A remarkable York pensioner has just celebrated a landmark birthday. MATTHEW WOODCOCK reports

IF NOT for her foresight and determination, Ilse Karger may never have escaped the horrors of Nazi Germany.

Yet the redoubtable pensioner not only saved herself, but also rescued a band of 25 Jewish children from almost certain death.

From that successful flight almost 70 years ago, Ilse went on to enjoy an eventful, globetrotting life, finally settling in North Yorkshire.

Now Ilse is a resident at Lyngarth Nursing Home, in Escrick, near York, has celebrated her 100th birthday.

Still alert and active, she talked to the Evening Press and recalled how she managed to get the youngsters and all her family on to a ship bound for the USA in 1935.

Ilse, who worked in a children's home in Berlin, courageously decided to act after the Nazis started rounding up Jews.

Millions were later taken to concentration camps to be killed.

"We were left with a choice - either flee or be put in a concentration camp," said Ilse, who is blind and partially deaf.

"I had never met the children. Their their families had sent them to me hoping to safely join up with them again later.

"I'd offered my services at the Jewish headquarters in Berlin after getting hold of a travel visa."

Arriving in the USA following a 12-day journey by ship, Ilse was told by an immigration official that the children would have to be sent back to Germany because they didn't have enough money (immigrants had to have a minimum of $36 on them).

"I looked him straight in the eye and asked him if he expected me to fish the money out of the ocean," Ilse recalled.

"He couldn't answer and went bright red before walking off. We got in!"

Ilse, who celebrated her landmark birthday at the home, enjoys painting and wrote two books on her fascinating life when she was in her 90s.

She has travelled extensively, moving to Britain in 1945 and then going on to live in Australia and Switzerland.

Ilse, who is a trained nurse and committed Quaker, moved to York in the 1980s.

"I'm not going to sit in my chair and do nothing - I'm determined to be active and live life to the full," she said.

Nursing home manager Stella Hayselden said: "At 100 years old, Ilse has still got an awful lot to teach - she's still teaching me about life."

Updated: 11:54 Tuesday, April 16, 2002