Overview

When the Nazi regime came to power in Germany in the 1930s, Jews and those who tried to protect them were systematically persecuted, exiled, or killed. As the Nazis attempted to root out "Jewish influence" on German life, university science and mathematics departments, where Jews were particularly numerous, became favorite targets. In mathematics, Germany had been the center of the international research community in the first decades of the twentieth century. With the rise of Adolf Hitler, some mathematicians were murdered, and many others fled. The focus of the mathematical world shifted to the United States and Canada.

Background

The Enlightenment of eighteenth-century Europe brought new ways of thinking to Western Europe. Political freedom as well as the freedom to ask questions about the way the world worked became at least...