Frank Churchill wrote:
Mum died peacefully and painlessly in her sleep on Saturday 13th January, aged 87. Dad and I were with her at her bedside at the end.

Mum was a truly extraordinary lady who led a full and remarkable life. She left a profound and lasting impression on everyone who was privileged to know her.

From her first days on this earth to her last, she dedicated her life to the care of others, always putting their needs before her own - from offering her baby twin brother Wolfram her own thumb to suck as they lay side by side in their pram, to becoming a Red Cross Nurse and training as a missionary to join Mother Theresa's mission in Calcutta (becoming fluent in Hindi and Sanskrit in the process), to dedicating her later years to the reconciliation of former enemies and lecturing on the dangers of Fascism, and helping other veterans old and young, deal with PTSD from the benefit of her own traumatic experiences and nurse's training.

Karin and was born in Dresden - 'Florence on the Elbe' - in Saxony, eastern Germany in 1930. She witnessed at first hand the rise of Hitler and the evils of Nazism (when at the age of 10, her best blonde, blue-eyed best friend, and her family were taken away never to be seen again, for having one drop of Jewish blood in their lineage). On the night of 13th/14th February 1945 she was at home with her family, and had stayed up late, typically, sewing a bag as a present for a friend, when the bombing of Dresden, Operation Gomorrah, began. Their home, in the centre of Dresden's Altstadt, took a direct hit and was destroyed and she and her family were swallowed up by the firestorm. Somehow she and her twin brother (who was blinded by firestorm) managed to survive, though her mother, Margarethe perished, never to be found. Karin was aged just 14 and looked after her blind brother, finding shelter and food where they could in the destruction and chaos all around.

Then came the dangers of the Soviet advance. After the war, mum returned to Dresden and became a 'Trümmerfrau', helping to rebuild the city stone by stone. She went on to study art in Leipzig, making paintbrushes from her own hair and taking the occupying Soviet army propaganda posters down from the building walls at night, at risk of being shot, to use as drawing paper.

In her mid teens, mum, with her brother founded one of the first 'Kulturebund' in the Soviet occupied zone to give concerts and poetry readings to bring some normality back among the ruins of war. In 1950 she and her twin brother decided to escape across what was to became known as the 'Iron Curtain', to the American sector. At the first attempt they were unsuccessful - mum being shot and wounded in the attempt. They were captured and interrogated before eventually being released. At the second attempt they made it across. Cutting coal-scuttle curtains to look like Russiam military capes when silhouetted at night, guiding her blind twin brother they walked across no-man's land right past the Soviet solders to safety. They settled in Munich where mum continued her art studies at the university before finding work as a set designer for the Bavarian State Opera. Later she worked in the City planning department as a model-maker and then formed a successful partnership with the architect Franz Gürtner designing and building new churches, even making the altarpieces and door panels.

Increasingly however, mum came to realise that the post war world needed nurses and carers more than architects. So she joined the Red Cross and retrained as a Nurse, training at Heidelberg. She was also becoming deeply interested in Earstern religion and culture and joined the Indian Institute in Munich. She sat at Ravi Shankar's feet on his first concert tour of Europe in the early 50s. Mum determined to become a missionary - either at Albert Schweitzer's East African mission Lambourene or with Mother Theresa in Calcutta (a letter to her from the mission reads 'you are much needed here, we have more stones than bread').

En route to India, mum came to England to learn English, working first as an au pair in Devon and then studying at a language school in Oxford. It was in Oxford that my parents met and fell in love. Mum never made it to India.

Although she was already a highly qualified nurse, mum did not feel she should practice her vocation here until her English was fluent (which did not take long). In the meantime she worked as a cleaner at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford. When her qualifications were recognised by the Nursing Council she began her long career in England as a nurse, first as an industrial nurse at what was then Morris Motors in Cowley (now BMW Mini) and then at the J.R. II and Churchill hospitals before becoming Senior Sister at the Rivermead Rehabilitation Hospital - a pioneering centre for the treatment of brain injuries. It was here that she met a patient who it turned out had been a navigator in a Lancaster bomber over Dresden. She was able to help him recover and they formed a lasting friendship, and in gratitude this patient gave mum his navigator's torch.

All the while, mum continued making beautiful art - nativity cribs in the German tradition for the churches in the villages in Oxfordshire where we lived, and famously for Christchurch Cathedral, commissioned by the Friends of Christchurch. This piece became a consecrated treasure of the cathedral and was, until this year, on display throughout the Advent, christmas and Epiphany period.

Mum also sang for over 10 years with the Christchurch voluntary choir during the vacations. This included singing at the memorial service for Arthur 'Bomber' Harris, the WWII Air Marshall and the architect of the 'terror bombing' policy against German cities.

Mum never bore any bitterness towards Harris or the 'poor, brave boys' (as she called them) of Bomber Command (indeed, she was a strong supporter of the long overdue memorial to them and went to its unveiling).

In early 1989 mum made an emotional return to Dresden (which was then still in the DDR, just before the Wall tumbled) for the first time since her escape. The iconic Frauenkirche, was still in the charred ruins untouched for 45 years. It was in this church that my grandmother Margarethe, a mezzo-soprano, had sung the Ave Maria on New Year's Day 1945 in what became her final performance before she was killed in the raid just six weeks later. My mother asked the Soviet Intourist guide what would become of the church. She was told that there were plans to bulldoze it to make way for an apartment block. My mother insisted that the ruins should be preserved. These stones are sacred, she said.

After the fall of the Soviet Block and with German reunification the Dresden Trust was born with the aim of raising funds to rebuild the Frauenkirche. This dream was realised in 2004 and my mother was invited to join the London Bach Choir to sing Mozart's Requiem in the re-dedication concert.

My mother had a simple motto: Do right and fear no-one. She lived by it and practised it every day in big ways and small.

These words barely begin to encompass the rare, special person mum was, the remarkable, epic life she led, and the countless hearts she touched.

She was my mum, and I am so, so proud and blessed to have been her son.