British diplomat defied Gestapo
British Diplomat Gestapo
Were it not for him, Baroness Rabbi Julia Neuberger might not have been born, nor Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, nor thousands of other British Jews. The name of Robert Smallbones will be unfamiliar to many. For only now has the British diplomat finally begun to receive recognition for his efforts to pluck Jews out of Nazi Germany.
Rabbi Neuberger and Wittenberg both had grandparents who, thanks to a secret visa scheme he instigated as the British consul-general in Frankfurt, were able to escape to Britain.
He and his vice-consul, Arthur Dowden, were posthumously honored by the British government as “Holocaust Heroes”. Read the full story…
I am lucky to have a German passport from 1935 with a Dowden visa in my collection myself.
Julia Babette Sarah Neuberger, Baroness Neuberger, DBE is a British member of the House of Lords. She previously took the Liberal Democrat whip, but resigned from the party and became a crossbencher in 2011 upon becoming the full-time senior rabbi of the West London Synagogue, from which she retired in 2020.
Jonathan Wittenberg OBE is a Masorti rabbi, the Senior Rabbi of Masorti Judaism UK. He is a leading writer and thinker on Judaism. He is Rabbi of the New North London Synagogue, with approximately 2400 members. Furthermore, he is also a member of the Elijah Interfaith Institute Board of World Religious Leaders.
Source: Diplomat who faced down the Gestapo | The Jewish Chronicle
British Diplomat Gestapo
Tom Topol | Passport Historian & Author
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