A Jewish Scientist in Nazi Germany

The evening had all the trappings that one might expect OF a museum exhibit opening:

Well-dressed sophisticates milling about, hovering over a sampling of newly-acquired pieces as glasses of wine and trays of hors d'oeuvres are circulated by a small staff of uniformed servers.

Yet, the items on display were neither impressionist paintings nor modernist sculpture. They included a trove of books, notes, letters and photographs that tell the uniquely intertwined history of the effects of the Holocaust on the world of science, German Jewry, and on a family desperately trying to escape the horrors of Nazism.

The scientists, collectors, patrons, and others invited to the event — which took place among the imposing book collection of the Science History Institute in Philadelphia — were among the first to view these items in nearly three quarters of a century. The archive tells the story of Georg Bredig, a prominent German-Jewish scientist, who, like many in his position, quickly went from being a highly respected leader in his field, with deep patriotic connections to his homeland, to becoming an object of scorn and persecution that would drive him into exile.

Meticulously kept, with the precision of a German man of science, and dramatically smuggled out of Germany just before the outbreak of the Second World War, the collection had rested in a set of steamer trunks in a basement since shortly after Dr. Bredig's passing in 1944. Now, through the work of a set of experts, with generous funding from a private foundation, the Bredig archive will pick up where its owner left off, telling present and future generations of his seminal work in the field of physical chemistry and of his inner and outer struggles with Hitler's regime.

Source: Hamodia.com