As a a glamorous 27-year-old political activist, she booked a Christmas trip to the luxury ski resort of Kitzbühel, Austria in December 1938 to do reconnaissance work. She returned to the UK with a Nazi-approved visa in her passport, which enabled her to volunteer for a dangerous humanitarian mission. The British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia (BCRC) sent her to Katowice, Poland. She was put in charge of helping hundreds, and eventually thousands, of Jews, trade unionists, communists and other persecuted minorities. She led a one-woman operation to find them British visas, as well as food and housing. It is estimated that between March and July 1939, she helped to process visas for between 2,000 and 3,000 refugees to come to the UK.