Caroline was born in Germany on the 20th August 1942. Her mother, Gabriele, had successfully outwitted the Nazi authorities regarding her own Jewish identity and continued to do so throughout the war, though at the cost of serving a prison sentence for an illegal border crossing, after Caroline was born. This resulted in Caroline being fostered with a couple for a time, possibly Jews who were also hiding in plain sight. The couple were able to use Gabriele’s ration card to get food while she served her prison sentence. Gabriele found herself and her daughter in a devastated Berlin after the fighting stopped, and left for England with Caroline, in 1947. First they went to Oxford, where Gabriele’s father, the Greek scholar and academic Paul Maas, was already living. After a short period Caroline and her mother moved to South Wales. Caroline often described this period of her childhood, living in a small community outside Cardiff, as being very happy. After this, Caroline returned to Oxford with her mother and attended Milham Ford Grammar School. Sadly, she was bullied during her time there for being German. Caroline went on to read English at the University of Leeds. After graduation Caroline was accepted onto a teacher training course at The Institute of Education in London, but did not complete the course. She continued to live in Leeds, where she met a Nigerian accountancy student, Olufemi Owojori. They had a son, David, together but the relationship did not last. Caroline returned to Oxford with David, where she worked as a supply teacher. Wanting a change of lifestyle and having an interest in going to Africa, in 1973 Caroline accepted a post at the Commercial School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to teach English as a foreign language. Ethiopia at that time was a country afflicted by huge social inequalities, famine and political unrest, which became revolution and civil war during Caroline’s time there. A measure of the risks involved in this situation can be seen from the fates of a friend and another family, both from the very small expatriate English community in Addis Ababa. The friend was extra-judicially executed by government security forces, for helping members of the Eritrean Liberation Front and the other family were captured by the Tigray Liberation Front and held hostage for eight months.
Caroline met Mike in Ethiopia and she and David lived together as a family with him and his daughter from a previous relationship, Jennifer. Caroline and Mike got married in Addis Ababa in 1975. They went to Kenya in 1976 and whilst they were there Caroline’s mother, who had cancer, came out to spend her last days in Nairobi. Caroline made a painting of a Nandi Flame Tree to show her mother and decided that she really liked painting. Thus when she returned to England and went to live in Kew she took painting and drawing classes at Richmond Adult College which was where she discovered printmaking and in particular the bitten line of etching. This was also the time of the cruise missile crisis, the resurgence of CND and the Greenham Women and Caroline became very actively involved in campaigning, particularly with Christian CND, which continued right up to her death in Sobell House on 30th June, 2020.