[1] Forced to flee to France in 1938 after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, Haftel soon after joined her family in England, where they were then interned as 'enemy aliens' on the Isle of Man, where she made her acting debut, appearing in a German-language production of As You Like It.
Living in London after the war, she supported herself doing office work while studying voice and piano and occasionally performing on stage and radio.
She supported herself performing an ever-increasing repertoire of folk songs in multiple languages in nightclubs and concert venues in the Catskills and elsewhere.
In 1959, her album of songs composed by Kurt Weill at the Edinburgh Festival led to wider awareness of her work; she herself said it made her "a star overnight".
[3] Among her stage performances were Weill's Mahagonny (Stratford Festival, Ontario, 1965), A Kurt Weill Cabaret (Ravinia Festival, 1967), Fiddler on the Roof (as Golde, Broadway, 1968) and several one-woman shows, including A Woman Without a Man Is....[1][4] Her television appearances as herself include the series Hootenanny (1963), Rainbow Quest (1965), Talk of the Town (1965) and the America's Musical Theater episode "Happy End" (1985).