FEMALE, JEWISH, AND EDUCATED
The Modern Jewish Experience Paula Hyman and Deborah Dash Moore, editors
FEMALE, JEWISH, and EDUCATED The Lives of Central European University Women HARRIET PASS FREIDENREICH
The author and the publisher wish to acknowledge the generous support of the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation. This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA http://iupress.indiana.edu Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931 Orders by e-mail
[email protected] © by Harriet Pass Freidenreich All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissionsconstitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, .-. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Freidenreich, Harriet Pass, date Female, Jewish, and educated : the lives of Central European university women / Harriet Pass Freidenreich. p. cm. — (Modern Jewish experience) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0–253–34099–3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Jewish women—Germany—Biography. 2. Jewish women—Austria—Biography. 3. Jews—Germany—Biography. 4. Jews—Austria—Biography. I. Title. II. Modern Jewish experience (Bloomington, Ind.) DS135.G5 A1297 2002 305.48’8924043’0922—dc21 2001006973 1
2
3
4
5
07
06
05
04
03
02
In Memory of My Mother, Malca Freedman Pass & My Grandmother, Ida Livingstone Freedman & In Gratitude to All of the Women who made this book possible
CONTENTS
⁄
⁄
⁄
: , ’
⁄
⁄
1. Emancipation through Higher Education
1
2. Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers: Shaping the Jewish University Woman 18 3. University Years: Jewish Women and German Academia 4. Professional Quest and Career Options
42
67
5. The Marriage Plot: Career versus Family?
108
6. Jews, Feminists, and Socialists: Personal Identity and Political Involvement 133 7. Interrupted Lives: Persecution and Emigration 8. Reconstructing Lives and Careers
181
Epilogue: The Legacy
196
⁄
:
⁄
⁄
⁄
⁄
163
MAPS
1. Central Europe, 1871–1914: Birthplaces of Jewish University Women 2. Central Europe, 1919–1938: Cities and Towns with Universities
xxvi xxvii
TABLES
1. Austrian Jewish Women Students at the University of Vienna, 1897–1934 2. German Jewish Students at Prussian Universities, 1899–1933 3. Professional Fields of Jewish University Women as Compared with Their Fathers and Husbands 4. Size and Composition of Families of Jewish University Women 5. Birth Order among Jewish University Women 6. Central European Universities Attended by Jewish University Women 7. Jewish University Women by Age Cohort and Age 8. Jewish Students at German Universities by Field of Study, 1928/29 9. Medical Specialization among Central European Physicians in the 1930s 10. Marital and Family Status of Jewish University Women 11. Religious Affiliation, Marital Status, and Intermarriage among Jewish University Women 12. Emigration of Jewish University Women from Central Europe during the Nazi Era 13. Jewish University Women in Nazi Europe during the Holocaust 14. Emigration Destinations of Jewish University Women before 1945
206 207 208 209 209 210 211 212 213 214 214 215 216 217
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With great pleasure I take this opportunity to express my thanks publicly to all those individuals and institutions that provided me with assistance in writing this book. Working on this project for the past decade has been a labor of love, but I could not have accomplished this task on my own. I am deeply indebted to many more people than I can list here by name. I wish to thank Temple University for giving me two Research Leaves to work on this book, one to begin collecting data and the other to enable me to write much of the manuscript. In addition, I am grateful to Temple for several Grants-in-Aid, the first of which allowed me to conduct archival research in New York and Boston and to photocopy necessary materials, and the second of which helped cover the costs of maps and photographs to enrich this book. My sincere thanks also go to the American Philosophical Society for awarding me a Travel Grant that helped defray my expenses for a research trip to Vienna, Berlin, and Prague in 1992. The entire staff of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, but especially Diane Spielmann and Frank Mecklenburg, deserve my deepest appreciation. I also want to express my thanks to the former director of the LBI, Robert Jacobs, for his enthusiastic support of my project in its early stages. In addition, I am very grateful to the archivists and librarians of the Houghton Library in Cambridge, Mass.; the Balch Institute, Bryn Mawr College Archives, and the former Medical College of Pennsylvania Archives, all in Philadelphia; the Humboldt University Archives and the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek in Berlin; the Landes- und Stadtsarchiv in Vienna; and the Charles University Archives in Prague. A special thank-you goes to the staff of the Inter-Library Loan Division of Paley Library, Temple University, for tracking down innumerable obscure volumes on my behalf. During the years I was “chasing after the women,” as one archivist jokingly referred to my quest for information, I came into contact, whether in person, via e-mail, or through correspondence, with many European scholars who provided me with unpublished materials, additional contacts, and invaluable insights that have contributed immensely to this enterprise. I very much appreciate the help of G. H. Beale, Christa Binder, Johanna Bleker, Helga Embacher, Hiltrud Häntzschel, Anna Hartke, Waltraud Heindl, Luise Hirsch, Ela Hornung, Michael Hubenstorf, Claudia Huerkamp, Doris In-
