75th Anniversary

06 July 2009
Birkeck Magazine, Spring 2009. Scroll down to page 20
Freedom of Thought by Laura Wintour
The German-born British architectural historian and critic, Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, is best known for editing the monumental 46-volume series, The Buildings of England (1951–74); a compilation of over 300,000 buildings that enabled a generation of British people to look closely at their architectural heritage. Not quite so well known is why a ‘Pevsner’ (a generic term for an architectural guide to the villages, towns and cities of Britain) came to be, and what a debt of gratitude Britain owes to various people and organisations, particularly the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA), for enabling Pevsner to continue his career in Britain, subsequently changing Britain’s attitude to the importance of the built environment and the relationship between architecture, design and daily life. more...

30 June 2009
OXFORD TODAY
A refuge for the persecuted, release for the fettered mind by Georgina Ferry
Seventy years ago, on 5 February 1939, the great and the good of Oxford poured into the Sheldonian to hear distinguished speakers address 'The Problem of the refugee Scholar'. The aim was to persuade the University and its colleges to open their hearts and their pockets to academics from countries where fascism had deprived them of their livelihood and of the opportunity to teach and research. On the platform was Lord Samuel, former Home Secretary and head of the Council for German Jewry, and Sir John Hope Simpson, the former Indian civil servant whose subsequent career as a colonial administrator had frequently focused on migration, forced and otherwise, in countries as diverse as Kenya and Palestine. Both were Balliol men. more...

04 June 2009
Times Higher Education
Asylum and the academy by Margot Finn
Published to mark the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (Cara), Jeremy Seabrook's The Refuge and the Fortress surveys the UK's role as a place of asylum since the 1930s and provides a probing analysis of the challenges faced by scholarly refugees in the globalised 21st century. more...

19 March 2009
The Orwell Prize
The Refuge and the Fortress has been long listed

The Orwell Prize is the pre-eminent British prize for political writing. A record number of entries were received this year, more than either the Man Booker or Samuel Johnson prizes, and from 190 eligible books, a long list of 18 was announced.

more...

15 March 2009
The Sunday Times
Relative Values: Ben Elton and his father. Ben Elton, 49, the comedian and author, and his father, Lewis, 85, a professor by Caroline Scott
I once read an article in which a psychoanalyst claimed I must be in denial about the kind of hothouse environment I grew up in, simply because my father is a Jewish refugee professor more...

02 March 2009
The Telegraph
Help unlock the secrets of a science soirée by Kate Devlin
It was described as the "most dramatic assemblage of brains ever held under one roof" when, in February 1939, some of Europe's most brilliant scientists who had fled the Nazi threat joined with hundreds of their British colleagues at a party to raise money for the refugees. But most of those present at the glittering event held at the headquarters of the Royal Society, then at Burlington House in London, were ignorant of the identities of those with whom they were mingling. Fearful of reprisals against relatives left behind, many of the foreign scientists declined to be named. more...

09 February 2009
Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR)
The rescue of refugee scholars by Anthony Grenville
Seventy-five years ago, in 1933, the Academic Assistance Council, known from 1936 as the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, was founded. The AAC/SPSL was a remarkable body that played a unique part in the rescue of scholars and scientists, mostly Jewish, who had been dismissed by the Nazis from their posts at German and Austrian universities and whose livelihoods, and lives, were endangered. more...

29 January 2009
Camden New Journal
To a place of greater safety by Illtyd Harrington
NO one in 1935, crossing the busy Southampton Street, took much notice of the young German Jew who seemed fascinated by the colour sequences of the traffic lights. A few years later that man, Leo Szilard, before leaving to take part in the Manhattan Project and helping to make the atomic bomb, told a friend in London he had calculated that there would be a chain reaction to that terrible explosion. This was a more than accurate conclusion after watching the traffic lights. more...

