A Jewish MI6 Agent who fled to Ipswich and whose astonishing story mirrors Oppenheimer's will be honoured in a ceremony in September.
It is hard to believe it, but the vape shop at 277 Norwich Road ‘What’s Ya Flava?’ was once home to Kurt Erich Glauber, during the first few months of the Second World War.
Dr Glauber fled to the town during the early months of the conflict.
Like the American physicist Robert Oppenheimer, Dr Glauber wanted to play his part against Hitler and Nazi Germany.
Dr Glauber was born in Vienna in 1902, the eldest child of transport contractor Fredrich Glauber and his wife, Ernestine.
Upon leaving school, Dr Glauber qualified as a solicitor at the University of Vienna and began to practice law in the city.
However, in March 1938, the German armed forces marched into Austria and soon Jewish solicitors were banned from practicing.
To escape the Nazi oppression, Dr Glauber’s brother, Gerhard fled to a small fishing village in Palestine, while Dr Glauber and his widowed mother escaped to England to join his married sister, Lucile.
It is not known why Dr Glauber came to Ipswich, but in the 1939 register, taken just after the outbreak of war, he was lodging at 277 Norwich Road.
As he was not qualified to practice law in England, Dr Glauber worked as a trainee at the Tower Mill Steam Laundry in Bramford Road.
Dr Glauber enlisted in the British Army in January 1940, initially joining the Royal Artillery, before volunteering to join MI6 to work as a secret agent.
MI6 smuggled him back into the city on a secret mission, where he was hidden by his sisters, Daniza and Rada Illitsch, in their apartment.
One report suggests Dr Glauber was investigating and reporting on factories where German Nazis were thought to be developing nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, the newly released Oppenheimer shows the titular character leading the Manhattan Project in a bid to create the atomic bomb, driven by the possibility that the Nazis had a nuclear weapons program underway.
Dr Glauber and his fellow British agents trusted a woman who allowed them to use her flat on as a safe house. This woman, however, was a double agent.
In early 1945, she betrayed the agents and allowed them to walk straight into a Gestapo trap.
Dr Glauber was held in Vienna, and put under pressure to use his secret radio to send false intelligence back to MI6.
He refused. In the spring of 1945, Dr Glauber was taken to Mauthausen concentration camp, where he was cruelly treated for being both a British agent and a Jew.
Dr Glauber was then executed without trial.
Under Hitler’s ‘Commando Order’ of 1942, such murders were to be kept secret - bodies had to be buried in unmarked graves, and the Allied commandos' fates were never to be revealed.
At this point in the war, Mauthausen concentration camp were killing in excess of 3,000 people per day.
Just a few weeks later, in May 1945, Mauthausen was liberated by American troops.
In June 1946, Dr Glauber was posthumously awarded the King’s Commendation for Brave Conduct.
Now, the town which gave Dr Glauber shelter will pay tribute to his memory, too.
On Wednesday, September 13, a memorial will be unveiled in Ipswich Cemetery.
The new headstone marks an historic partnership between the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation UK (JASHP); the Association of Jewish Ex-servicemen and Women; and the Ipswich War Memorial Project.
A service will be conducted by Rabbi Geoffrey Hyman of the Southend Shul and attended by Dr Glauber’s family and distinguished guests.
Dr Glauber’s nephew, Antony Japhet, said: “My family and I are delighted that there will now be a memorial to commemorate my uncle’s bravery.
“The research and hard work required for this to happen is so impressive, as is the generosity of JASHP in funding the project. We now look forward to meeting those concerned at the unveiling in September.”
Researcher Rachel Field added: “I’m delighted that Ipswich is honouring its newly found hero, Dr Glauber. Focusing on the life and courage of one refugee reminds us that refugees are real people, not numbers.”
