Crossing Borders: Academic Refugee Women, Education and the British Federation of University Women during the Nazi Era

This paper explores the educational experiences of a specific group of refugees, namely academic women refugees who were members of various branches of the International Federation of University Women, and who came to Britain under the auspices of the British Federation of University Women from 1933. As a result of voluntary or forced migration some 400 such women from Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Austria sought entry to Britain following Hitler's accession to power in Germany in 1933. The help they received from the specially formed Emergency Refugee Committee of the British Federation of University Women, not only in gaining entry to the country but in refashioning their pre-migration educational and academic achievements, is looked at in detail, and the extent to which the women were able to retrain, re-qualify or complete training courses curtailed by political events and migration is considered. (Contains 37 footnotes.)