15 January 2009
Institute of Race Relations
'British handcuffs, the handcuffs of freedom' by Jeremy Seabrook
Laurent Mpinde, who was studying sports science in Brazzaville and teaching in schools and colleges, was interviewed last year by Jeremy Seabrook researching the book, The Refuge and the Fortress: Britain and the Flight from Tyranny commissioned for the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics. The interview has been edited by Amanda Sebesteyen more...

13 December 2008
The Guardian
REVIEW: The Refuge and the Fortress by John Dugdale
As Jon Snow's foreword notes, exiled professors have given Britain a "vast pool of intellectual capacity", and the first wave of those aided by what is now called the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (Cara) were a starry bunch, including scientists Max Born, Ernst Chain, Hans Krebs, Max Perutz and Leó Szilárd, architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner and art historian Ernst Gombrich. more...

11 December 2008
Times Higher Education
Bittersweet birthday cheer by Sir John Ashworth
John Ashworth wonders whether Cara's 75th anniversary is really a cause for celebration or a reason for reflection more...

11 December 2008
Mature Times
'The Refuge and the Fortress - Britain and the flight from tyranny.' by Jayne Warren
'The Refuge and the Fortress' by Jeremy Seabrook describes the profound and measurable contribution to the life of Britain that refugees have made ever since Hitler forced Jewish academics out of German universities within weeks of coming to power in 1933. more...

02 December 2008
The Independent
A gut-wrenching view of the changing face of refugee Britain by Julia Pascal
This well-researched book marks the 75th anniversary of the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (Cara). It charts British reactions to refugees, from 1915, when passports were required, to the present. While the emphasis is on fugitive scholars, a broader insight is given into those seeking asylum here. more...

02 December 2008
University of Cambridge
The Refuge and the Fortress
A launch of The Refuge and the Fortress at St Catharine’s College last Friday 28 November.
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02 December 2008
BookBag
The Refuge and the Fortress: Britain and the Flight From Tyranny
It's the sort of book that should find itself on citizenship reading lists in schools and colleges up and down the land. And perhaps more importantly, also on the desks of newspaper editors and opinion-formers everywhere. more...

28 November 2008
Hat News
Extraordinary group of refugees deepen Britain’s pool of intellectual talent.
An extraordinary group of refugees has deepened Britain’s pool of intellectual talent and their contribution deserves to be celebrated.They escaped the knock at the door and went on to win Nobel prizes. more...

27 November 2008
Institute of Race Relations
Refuge and fortress: a tale of two cultures by Jeremy Seabrook
more...

26 November 2008
The Times
They escaped the knock at the door and went on to win Nobel prizes by Jon Snow
An extraordinary group of refugees has deepened Britain's pool of intellectual talent. Their contribution deserves to be celebrated more...

18 November 2008
The Guardian
The fortress Britain myth. It's easy to believe that we are united by Jeremy Seabrook
Instead of engaging in debate about refugees and asylum seekers, many liberals argue by proxy, criticising the treatment of the issue by the popular press. They are reluctant to make a case against the dominant view, that this island is besieged by people taking advantage of our good nature, and bringing their hard luck stories to a country known as a soft touch. more...

11 September 2008
The Guardian
Letters; Migration rules are a recipe for problems in key sectors by Professor John Akker
Without us accepting those who fled in the 1930s from Nazi Germany we would be very much the poorer (Welcome to Britain - so long that as you're an engineer, maths teacher or sheep shearer, September 10). more...

03 March 2008
BBC Learning Curve
In CARA's 75th anniversary year, Libby Purvis talks to Sir John Ashworth, CARA President, about its current work and Anna McNamee speaks to the oldest surviving direct beneficiary of CARA's work, Lewis Elton, whose father was a Professor in Prague in 1939; to Richard Gombrich, son of the renowned Austrian-British art historian Ernst Gombrich; and to a former Libyan lecturer who was arrested after she publicly criticised Ghadaffi. Second item - 19 minutes in. more...

29 January 2008
The Guardian
Rescuing Academic Refugees
A British organisation is celebrating 75 years of helping lecturers abused by repressive regimes. more...