READFIELD – A woman who shunned publicity before she died earlier this year has left more than $2 million to central Maine charities and nonprofits, including a soup kitchen-shelter, cancer hospital and humane organization.

Ilse Westman left $500,000 of the total to the Bread of Life Ministries, which plans to put most of the money into a trust account to be used as an endowment fund, said volunteer treasurer Scott Small. The donation to the ministry, which runs an Augusta soup kitchen and shelter, is one of the largest it has received, he said.

Other $500,000 recipients include the Alfond Cancer Center, Salvation Army and Kennebec Valley Humane Society, which also says Westman’s gift is among the largest it’s received. The Pine Tree State Arboretum and Maine Public Broadcasting received $25,000 each.

Westman was born in Germany and was a nurse during World War II in Berlin. After she married, she and her late husband Heinz Westman, a prominent psychologist, emigrated to Britain. They later came to the United States and in the 1960s settled in the Augusta area.

Neighbors say Westman was an intensely private person. Westman, who was 92 when she died Aug. 19, didn’t even want an obituary in the newspaper or a funeral, according to her friend and lawyer, Warren Winslow Jr.

She was not actively involved in any of the groups to which she left money, and left no strings attached.

“She remembered being hungry in Berlin, so she gave to the Bread of Life,” said Winslow. “She loved the humane society, and had a very strong interest in curing cancer,” he said.