Holocaust survivor leaves more than £1.5 million to University

23 Jan 2014

Legacy of academic who fled Nazis

An academic who fled from the horrors of Nazi Germany in 1939 as an 11-year-old child has bequeathed over £1.5 million to the University.

Professor Fanni Bogdanow, who died in July 2013 aged 86, was one of the 10,000 Jewish children rescued by the UK in a mission known as the Kindertransport.

Her legacy will fund a series of lectures which will take place around Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January starting from next year, prizes for high performing students and includes a significant gift to provide flexible support for the University’s strategic priorities.

Professor Bogdanow, an only child with no surviving close relatives, was taken in by a Quaker family in Denton.

She was one of the few Kindertransport children whose parents survived, between them, the appalling concentration camps of Dachau, Wulzberg and Bergen-Belsen. She was reunited with her mother in Manchester during the 1950s.

After receiving distinctions in seven out of eight subjects at Fairfield High School for Girls, she was awarded three entrance scholarships to the University in 1945 where she studied French.

She went on to spend much of her career at the University as postgraduate student, lecturer, reader and professor, to become one of the world’s foremost scholars in her field - King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.

President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell said: “Professor Bogdanow was a remarkable scholar with a remarkable story. She was able to conquer extreme adversity to become one of the leading scholars in her field and a valued member of the University community.

“We are delighted she left this sum to the University. This will be used in a manner which will serve as a fitting tribute to her memory.”

Dr Matthew Philpotts, who took his undergraduate degree at Manchester in French and German between 1991 and 1996 and is now head of Languages and Intercultural Studies, is a former student of Professor Bogdanow.

He said: “I was fortunate enough to have classes with Fanni when I was a student here in the early 1990s. She made no secret of her background and often mentioned it in class, but I don’t think any of us realised quite how remarkable her personal history was.

“Like so many of the best academics, she had a considerable presence and gave us a rare insight into the importance of her subject.”