In Florence she met the Hungarian art historian Jenö Lányi and in 1938 the couple left Italy for London, where they married on 2 March 1939. They left for Canada in 1940 on the "SS City of Benares", which on 17 September was sunk by a torpedo from the German submarine, U-48. Monika survived, clinging to a large piece of wood, but Lányi was drowned. According to her account she heard him call to her three times before he went under. After 20 hours she was rescued by a British ship and taken to Scotland. She reached New York on 28 October 1940 on the troopship "Cameronia", and joined her parents, who had moved to the US in 1939, at the outbreak of World War II. For a while she lived with her parents, who showed little sympathy for her. Her traumatic loss of her husband and her attempts at a new beginning with them were ignored. Later she moved into her own apartment near her parents.