An Oxford Exhibition
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VOLUMEAJR JOURNAL 12 NO.4 APRIAPRIL 2012 An Oxford exhibition n 15 January 2012, an exhibition He established himself as an internation- with whom he shared a scholarly interest on the distinguished classical ally respected authority in his field, and in Greek vases, strongly supported him. Oarchaeologist Professor Paul with single-minded devotion to his sub- As my article ‘Sebastian Flyte, meet Albert Jacobsthal, who came to Oxford University ject built up a large working archive of Einstein’ (AJR Journal, February and April in 1936 as a refugee from Hitler, opened photographs of prehistoric objects. 2004) showed, Christ Church, despite its at the gallery of Oxford’s town hall and But in 1935 Jacobsthal was dismissed association with aristocratic elites more museum, where it was shown until 10 from his post on racial grounds. He drawn to champagne than to scholarship, March. The opening ceremony was was forced to donate his photographic was among the Oxford colleges that conducted by the Lord Mayor of Oxford, collection to the university; his star welcomed refugee academics. Jacobsthal Elise Benjamin, the first Jew to hold that student, Alexander Langsdorff, joined found Oxford a congenial environment, office. The exhibition, ‘Persecution and the SS, rising to the position of cultural despite the differences in social and Survival: A Wartime Refugee’s Story’, academic culture between German and was created by Dr Sally Crawford and British universities. He and his wife were Dr Katharina Ulmschneider of the to settle in an imposing redbrick Victorian University’s Institute of Archaeology, house on Banbury Road in north Oxford, who have undertaken the challenging the type of abode favoured by so many task of cataloguing Jacobsthal’s papers Oxford dons, though the Jacobsthals and researching his life and work in occupied only one floor, renting out the Oxford. other two as separate flats. Jacobsthal Paul Ferdinand Jacobsthal exemplified refused to return to Marburg, took British the outstanding contribution that the citizenship and stayed in Oxford, dying Jewish refugees from Hitler made to there in 1957. British intellectual and cultural life. But before that, in July 1940, he Born in Berlin in 1880, he was one of was abruptly arrested and interned; as the many prominent Jewish scholars an ‘enemy alien’, he fell victim to the and intellectuals to emerge from the government’s ill-considered measure of matrix of assimilated, emancipated detaining all German nationals on security middle-class German Jewry. His mother, grounds during the panic that followed Ida Rosenstern, came from a Hamburg Paul Jacobsthal at his desk in Oxford the fall of France and the Low Countries. merchant family, his father was a doctor, His internment diary starkly conveys that and his younger brother Ernst became attaché in London under ambassador moment: ‘On Friday July 5th 1940 in the a professor of mathematics. The family Joachim von Ribbentrop, later executed morning when I was peacefully writing on was well integrated into German society: at Nuremberg. (The exhibition contains Celtic Geometric Ornament a knock came Jacobsthal was baptised a Protestant. a chilling image of Langsdorff lecturing at my door in Christ Church and a plain After studying at Berlin (where his on archaeological objects in SS uniform.) clothes Police Officer entered producing teachers included the legendary classi- With the assistance of the Society for a warrant of arrest.’ cist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf), the Protection of Science and Learning, Jacobsthal was held first at a disused Göttingen and Bonn, he held positions at founded in 1933 by William Beveridge and cotton mill, Warth Mill in Bury, Lancashire, Göttingen and Marburg, where he was Leo Szilard as the Academic Assistance before being transferred to Hutchinson appointed Professor of Classical Archae- Council to find posts for academics Camp on the Isle of Man, where he formed ology in 1912. At Marburg he established dismissed or discriminated against by part of the galaxy of scholarly talent the first Chair in Prehistory in Germany, the Nazis, Jacobsthal and his wife came that was such a feature of the wartime a pioneering step in the discipline of ar- to Oxford, where he was appointed internment of ‘aliens’. He was released in chaeology, and oversaw the erection of a Lecturer at Christ Church in 1936. He November 1940. new building, the Jubiläumsbau, to house subsequently became University Reader Back in Oxford, Jacobsthal devoted the Archaeology Department. Jacobsthal of Celtic Archaeology. himself to rewriting in English his magnum had a special interest in Celtic art and Jacobsthal was fortunate: he had opus Early Celtic Art, the German version culture, which took him back beyond the already spent a period as Visiting of which he had been unable to publish classical era of the Greeks and Romans Professor at Christ Church, and the under the