Miss Simpson's Children

Seriously...

BBC

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.1 • 885 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2017

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The story of how one woman offered refuge to leading intellectuals fleeing from the Nazis, helping transform the cultural and intellectual landscape of Britain and the United States. Shortly after Hitler came to power, an organisation was set up in Britain to help academics who were being thrown out of their jobs in Nazi Germany. It was called the Academic Assistance Council. The council's assistant secretary, Esther Simpson, became its dynamic force. She called all the refugees she assisted her 'children'. Sixteen of them ended up as Nobel Prize winners. Many would later admit that they owed their lives to her. David Edmonds tells the unknown story of Esther Simpson and the brilliant minds she saved. Producer Mark Savage. (Photo credit: The Lotte Meitner-Graf Archive).

Transcript

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0:00.0	This was an impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box.
0:05.0	The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from.
0:09.0	And one of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape.
0:12.0	The IRA inmates who found a way. of a political prisoner is the escape.
0:12.5	The IRA inmates who found a way.
0:14.5	I'm Carlo Gableer and I'll be navigating a path
0:19.5	through the disturbing inside story of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history.
0:25.0	The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them.
0:28.5	Escape from the Maze, listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:34.0	This is the BBC.
0:40.0	Hi, I'm Riana Dylan.
0:42.0	Welcome to Seriously.
0:45.0	Today's seriously interesting story is one of wartime heroism,
0:51.0	from an office in an attic in central London.
0:55.0	It is the BBC Home Service.
0:58.0	The German Army invaded Holland and Belgium early this morning
1:02.0	by land and by landings from parachutes.
1:05.0	Miss Esther Simpson is probably one of those people you haven't read about in the history books, but she stepped up to help people seeking
1:15.6	refuge from the Nazis, people who certainly are in the history books.
1:22.4	David Edmonds brings us her story.
1:25.0	Ernst Gombric, Art Historian.
1:34.3	Max Borne, Physicist and Mathes,
	...

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