Europe matters in Jan Liseiwicz’s story as a shifting horizon: the world from which his mathematical reputation emerged, the place made perilous by Nazi expansion, and the destination he eventually visits alone after the war. His movements between Europe and China frame a sharp change in his circumstances and, later, the beginning of a new research ambition.

Recognition and a changing continent

At twenty-four, Liseiwicz was named by the Austrian journal Monatshefte für Mathematik as one of mathematics’ rising stars. The following year he received the Fields Medal, an international prize awarded only once every four years. These distinctions establish his early standing before the narrative turns to the upheaval that would keep him away from Europe.

In the spring of 1938, Liseiwicz arrived at University N as a visiting scholar. When he learned that Hitler had invaded Austria, he remained there while waiting for the situation in Europe to become clearer. A letter from a friend in the United States described the Nazi flag advancing through Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland. Jewish people were being forced to flee; those who had not left in time were being rounded up and sent to camps. Liseiwicz concluded that there was nowhere for him to go and that he would be staying in China for the foreseeable future.

An interrupted return

Though he took up a professorship in mathematics at University N, Liseiwicz continued to wait for an opportunity to reach the United States. His return to Europe came only in the first winter after the Second World War ended. The weather was bitterly cold, and he travelled without his family, going on his own.

When he came back, Young Lillie went to the docks to meet him in a university car borrowed by her father. Liseiwicz was sitting on an enormous wooden packing case, roughly the size of a coffin and marked with his name and University N address in both Chinese and English. It was too large and heavy to fit in the car, so Young Lillie arranged for a cart and four strong men to take it back to the department. The case held books he had brought from Europe for a renewed research interest.

What Europe brings back

Liseiwicz explained that he needed the books for a new project. During the European trip, his dormant interest in research had returned, and he had decided to investigate artificial intelligence. The first computer had only just been built, but he already saw the possibilities of the field. His books were only a small part of what the vast project would require, and he was reluctant to lend them to others.

In this sequence, Europe is not simply a place Liseiwicz leaves and revisits. Its political crisis closes off his hoped-for route to the United States; his postwar visit, by contrast, precedes a striking intellectual recommitment. The return does not take him back to his earlier mathematical work: it sends him back to University N with the beginnings of a new inquiry into artificial intelligence.