Barely a week had passed since the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp in January 1945 and the full picture of the situation of the camp survivors began to emerge.
The renowned Jewish philosopher Martin Buber understood that urgent action, not just concern, was needed to allow the survivors to recover. Buber, who was then one of the heads of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, quickly mobilized his colleagues, who immediately took action, and university employees collected and sent packages of supplies to the survivors who emerged from the camps destitute.
Buber said at the time that they "beg to cover their nakedness and beg for their lives as long as they are alive."
Hebrew University employees rallied and sent packages of equipment to Holocaust survivors, many of whom were later accepted into the academic institution after immigrating to Israel. This letter was revealed on the occasion of the university's centennial, during which the treasures of its archives are being opened.
The letter was signed by Professor Martin Buber, the renowned Jewish philosopher and one of the founders of the Hebrew University; Professor Shmuel Hugo Bergman, a philosopher and one of the leading Zionist thinkers and the first rector of the university; Professor Andor Fodor, a chemist and the first professor at the university; and Professor Joseph Klausner, a historian and later an Israel Prize laureate, as well as representatives of the university's workers' committee.
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After the war, many students who had fought the Nazis in the British army returned to Jerusalem. The university then granted tuition waivers to students who had served in the British army and fought the Nazis, and collected donations and equipment for Holocaust survivors who emerged from the extermination camps destitute, with only thin pieces of cloth on their bodies.