Description
Object description
British civilian worked for Academic Assistance Council and Society for Protection of Science and Learning in GB, 1933-1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in GB and Vienna, Austria, 1903-1933: family; education; work for International Fellowship of Reconciliation in Vienna, 1928-1933; division of political opinion in Austria; work in Geneva, Switzerland, 1933; Leo Szlard's involvement in beginnings of Academic Assistance Council. Recollections of period with Academic Assistance Council and Society for Protection of Science and Learning in GB, 1933-1945: background to obtaining employment with Academic Assistance Council; prognostications of war; how Academic Assistance Council became Society for Protection of Science and Learning, 1937; activities during 1930s; providing grants and accommodation for refugees; increase in numbers after Nazis' passing of Nüremberg Laws; criteria for dealing with applications; type and qualifications of refugees to be absorbed into British society; visit to Vienna, Austria, 1937.
REEL 2 Continues: council and society personnel; source of funds; subscriptions and appeals; society's changing accommodation; procedure for dealing with applications; type of refugee most easily and commonly dealt with; question of refugees adjusting to British society; female academics; organisation of 'enemy alien' tribunals; meeting to discuss internment at Bloomsbury House, 5/1940; Professor A V Hill's approach to Sir Alexander Paterson to ensure release refugees vital to science and learning; subsequent decision for their release, 7/1940; application for release procedure.
REEL 3 Continues: story of not endorsing release application for refugee; tribunals and reasons behind internment; incident illustrating how refugees understood British authorities' anxieties; value drawn by internees from internment experience; how war improved position of medical refugees; how London became headquarters of society; Louis Rapkine's scheme to get European scientists to United States of America during Second World War; reasons why refugees remained in GB or returned to country of origin; question of panic at Bloomsbury House, 5/1940; reasons medical refugees unable to register before Second World War; post-war work of society; awareness of disruption refugees could cause to academic system.