Hélène Bruhl was born on 26 August 1889 to an upper middle-class Jewish family in Chatou.
During the 1920s and 30s, she published six books on the history of chemistry in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whilst supporting herself on the money from her dowry.
When France was occupied by the Nazis in the 1940s, Metzger initially stayed in Paris before moving to Lyon, which was part of the so-called "free zone", in late 1941.
She was then deported from Drancy to Auschwitz concentration camp on 7 March 1944, and was murdered either during travel or upon arrival.
[2] Because of her early death, her oeuvre is limited in size, but has nonetheless been influential.