A Polish university has announced it will restore the doctorate degrees of 262 former students, most of them Jewish, decades after Nazi Germany annulled them in the lead up to WWII.
The University of Wroclaw described the move as a symbolic gesture, saying that the decision to reinstate the PhDs was only made possible following border changes in Poland.
The 262 students had earned their degrees from the University of Breslau, which no longer exists. The city of Breslau became Wroclaw in western Poland following the end of the war in 1945.
Cologne University in Germany then took charge of former Breslau students and teachers.
Now Wroclaw and Cologne have prepared a joint statement condemning the Nazis’ decision to cancel the degrees award to individuals who were considered as opponents to Hitler’s regime in the 1930s.
"A university should be free of ideology," Wroclaw University spokesman’s Jacek Przygodzki said.
"We want to underline that notion by condemning totalitarian regimes' attempts to subject universities to ideology, be it Nazi, communist or whatever else," he added.
The universities will return the degrees at a symbolic ceremony which will be held on January 22nd.
