Robert Lewin - Biography

Biography

Born Boruch Lewin in Warsaw, Poland, Lewin was the son of a Polish-Jewish banker. With the rise of Nuremberg Laws in Poland, Lewin's father decided to relocate the family to the South of France. Lewin began studying at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1938 before being recalled to Poland for military service. Fleeing east after the German invasion of Poland, he survived the war after managing to get a Japanese visa from the consul in Kaunas, Lithuania, the 'Japanese Schindler,' Chiune Sugihara.

Lewin later became an art dealer in London and a noted philanthropist, endowing a chair of Philosophy at Pembroke College, Oxford, and a gallery at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. He also made bequests to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. He died on 17 May 2004 at the Hospital of St. John and St. Elisabeth. London.

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