Barbara Rose Hooke, a Johns Hopkins cancer researcher who survived World War II and witnessed the destruction of Dresden, died Aug. 20 at MedStar Union Memorial Hospital. She was 96 and formerly lived in Wyman Park. No medical cause of death was available.

Born in the city of Breslau, now Wroclaw, in Poland, she was the daughter of Karl Julius Pfeiffer, a banker, and his wife, Magda, an opera singer.

In a memoir, she recalled that as a 12-year-old she witnessed the Jewish persecution on Kristallnacht: “I saw [Jews] coming out of their buildings and being pushed onto the trucks. … In school we had two Jewish girls. One day they were there and the next day they did not “ show up.”

She recalled fleeing the invading Russian army with her mother. They went to Salzburg, Austria, and then back to their home to retrieve family heirlooms and clothes.

“Her mother had connections and they could get train tickets because her mother was a well-known opera singer,” said her grandson Matt Hooke. “They had a comfortable lifestyle before Germany collapsed.”

She witnessed the Allied bombing of Dresden, Germany, when an estimated 25,000 people perished in a firestorm.

In her memoir, Mrs. Hooke said: “No one said a word. Everybody was in shock. People were on fire, screaming, running back and forth and jumping into the Elbe River.”

Her son Jeffrey “Jeff” Hooke said his mother returned to Salzburg and met an American soldier, Robert Hooke Jr., who became a veterinary supply salesman.

She moved to Baltimore in 1948 and they soon married. The couple later divorced. She raised three sons in the Northwood section of Northeast Baltimore as a single mother.

Mrs. Hooke worked 32 years as a medical research assistant for the Oncology Center of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

“She witnessed the doctors develop the revolutionary bone marrow transplant cure for leukemia,” her son Jeff said.

Mrs. Hooke also worked a night job for a time at the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women in Jessup and worked for a brief period at a hospital in Iowa City, Iowa.

After raising her sons, she became an urban pioneer and bought a $1 homestead house in the Otterbein neighborhood.

Mrs. Hooke later moved to Wyman Park, where she lived on Beech Avenue until age 93. She then moved to Symphony Manor assisted living.

“She knew all her neighbors who were a fraction of her age,” said her grandson Matt Hooke. “She and her dog, Freddie, often took mile-long walks in Stony Run Park.”

Mrs. Hooke sang in the choir of the Towson Presbyterian Church for more than 20 years.

She was interested in classical music and enjoyed her time at the Lyric Opera House and Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall.

Mrs. Hooke traveled throughout Europe, Africa and Asia.

Survivors include two sons, Robert Hooke, of Ruxton, and Jeffrey “Jeff” Hooke, of Chevy Chase; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. A son, Alex Hooke, died in 2023. A memorial service for Mrs. Hooke is being planned at Symphony Manor, an assisted living facility.