Erika Koch was born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany in 1915; living with her family in Berlin Tempelhof she initially hoped to become a vet, but anti-Jewish laws forced her to abandon her studies and in 1933 she took up a photography apprenticeship with Otto Umbehr. In order to avoid Nazi persecution, in 1936 she immigrated to England, where after her internment she gained a photography qualification at Regent Street Polytechnic. She subsequently worked for magazines including 'National Geographic' and 'The Diplomat' and set up her own photography studio in New Bond Street.
Photographer Erika Koch was born into a Jewish family in Frankfurt, Germany in 1915. She lived with her family in Berlin Tempelhof and hoped to become a vet, but anti-Jewish laws forced her to leave the Karl-Marx-Schule in Neukoeln in 1933 before completing her exams. Instead she took up a photography apprenticeship with Umbo (Otto Umbehr) between 1933-36 and later with Hein Gorny, during which time she produced photographs characterised by modernist angles and daring technical approaches. Koch's father lost his job in 1936, three years after the Nazis came to power. The Kochs were harassed by the regime, causing family members to flee individually to Britain between 1936 and 1939. Koch later recalled her experience of hearing the screams of torture victims in the prison she walked past from her house in Tempelhof (March 2019, p. 54).
In early 1936 Koch immigrated to England. She worked as a domestic help initially (often the only way for single women to gain a visa for entry into the UK) but was then interned as a so called ‘enemy alien’ on the Isle of Man between May 1940 and 1941, under the government's policy of mass internment. In 1943 she gained a photography qualification at the Regent Street Polytechnic (now University of Westminster) and was provided with paid commissioned photographic work by the British government. She subsequently set up her own children's photography business, 'Erica', based at the studio of Rodney Todd-White in New Bond Street. In 1948 she became a naturalised British subject. In the postwar years Bloch produced photo stories for National Geographic and The Geographical Magazine, with assignments in Jamaica and Liberia. She also worked regularly for The Diplomat, photographing a variety of functions, including embassy parties and events at Buckingham Palace. In 1963 Bloch participated in a group exhibition at the Munchener Stadt Museum.
Erika Koch died in London, England in 2010. In 2013 a posthumous film, The View from Our House, directed by Anthea Kennedy and Ian Wiblin, was released in the UK documenting Koch's life in Berlin based on extracts from her letters, diaries and oral history recordings. In 2020 her work was included in the exhibition Another Eye celebrating the contribution of women refugees to Britain’s photographic culture. The show comprised Koch’s photographs of the relaxed inter-war years in Germany, from a swim-suited pair of youths to Berlin covered in winter snow: ‘the snapshots are ghosts of Koch’s pre-emigration life, a casualty of war, but cobbled together as a professional portfolio the numbered photographs speak volumes of her hopefulness’ (Review for Photomonitor by Ellie Howard). Her work is not currently held in any UK public collections.