Acknowledgments
| xi
grisch, Mieke Ijzermanss, Dagmar Jank, Daniela Krenck, Albert Lichtblau, Sibylle Quack, Birgit Nielsen, Luise Pusch, Marina Sassenberg, Harald Seewann, Dorothee Sillem, Marina Tichy, Peter Voswinckel, Christl Wickert, and Theresa Wobbe. The North American scholars who also helped me while researching this book are too numerous to name in full, but I must express my gratitude to Mitchell Asch, Karen Franklin, Atina Grossmann, Edward Haupt, Gail Hornstein, Wilma Iggers, Jeffrey Johnson, Marion Kaplan, Carol Krinsky, and Keith Pickus for their assistance and the many leads which they supplied. I owe a debt of gratitude I can never fully repay to all of the women and men who completed questionnaires, answered follow-up questions, and sent me additional information about themselves, their mothers, aunts or other relatives, or their friends who were Central European Jewish university women. Some of the individuals who provided me with personal data are acknowledged in the endnotes, but many others with whom I corresponded or spoke on the telephone must remain anonymous. I thank all of them from the bottom of my heart. I want to thank by name the following women for sharing their experiences with me in person at considerable length: Gudrun Fett, Elizabeth Foldes-Roth, Pauline Glanzberg-Rachlis, Ruth Gutmann, and Eleanor Hadra, all of whom I interviewed in the Philadelphia area; and Hilde Koplenig, Rita Krause, and Hilde Zaloscer, whom I interviewed while in Vienna. I must also acknowledge with thanks Susanne Batzdorff, Georg Cronheim, Christopher Friedrichs, Martin Glass, Lore Jonas, F. Lustig, Florian Weissenborn, and Dorit Whiteman for providing me with unpublished materials and supplementary information concerning university women, as well as Magda Tisza and Miriam and Benno Varon for their gracious hospitality and valued insights. I greatly appreciate the comments of colleagues and friends who read chapters of different versions of this manuscript at various stages of its development. My sincere thanks go to Janet Golden, Deborah Hertz, Paula Hyman, Marion Kaplan, Frances Malino, Anne Rassweiler, and Ruth Schwartz-Cowan for their constructive criticism, enthusiastic endorsement, and for all the time and effort they put into helping me improve this book. I owe a very special thank-you to Marianne Bluger, Beverly Friend, and Rochelle Lecke for their editorial suggestions and valuable feedback on my work. Many other colleagues and friends also contributed directly or indirectly to shaping the final product by listening to me expound at length on “my women,” offering helpful advice and recommendations, and boosting my morale, whether over lunch, on the train, on social occasions, or in more formal settings. An incomplete list of these individuals includes Diane Ashton, Allen Davis, David Davis, Barbara Day-Hickman, Peter Gran, Mark Haller, Carol and Peter Hirsch, Richard Immerman, Ruth Karras, Rochelle and Helmut Lecke, Margaret Marsh, Eva Miller, Mary Procida,
xii
| Acknowledgments
Marsha Rozenblit, Marilyn Silberfein, Miriam Solomon, Morris Vogel, Elaine and Maurice Weinberg, and Beth Wenger. I also wish to thank Noel Lojeski for creating the maps for this book; Susanne Batzdorff, Joanne and Herbert Bruch, Rochelle and Helmut Lecke, Susi Saltiel, and Ruth Thalheimer for providing photographs from their personal collections; and Daniel Alexander and Peter Manley for all of their assistance with photography and scanning. Last but certainly not least, I want to express my warmest thanks to the most important men in my life. Over the years, my husband Phil has always been there whenever I have needed a sounding board so that I can share the excitement, as well as the frustrations, of my work. He has also served as my editor, gentle critic, and loyal friend and partner. I greatly value all of his help and support. While I was researching and writing this book, my sons David and Aron completed both high school and college and went on to graduate school. Perhaps they are following in their mother’s footsteps by pursuing careers in fields related to Jewish Studies, but they have studiously avoided specializing in history thus far. Both when at home and while communicating by phone or e-mail, David has often supplied a sympathetic listening ear, as well as useful editorial and technological advice, whereas Aron has helped me keep my priorities straight and put my research findings on Jewish university women into perspective. Yardley, Pennsylvania May 2001
INTRODUCTION: FINDING OUR MOTHERS, FINDING OURSELVES
