My friend Vernon Katz, who has died aged 98, was a childhood Kindertransport refugee from Germany; he escaped the Holocaust and went on to become an Oxford scholar.
His postgraduate studies there in Indian philosophy aroused a strong desire to experience for himself what was described in the literature. That wish was fulfilled when, in 1960 in London, he met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who taught him transcendental meditation.
The Maharishi invited Vernon to help with his translation and commentary on the Bhagavad-Gītā, published in 1967, which at the time sold more than a million copies and helped to revive Vedic knowledge. Vernon recalled: “The Gītā was translated and discussed on land, sea, and in the air, in townhouses and country houses, by the Thames and by the Ganges, in the Alps, and on the canals of Venice. I had never known such happiness as this work with Maharishi.”
Later he assisted Maharishi in translating the Brahma Sutra, another key text of Indian philosophy. On reviewing the recordings made during their work together, Vernon created two volumes of Conversations with Maharishi, published in 2011 and 2018. In addition he wrote, with Thomas Egenes, The Upanishads: A New Translation (2015).
He also wrote a memoir of his childhood in Germany and early years in Britain, The Blue Salon and Other Follies: A Jewish Boyhood in 1930s Rural Germany (2008).
The son of Emmy (nee Silberbach) and Hermann Katz, Vernon was born in Herford, Germany, into an affluent Jewish family who owned a brushwork factory. He enjoyed a comfortable childhood until the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s. In March 1939 he boarded a Kindertransport train to Britain. He later said: “I thought the people there were angels, they were such good people. I love this country, because it saved my life.” Both his parents, who had been imprisoned, were able to join him in the UK before the outbreak of the second world war and established a knitwear business in London.
In 1947 Vernon began studies in philosophy, politics and economics at University College, Oxford, where his undergraduate tutor was Harold Wilson, the future prime minister. He went on to postgraduate studies in Indian philosophy, and his graduate adviser was Sir Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who subsequently became president of India.
For an important part of his life Vernon lived in London, where he managed his thriving knitwear business – a business partner made it possible for him to travel and engage in his scholarly work. In 2014 he settled in Suffolk.
For many decades he served as a trustee and visiting professor at Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa, in the US, where he lectured on Sanskrit literature. He was fluent in English, German and Italian, and greatly enjoyed making English translations of ancient Sanskrit texts.
He is survived by seven cousins – Yvonne, Anita and Ralph in the UK, and Stephen, Ralph, Terry and Pam in the US.
