RE: Jim Lambek

[Robert Seely <rags@math.mcgill.ca>]

The story as told us by Jim one day was a little different, with some
irony:

He was one of the last "railway children", sent to England to escape
the Nazis before the outbreak of WWII (there was a PBS documentary
about this which prompted these reminiscences that day).  He was among
the older such "children" - about 16 - but made it anyway.  A year or
so later, on the outbreak of war or shortly thereafter, he was over
16, regarded as an enemy alien, and forcibly deported(!).  He said he
didn't know whether he was to be sent to Canada or Australia till
after the ship set sail!  Jim then commented that he might have become
a 2-categorist!!

As Andr\'e said, he started learning maths in the camp - even having a
correspondance with Willard vO Quine while a prisoner - he'd read about
Quine's NF and wanted to learn more about it.  More about his early
career may be read in Mike Barr's brief bio on the triples homepage
(or in the TAC volume dedicated to him in 2000).

He will be missed indeed.

   -= rags =-

On Tue, 24 Jun 2014, Joyal, Andr? wrote:

> I hope I can tell the story right:
> Lambek immigrated from Germany to Canada just before WWII.
> During the war, he was put in a concentration camp by the Canadian government
> because he was German. But he was also a Jew.
> He once told me that he began to learn mathematics in the camp.
>
> -Andr? Joyal
>

[For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]