OXFORD author Mark Haddon won thousands of fans with his quirky novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

Now the true story of how the family of his wife Dr Sos Eltis escaped Nazi persecution has led him to support a new exhibition on wartime refugees.

Tomorrow Oxford University will open an exhibition at the town hall in St Aldate’s entitled Persecution and Survival: A wartime refugee’s story. It is the conclusion of a project launched in May 2010 by the university’s Institute of Archaeology.

The project focused on the story of Jewish refugee Prof Paul Jacobsthal, an eminent archaeologist who left Germany to work at Oxford University.

Publicity about the launch of the project led to people coming forward with their memories of the war years, either as refugees or because they provided homes for refugee families.

Their memories were recorded and their wartime mementos, including personal letters, luggage labels and photos, will be on display.

Project directors were Dr Sally Crawford and Dr Katharina Ulmschneider, from the archaeology institute.

Dr Crawford said: “One of the main themes to emerge from interviews we did with survivors was that no-one had taken an interest in their stories before.

“We hope this exhibition will illustrate that these stories are worth recording and are still relevant today.

“We were struck by the number of people who said they had been warmly welcomed by the people of Oxford during the war years.”

On display will be Prof Jacobsthal’s personal letters dated between 1920 and 1957.

These reveal his experiences of worsening conditions for Jews in Germany, his escape to Oxford, internment during the war and rebuilding his connections with the continent afterwards.

Other memorabilia include photos of him and his wife, their works of art and his typewriter.

Prof Jacobsthal, who died in 1957, made his name as a leading expert in Celtic art, publishing Early Celtic Art in 1944. The book was controversial at the time because the pan-European origins of Celtic art did not fit with Nazi Germany’s nationalist doctrines.

There are also contributions from the Association of Jewish Refugees and the Oxford City of Sanctuary movement.

Dr Crawford said Dr Eltis’s family escaped from Nazi persecution in the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia.

She added: “Mark Haddon does a lot of work with refugee and asylum groups in Oxford so we really appreciate his support.”

The exhibition is free will run in the town hall gallery from Monday until Saturday, March 10.

Mr Haddon will be guest of honour at the launch at 11.30am, with refugee survivors and Oxford families who took refugee children into their homes.

On Friday, January 27, the institute will host a debate for Oxfordshire secondary schools at Christ Church, Prof Jacobsthal’s old college.

  • More information about the project can be found at archaeologyarchivesoxford. wordpress.com