Solomon Birnbaum [SEP] educated at
University of Würzburg, specializing in languages of Asia. From 1922 to 1933, he filled the first worldwide Yiddish chair at the University of Hamburg. After the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, in 1933 Birnbaum emigrated to Great Britain with his wife, Irene Grünwald, and his children, in 1933. 
From 1936 to 1957, Birnbaum was a lecturer on Hebrew paleography and epigraphy at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He taught Yiddish at the same time at the School of Slavonic
life.
Yaakov Birnbaum was born in Hamburg, Germany. His grandfather was Nathan Birnbaum, writer and Jewish nationalist who coined the word "Zionism." His father was Solomon Birnbaum, a Yiddish scholar. In 1938 and 1939 Yaakov went to school with refugee children who were brought out from Central Europe at the last moment in a Kindertransport organized by Rabbi Dr. Solomon Schonfeld. He later studied modern European history at the University of London.
During World War II the Birnbaums were well aware of the plight of European Jews