How a professor's heroic speech led to the closing of The Netherlands' famed 365-year-old University of Leyden was last week revealed by Leydeners in Manhattan who had just received a full report smuggled from their home town.
As reward for their bravery in fighting Spanish rule, William of Orange three and a half centuries ago offered Leyden's burghers the gift of i) a university, or 2) freedom from taxation. They chose the university. Last November Nazis took over the university and promptly fired one of its most brilliant and popular professors, 61-year-old Eduard Maurits Meyers, a Jew.
Appointed to take Meyers' classes was...
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