University education transformed womanhood, especially Jewish womanhood, in the twentieth century. At the turn of the century, when Central European universities first allowed women to enter their gates, female students constituted a rare species. Even though many Jewish men acquired higher education, few of their female counterparts had the opportunity to do so. By the 1990s, however, in the United States, at least three-quarters of Jewish women attended college, and more than twenty-five percent pursued graduate or professional degrees.1 Jewish women in the United States almost caught up to Jewish men with respect to their high level of education. Although many university-educated women remained single or married late, it became more the rule than the exception for Jewish women to combine careers as doctors, lawyers, or academics, as well as teachers, social workers, or business executives, with marriage and family. Professional women today often see themselves as pathbreaking “superwomen,” juggling careers and homemaking, childcare and commuting. They are generally unaware of the pioneering generations of Jewish university women in Europe, who faced many of the same problems, but dealt with them under different historical circumstances. Examining the lives of women in the past who shared similar hopes and dreams can help present-day women gain a broader perspective on our personal lives and professional careers. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg concluded her acceptance speech upon nomination to the United States Supreme Court in 1993, “I pray that I may be all that [my mother] would have been had she lived in an age when women could aspire and achieve and daughters are cherished as much as sons.”2 In order for educated women today to deepen our understanding of ourselves and the choices we make, it is necessary to reconstruct not only the personal histories of our biological mothers and grandmothers but also to rediscover the lives and experiences of our professional foremothers. Through the prism of our own lives, we can appreciate the struggles of the generations of courageous women that preceded us, and judge how far we have come and to what
xiv
| Introduction
extent opportunities for women expanded over the course of the twentieth century. Like many young girls growing up in the fifties and sixties, I lacked female professional role models. In the world of my childhood, the adult women I knew were primarily wives, mothers, and unpaid volunteers. Neither my mother, who was born in Montreal in 1909, nor my maternal grandmother, who had emigrated from East Prussia to Canada as a teenager in the 1880s, had the opportunity to obtain a higher education, although one of my aunts trained as a teacher and another as a nurse. My mother, a highly intelligent woman, completed clerical training after high school and held a job before her marriage. Thereafter, she “helped out” as bookkeeper in my father’s store, The Fabric Shop in Ottawa, and was actively involved in Jewish women’s organizations, especially our synagogue’s Sisterhood and the Women’s League for Conservative Judaism. I can recall women, both single and married, who were teachers, nurses, sales clerks, and secretaries, but I do not remember ever meeting a woman physician, lawyer, or professor before leaving home to attend university. Perhaps I was not yet even fully aware that such women existed. Nevertheless, I was somehow convinced that it was possible for a woman to become a university professor. Like many women of my generation, my older sister attended “normal school,” or teachers’ college, and became a teacher of the hearing impaired, whereas my brother earned a B.A. in biology and then studied dentistry. Unlike most of my peers who were interested in modern languages, I consciously decided that I did not want to be a high school teacher. My family, particularly my grandmother and my father, had always encouraged me to excel in school and expressed pride in my academic achievements. I was fortunate to win academic scholarships to attend the University of Toronto and graduate school at Columbia University. After receiving my Ph.D. in Eastern European and Jewish history, I got my first job at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, where I was the only full-time female faculty member. Then I came to Temple University and in time became a tenured professor of history. I cannot complain about professional discrimination against me as a woman and I have never encountered antisemitism directed at me personally. How can I explain my smooth career trajectory? Perhaps it was simply a matter of living in the right place and at the right time, when there were fewer barriers confronting women and Jews. But how did my experience compare with those of Jewish professional women who came before me? How many women of my mother’s and grandmother’s generations had the same opportunities and were as fortunate as I? My high-school classmates were not surprised that I eventually became a professor. They were, however, somewhat more amazed to learn that I was also happily married with two children. Words from my university days still
Introduction
|
xv
echo in my head as I recall a rather old-fashioned male friend who exclaimed, “Harriet, you wouldn’t get a Ph.D., would you? Then no one will ever marry you!” In the 1960s, women who went to college were supposed to earn an “Mrs.” degree along with the B.A., and then were expected to support their husbands through graduate school. But did women with more advanced degrees really have to choose between marriage and a profession? Not really knowing, I took the risk, hoping that this wasn’t true. Only several decades later did I decide to place my personal experiences as an academic woman with children into broader historical context. My interest in studying Jewish university women developed only gradually, after I had already written two books about Jewish communities in Yugoslavia and Vienna; these studies were primarily about Jewish men. Teaching courses in European and Jewish women’s history and reading women’s autobiographies and feminist writings, especially Virginia Woolf ’s A Room of One’s Own, convinced me of the importance of studying the impact of higher education on women’s lives. I