Not just the nephew of Sir Geoffrey Elton but from a very distinguished Jewish-German academic family, the Ehrenbergs. His great-grandfather went to school with Kaiser Wilhelm II.
I wonder whether there’s an intellectually-leaning literal survivorship bias in the Holocaust diaspora, because (as Elton says in the book) the few refugee schemes in place in the ‘30s were often set up by academics trying to help their peers in occupied Europe and Germany. So many extraordinary stories of highly talented academics in different fields, getting to safety (just) and then doing world-changing work as exiles.
I suppose part of it is mobility: scholars had portable skills and, often, international contacts. Elton’s grandparents moved from Prague to the UK in 1939 with financial and other assistance provided by fellow academics. (Judaism is also very pro-scholarship and pro-argumentation, in fairness.)
Not just the nephew of Sir Geoffrey Elton but from a very distinguished Jewish-German academic family, the Ehrenbergs. His great-grandfather went to school with Kaiser Wilhelm II.
I wonder whether there’s an intellectually-leaning literal survivorship bias in the Holocaust diaspora, because (as Elton says in the book) the few refugee schemes in place in the ‘30s were often set up by academics trying to help their peers in occupied Europe and Germany. So many extraordinary stories of highly talented academics in different fields, getting to safety (just) and then doing world-changing work as exiles.
I suppose part of it is mobility: scholars had portable skills and, often, international contacts. Elton’s grandparents moved from Prague to the UK in 1939 with financial and other assistance provided by fellow academics. (Judaism is also very pro-scholarship and pro-argumentation, in fairness.)