Marika Henriques was born in Budapest in 1935. She says that she was shaped, and her profession determined by history. During the Holocaust in 1944 at the age of nine, separated from her family, she became a hidden child. These dark times had a lasting effect on her. In her book The Hidden Girl: The Journey of a Soul, she writes about her experiences in hiding, including her poems, drawings and tapestries. Her account, an intensely personal journey, is not so much about the horrors of the Holocaust but more about hope and healing through creativity.
Fascism was followed by communism after the war. Persecuted once more, now for her middle class background she escaped at the age of twenty-one in 1956 during the Hungarian uprising. She crossed the border on foot amongst minefields in temperatures of minus 25 degrees Celsius.
She arrived as a refugee in England in January 1957. She had a degree in Literature and Librarianship from Hungary which helped her to get a job at a children’s library in March. She knew very little English. She learned from the children and from children’s books. The rest of the language she picked up from reading good fiction and abstaining from speaking Hungarian. While working she studied at University College London and received a postgraduate Diploma in Librarianship.
Later she decided, like many of the hidden children, to do further studies and work in the helping profession. She found her vocation, became a Jungian Psychotherapist and developed a private practice. She is an active member of the C.G. Jung Analytical Psychology Club where she has given several talks. She has written numerous articles in various professional journals. She has also contributed a chapter on healing to Tales of of Psychotherapy, edited by Jane Ryan. In 1999 she gave a talk and exhibited her tapestries at the Royal Overseas League Piccadilly under the aegis of the Jung Club.
She is a member of the Guild of Psychotherapists, the C.G. Jung Club London, the Guild of Pastoral Psychology and Westminster Synagogue. She lives in London with her Swedish husband. She loves nature, poetry and food.
