AJR Commemorates Professor Sir Hans Krebs

The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) is delighted to announce that a special commemorative plaque was unveiled on Monday 20 May at the Department of Biochemistry, part of the University of Oxford, to honor the life and work of Professor Sir Hans Krebs.

Members of the AJR were joined by some 50 guests from various departments of science in Oxford and members of the Krebs family, including Lord John Krebs who gave some remarks before unveiling the plaque.

Sir Hans was already an established physician and biochemist but was barred from practicing medicine under the Nazis and fled to Britain in 1933. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology in 1953 for his work discovering the Krebs cycle and was knighted in 1958.

In 1965 Sir Hans had the honor of handing over to Lord Robbins, President of the British Academy, the proceeds of the Thank-You Britain Fund, an endowment collected by the refugees in gratitude to their adopted homeland.

Through the plaque scheme, the AJR is establishing permanent memorials to some of the most prominent Jewish émigrés who fled Nazi oppression and found refuge in Britain as well as places and buildings with a strong connection to the refugees.

Frank Harding, a Director of the AJR, said: “It is most appropriate that the life and contribution of Sir Hans is commemorated on the inaugural AJR plaque. His work has had an enormous and lasting impact on civil society. These commemorative plaques will help form a tangible link between the illustrious earlier inhabitants and the local community as well as fascinating residents and visitors. As well as being instructive and informative, they bring the past into the present, and they perpetuate the memory of the person being honored.”