Nazis. Published by Oxford into the realm of prehistoric archaeology. eminent archaeologist Sir John Beazley, continued overleaf 1 AJR JOURNAL APRIL 2012 An Oxford exhibition cont. from p1 dabbler in mysticism and the occult, controlled the Ahnenerbe from 1936. Yom HaShoah 2012 University Press in 1944, it remains, as Like Arthur Rosenberg’s Amt Rosenberg, n Wednesday 18 April, between Crawford and Ulmschneider state, ‘the the Ahnenerbe misused archaeology 8-10 pm, Holocaust survivors first port of call for anyone who wants and the excavation of materials from OZdenka Fantlova and Victor to learn about ancient Celtic art and archaeological sites to justify the conquest Greenberg will be the guest speakers ornament’, its two magisterial volumes of neighbouring European lands and to at the annual Pinner Synagogue representing ‘a tremendous and lasting support the Nazi view of Germans as the event. The UK Envoy for Post-Holocaust achievement of scholarship’. It was also motor force behind European civilisation, Issues, Sir Andrew Burns, will also give an address. a key contribution to a highly political invoking theories of cultural diffusion On the day of Yom HaShoah itself, debate, pitting the traditional scholarship that saw ideas and influences as passing Thursday 19 April, a brief ceremony of the liberal West against the debased, from more advanced, ‘creative’ peoples will take place at the AJR Paul Balint ideologically contaminated pseudo- to the less advanced. As a result of the Centre at Belsize Square Synagogue scholarship of the Nazis. propaganda value of archaeology to the at 12 noon. If you would like to stay The Celts had assumed a significant Nazis, prehistory, which had had only for lunch (£7 pp), please call 020 7431 role in the Nazi view of history, which one university chair in Germany in 1933 2744. was largely devoted to giving scientific (Jacobsthal’s at Marburg), boasted no Members are also invited to attend underpinning to the myth of the superiority fewer than nine by 1935. the annual national Yom HaShaoh of the Germanic master race. That alleged Oxford benefited greatly from the commemoration, which will take place superiority extended to the realm of exodus of classical scholars from Nazi on Sunday 22 April at the national memorial to the Holocaust at The Dell culture, where the Nazis were eager to Germany, like Felix Jacoby at Christ in Hyde Park, London. Depending on trace the origins of European civilisation, Church or the towering figure of Eduard demand, transport for members living in manifestations ranging from language Fraenkel at Corpus Christi College. in London will be provided. to ancient artefacts, to Germanic origins. Their heritage, unlike that of their Nazi The above event, organised by the The Nazis allocated the Celts, who lived rivals, lived on beyond them, among Forum for Yom HaShoah in conjunction across much of Europe from about the the younger generation of refugees with the Board of Deputies, will begin fifth century BCE, to the broader category as well as among the British. One at 11 am. There will be seating (and of the ‘Indo-Germanic’ (Indo-European) of Jacobsthal’s students was Brian a canopy) for 500 guests for the peoples, who had supposedly originated Shefton (Bruno Benjamin Scheftelowitz), service, which will last approximately in Central Europe and spread their culture who was born in Cologne in 1919, 90 minutes. Leading members of the outwards from its Germanic cradle across came to Britain in 1933, and studied Jewish community will address guests and give readings and Kaddish will the European land mass. at Oxford. Shefton became a highly be recited. To reserve your space and Jacobsthal’s book ran flatly counter acclaimed Professor of Archaeology for further details about the event to these theories of an ‘Aryan’ national at the University of Newcastle, where and Yom HaShaoh UK, of which the prehistory, since it proved that the Celts, he achieved widespread celebrity in AJR is a prominent member, please far from being the originators of proto- 2004 for reuniting the two halves of visit http://www.yomhashoah.org.uk/ Germanic culture, owed much to the the head of a terracotta lion, dating showevent/51 Greeks in their artistic development. from about 500 BCE, which had been We are very grateful to Robert Brody, In any case, Jacobsthal had no time separated for most of their existence. Michael Shocket and Dudley Cohen for for the projection of national divisions The reunited head, which would have arranging a performance of Renya: back into prehistory, where they were decorated a Greek temple, went on show The Cobbler’s Daughter, which will in reality unknown. In advancing such at the University’s Shefton Museum of be presented by the Lorenz Ensemble at 7:30 pm on Sunday 22 April at Kenton arguments, Jacobsthal was crossing the Greek Art and Archaeology (now part Synagogue. Tickets are available at £10 most dangerous of enemies, including of the Great North Museum), named each – please call 020 8907 8159.