wanted to know whether or not attending university helped to emancipate women from traditional gender roles and societal expectations for women. Did women with the same higher education as men receive the same professional recognition in their fields? Or did women have different personal styles and make different professional decisions than men? I chose to write about the lives of Jewish women who attended German-speaking universities because these gifted and resourceful women have remarkable stories to tell. Relatively little has been written, especially in English, about this fascinating group of educated Central European Jewish women, either individually or collectively. As has been the case more recently, Jews made up a disproportionately large percentage of the early generations of women who received doctorates in philosophy, medicine, and law from Central European institutions of higher learning. Many of these women made important contributions as academics, educators, social scientists, scientists, and physicians, helping to pave the way for much larger numbers of middle-class professional women in the late twentieth century. Due to the wealth of primary sources available to document their lives and careers, Jewish women who studied in Germany and Austria in the early twentieth century are much easier to identify and track than Russian or even American Jewish women among the first cohorts of women university graduates. The vanguard group of Jewish women from Eastern Europe who flocked to study in Switzerland, Berlin, and Vienna in the late nineteenth century are much more difficult to trace than Central European women both before or after leaving university and will not be the primary focus of this book.3 The Vienna-born British social psychologist Marie Jahoda once commented, “I believe that personal life history must have an influence on the
xvi
| Introduction
way thought develops.”4 What we achieve in life is to a great extent the product of our upbringing and our education. As a historian, I am convinced that studying the past helps us comprehend the present. The early generations of Central European Jewish university women serve as forerunners for professional women today; when we learn about them, we also learn about ourselves. As an elite group of highly educated individuals, they did not conform to many of the established norms for middle-class Jewish women of their day in terms of careers, marriage, childrearing and involvement in the Jewish community. Educated women today, because of our own experiences in both the home and the workplace, can readily relate to these women, their struggles, and their accomplishments. This study examines the effects of higher education on the lives of women in the twentieth century and addresses many issues that remain of contemporary concern. Today, increasing numbers of women attempt to combine family and careers, working even when their children are very young. This book explores the extent to which middle-class women in the early decades of the twentieth century could successfully combine these options and whether they felt compelled to choose between the two. Today, women have become very aware of sexual harassment and “glass ceilings” in the workplace, but antisemitism has less impact on professional employment than it did before World War II. What impact did antisemitism, on the one hand, and gender discrimination, on the other, have in shaping the personal and professional choices of educated Jewish women in Central Europe before the Nazi era? Late marriages, low birthrates, and interfaith marriages all raise serious concerns within the Jewish community today. How did earlier generations of highly acculturated Jewish women in Central Europe deal with such matters? Today, women experience considerable geographic mobility and frequently need to change jobs and adapt to completely new environments. How portable is a university degree, and does it help women adjust to life after emigration to a different country? By studying the varied experiences of our foremothers, we can gain insights that can help us tackle the many challenges that women still face today. I set out to investigate several generations of Jewish women who studied at universities in Germany and Austria in the early twentieth century. I wanted to explore their individual stories in order to understand the courage, character, and resourcefulness necessary for these pioneering women to enter the previously all-male domain of university life and professional careers. I sought to discover patterns that might enlighten us about how family influences, religious upbringing, social forces, and gender roles affected university women’s lives and shaped their career trajectories. As both a committed Jew and a feminist, I was particularly interested in analyzing the Jewish identities of a group of educated and highly acculturated women of Jewish descent and their involvement in political and femi-
Introduction
|
xvii
