When Barcelona fell to Franco''s forces, she followed the Spanish refugees to southern France and continued to help them in the camps where they were interned. Soon, she found herself in the middle of another conflict, the Second World War, and was helping refugees of all nationalities.