Miss Simpson's Children

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 of America.

Shortly after Hitler came to power in 1933, an organisation was set up in Britain to help academics who were being thrown out of their jobs in Nazi Germany in the lead up to the Second World War.

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'.

16 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.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2017.

(Photo credit: The Lotte Meitner-Graf Archive)