Britain
In early 1939, Guttmann and his family left Germany because of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. An opportunity for escape arose when the Nazis provided him with a visa and ordered him to travel to Portugal to treat a friend of the Portuguese dictator António de Oliveira Salazar.
Guttmann was scheduled to return to Germany via London, where the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) arranged for him to remain in the UK. He arrived with his wife and two children, a son, Dennis and daughter, Eva aged 6 in Oxford, England, on 14 March 1939. CARA, which negotiated with the British Home Office on their behalf, gave Guttmann and his family £250 (equivalent to around £10,000 today) to help settle in Oxford. Guttmann continued his spinal injury research at the Nuffield Department of Neurosurgery in the Radcliffe Infirmary. For the first few weeks after arrival the family resided in the Master's Lodge of Balliol College until they moved into a small semi-detached house in Lonsdale Road. Both children were offered free places by the headmistress of Greycotes school. The family were members of the Oxford Jewish Community, and Eva remembers becoming friendly with Miriam Margolyes, now a famous actress. The Jewish community in Oxford was growing rapidly as a result of the influx of displaced academic Jews from Europe.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Guttmann and his family stayed in the home of Lord Lindsay, CARA Councillor and Master of Balliol College.
Read more about this topic: Ludwig Guttmann
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