familiar with it in January 1942 when she was appointed liaison officer with the Czechoslovak relief agency, Centre d'Aide Tchécoslovaque, but not until 1945 would the USC become her life's major work and mission. In 1942, Lotta was able to escape from Europe by sailing from Lisbon to New York on a refugee-packed twin-screw steamer designed to carry bananas rather than passengers. After delivering a USC report to Boston, she quickly departed for Canada, which, unlike the United States, had granted her a visa. Lotta later said she reached Montreal "exhausted, with a feeling of absolute solitude in an entirely strange country ... I came with $60 in my pocket. I had an unpronounceable name. I weighed less than 100 lbs, and I was completely lost." She was not lost for long, for on her fourth day in Canada she managed to obtain a secretarial job with a Montreal firm. Within three months she was in Ottawa working as a postal censor for the Department of War Services. She joined the Czechoslovakian National Alliance and helped raise money for Czech War Services in London, England. She also worked briefly for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. After the war ended, Hitschmanova was offered several jobs including one involving the rehabilitation of children in Czechoslovakia. When she learned that her parents had perished in a holding camp en route to the Auschwitz concentration camp she decided to stay in Canada. She found that her sister Lilly had moved to Israel and later on, Lilly relocated to Canada. Unitarian Service Committee In June 1945, Lotta helped to organize the Canadian branch of the Unitarian Service Committee. She was named as the first chairperson and she served in this position until 1949. The committee was affiliated with the Unitarian Church in Canada and the American Unitarian Association in Boston. In 1948 it severed its official link with the Unitarians and became an independent organization. However, it retained close ties with the Unitarians for many years as well as the word Unitarian in its name, until 2019 when the organization updated its name to SeedChange (Sème l'avenir in French) in order to reflect both the organization's mission and history, and to provide a more memorable name for new generations of supporters. Its initial objective was the relief of distressed people in France and Czechoslovakia. Senator Cairine Wilson was made honorary chairman, but Hitschmanova,