Monday 27th January marked 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp. I spoke to a representative from the Oxford Jewish Society to ask her thoughts on the day: “Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is a day of tragedy. But Judaism is centred around finding light in the darkness. We mourn on Holocaust Memorial Day, but we also hope. Our very existence is evidence of the Nazi’s failure to wipe out the Jews, our presence in Oxford is proof that things can and do get better.”
It was only in 1856 that male Jewish undergraduates were allowed to enter the University of Oxford. Jews have been studying at Oxford for less than a fifth of the University’s history, yet Oxford became a haven for Jewish academics between 1933 and 1945. Once Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, he passed a series of anti-Jewish laws, preventing Jews from entering education or becoming teachers, and simultaneously erased Jewish academia and Jewish history. One Jewish student said: “My existence as a Jewish, female historian would have crushed Hitler. His goal was to erase Jews in academia. Every single Jewish student at Oxford is a testament to his failure.”
The University of Oxford was influential in leading the initiative to save Jewish German scholars and it supported more refugee academics than any other university in the UK. Various colleges supported and took in numerous academics, often along with their families. Somerville College, for example, took in the Classicist Lotte Labowsky, and later was able to provide a safe haven for her parents, too. All three were able to live out the rest of their lives in safety in the UK.
Not everyone took to these refugees as kindly as the University did: for instance, the Home Office was known to imprison many Jewish German refugees, due to both antisemitism and fear of German spies. One Jewish student told me that one of her ancestors were imprisoned on entry to England: “Imagine escaping Nazi Germany, and getting locked up as soon as you think you’re safe! I can’t even imagine the fear that they must have felt.” Heads of colleges worked hard to protect academics and their families, keeping them from internment, and freeing those who had already been imprisoned.
Oxford academics, such as former Principal of Somerville College, Janet Vaughan, were influential following World War Two. Dame Vaughan was part of the first group of citizen scientists to enter the concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen, and was confronted with thousands of unburied corpses, as well as over 60,000 malnourished, mortally ill prisoners. The British were partially responsible for killing 2,000 of these prisoners, having tried to feed them with the diet of the army, without realising that the prisoners, who had been starved for the previous six years, could no longer handle solid food. Many died before a proper diet was found. Vaughan was influential in finding the proper diet, which could keep the newly freed prisoners alive without overwhelming their bodies.
Oxford academics were also involved in the Kindertransport, and others were influential in helping Jews escape and hiding them during the Holocaust. Some raised money and participated in relief efforts. Many colleges took in refugee scholars. It is important to recognise that refugee Jews were not treated well across the UK. People often met them with distrust, and antisemitism was never confined to Germany. But in an uniquely horrific time, Oxford became a safe haven.
Now, more than ever, Holocaust Education is needed. One in twenty British adults deny that the Holocaust ever happened, and eight percent claim the scale of the genocide has been exaggerated, according to a poll commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. This poll also found that an average of five percent of European adults had never even heard of the Holocaust. The Holocaust is being forgotten at a terrifyingly rapid rate. Yet survivors are still alive. It is in living memory. Yet, as Oxford remembers, or perhaps ignores, Holocaust Memorial Day in 2025, the tragedy is felt, but so is the hope.
Many thanks to the Oxford Jewish Society for helping with the research of this article. Oxford Jewish Society are hosting Holocaust survivor, Annick Lever MBE, to speak about her experiences at 7pm on Monday 3rd February. Booking is free but sign up is required: https://www.ujs.org.uk/oxfordhmd25. Open to all.
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