Renate Treitel

Child refugee who overcame prejudice to become one of Britain’s first female chartered accountants

ACHILD REFUGEE from Nazi Berlin, who arrived in the UK at the age of five without a word of English, became one of the UK’s earliest female chartered accountants, overcoming early prejudice as a rare woman in her field. Renate Treitel, who has died aged 88, qualified in 1954, aged 23, and was one of only five women that year to pass (compared to around 500 men).

She was the only child of Lotte née Rosenthal, a dentist, and Leonard Eichelgrün, a civil engineer, who made the decision to leave Berlin in 1936, after Leonard was beaten up by Nazi thugs. He obtained a post in England and went ahead to find accommodation for the family. Renate and her mother fled Berlin via Scheveningen in the Netherlands, over Renate’s fifth birthday.

Safely in the UK, they settled in Temple Fortune and Renate was educated at the Henrietta Barnett School, encouraged by the far-sighted headmistress, Miss Ironside, who noticed her natural intelligence which earned her success across the curriculum, particularly in maths and history.

Evacuated to Lincolnshire aged nine, at the outbreak of war, she returned to London the following year — despite the Blitz — to her school-friends and the Jewish organisations she had joined, including B’nei Akiva and B’nai B’rith Youth Organisation (BBYO).

Leaving school at 16, she trained as an accountant with Percy Philips & Co, the only woman in the firm. In 1955 she married fellow German-Jewish refugee, Kurt Treitel and they had four children. Their happy marriage lasted 62 years, until Kurt’s passing in 2017.

In the early 1960s she encouraged Kurt to qualify as a solicitor. As his six years of articles were largely unpaid, they took in in lodgers and her excellent housekeeping skills kept the household running. She worked as an accountancy examiner until her retirement in her 70s. Judaism was central to her life and she was an active member of first Munks and then Dunstan Road Synagogues. She was also a keen member of the Association of Jewish Refugees, (AJR) which recorded her life story as part of its Refugee Voices series.

She enjoyed reading, history and creative writing, although her family was her biggest source of pride and joy, and her strong personality, mischievous sense of humour, intelligence, and warm love for and pride in her family are much missed.

Renate is survived by her children Richard, Jonathan, David and Caroline, and grandchildren, Alex, Olivia, Amelia and Conrad.

Renate Treitel: born August 6, 1931. Died July 13, 2020