Uprooted Lives: Obituaries of Refugees and Survivors of the Holocaust from the AJR Journal 1955-2025

Book Launch - Uprooted Lives

North West London

Thursday 12 November

Launch of Uprooted Lives by Andrew Kaufman MBE and Bea Lewkowicz OBE

📖 BOOK LAUNCH – UPROOTED LIVES

Uprooted Lives: Obituaries of Refugees and Survivors of the Holocaust from the AJR Journal 1955–2025

We are delighted to invite you to the launch of Uprooted Lives, a new book compiled and edited by Andrew Kaufman MBE and Dr Bea Lewkowicz OBE, and published by the Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the AJR Journal. The evening will begin at 6.30pm with a reception.

A unique record of remarkable lives

Uprooted Lives tells the extraordinary stories of principally German-speaking Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors who found sanctuary in Britain.

Drawing on obituaries published in the AJR Journal between 1955 and 2025, these moving biographical portraits reveal lives transformed by persecution, displacement and renewal.

Celebrating lives that helped shape Britain

The book includes internationally renowned figures such as:

  • Rabbi Dr Leo Baeck
  • Anna Essinger
  • Melanie Klein
  • Dr Alfred Wiener
  • Dr Eva Reichmann
  • Sir Ernst Gombrich
  • Sir Ernst Chain
  • Sir Ludwig Guttmann
  • Anna Freud CBE
  • Judith Kerr OBE
  • Hella Pick CBE
  • Dame Stephanie Shirley

…and many others whose achievements made an extraordinary contribution to British intellectual, cultural, scientific and public life.

Alongside these celebrated names are hundreds of less familiar but equally compelling stories of educators, lawyers, doctors, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs, social workers, psychologists and community leaders. Together, these stories form a unique collective biography of a generation of refugees who rebuilt their lives in Britain – and helped shape modern Britain in the process.

Richly illustrated with photographs and spanning eight decades, Uprooted Lives is both a work of remembrance and a unique record of lived experiences.

📅 BOOK LAUNCH

📍 North West London Venue
📆 Thursday 12 November 2026
🕖 Reception 6.30pm. Talk 7.00pm

To register to attend please complete the form below:

Uprooted Lives Form

Uprooted Lives

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