In the late autumn of 1939, the University of Poznań was closed by German occupation authorities, but many of its professors continued to teach. In 1940 an underground University of Western Poland was formed in Warsaw which comprised the faculties of Medicine, Pharmacy and Dentistry. In 1941, the Polish School of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh was founded, where the first dean was surgeon Antoni Jurasz from the University of Poznań. In the last months of the war, during the battle of Poznań, preparations for reopening of the university were begun. The university officially reopened in April 1945, before the end of the war.