nist movements. Higher education and professional careers have become increasingly common among Jewish women everywhere, including North and South America, Europe, and the former Soviet Union, as well as in Israel. Thus, it is important to investigate the Jewish identification among the pioneering generations of university women in order to understand the dissonance that still resonates among women with advanced secular degrees, but minimal Jewish knowledge, when they try to relate to their Jewishness. With this work, I hope to make a contribution to a variety of fields, including modern Jewish social history and European women’s history. A considerable amount of research published recently in Germany and Austria deals with Central European university and professional women, as well as intellectual émigrés. Although it is frequently noted that a very high proportion of such people were Jews, little attempt has been made to construct a systematic analysis of Jewish university women per se.5 In this study, I have utilized both German and American scholarship on women’s higher education and professionalization in the twentieth century in order to place European-educated Jewish women in a broader perspective and assess the significance of their conspicuous overrepresentation among the pioneering generations of professional women and their role in the formation of the Jewish “New Woman.” Jewish women’s history is a relatively new research field. Very little has been published on Central European Jewish women prior to the Holocaust, except for the important work of Deborah Hertz and Marion Kaplan. Hertz has written on Jewish salon women and female converts to Christianity in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She argues that elite German-Jewish women, who received little formal religious instruction but often obtained somewhat more secular education, attempted to escape from the ghetto and integrate into Christian society through intermarriage and baptism.6 By contrast, Kaplan’s extensive research on German-Jewish women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries emphasizes their roles as wives, mothers, and bastions of the traditional Jewish home and middle-class family values, as well as representatives of German Bildung (high culture).7 In this book, I test these hypotheses as they apply to a special group of “New Women,” Jewish university women of the early twentieth century, who defied conventional expectations for middle-class German and Jewish women by seeking personal self-fulfillment through higher education and careers in traditionally male professional fields, and, in many cases, by opting not to marry or have children. Researching and writing this book have helped me integrate many of the lessons I have learned in teaching courses on gender and history with my longstanding interest in twentieth-century Jewish history. Studying about the lives of an extraordinary group of pioneering Jewish university women, most of whom came from urban, middle-class backgrounds, has
xviii
| Introduction
greatly enriched my understanding of the interrelationships among gender, class, and ethnicity. The extent to which Jewish women’s educational choices and careers were shaped by the fact that they were both women and Jews is striking. One of my research goals, therefore, was to assess the impact of gender, education, and discrimination within a specific minority context, so that one can compare the experiences of educated Jewish women with those of Jewish men and non-Jewish women who achieved a comparable education. When I embarked on this project more than a decade ago, I had little idea about what a rich topic I had selected, since I did not yet realize that several thousand Jewish women had studied at universities in Germany and Austria in the early twentieth century and that a treasure-trove of material could be unearthed about hundreds of them.8 I began my research at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, reading the unpublished memoirs of university women among their voluminous holdings on German-speaking Jews.9 Every day I became more and more excited about the women whose lives I was in the process of discovering. I soon found out about a special autobiographical collection housed at the Houghton Library in Cambridge, which emerged from an essay competition sponsored by Harvard University in 1939–40 on “My Life in Germany Before and After 1933.”10 While continuing to hunt down unpublished memoirs, I located numerous published memoirs and biographies of Jewish university women,11 as well as biographical dictionaries of Central European Jews and notable women in a wide range of professional fields. In response to my author’s query in several German-Jewish publications, more than a hundred individuals from around the world completed a questionnaire on Central European Jewish university women, either on the basis of their own experiences or on behalf of their mothers, aunts, or friends.12 I also interviewed about a dozen Jewish university women in the Philadelphia area and in Vienna, spoke to more on the telephone, and corresponded with countless informants and scholars. I therefore was able to find not only the more prominent university women who left a written record, but also lesser-known women. Before long, I had developed a surprisingly large computerized database consisting of 460 Central European university women and had collected fragmentary information on many others. Although I have utilized a wide range of sources in researching this project, memoirs, in particular, have provided an extremely valuable, but sometimes problematic, resource. Most of the more than seventy memoirs or autobiographies of university-educated women were written in the aftermath of the Holocaust.13 These memoirs contain only selected memories, filtered over time, that the authors wished to share with their intended audience, often members of their own family rather than the general public. Each memoir writer speaks for herself, not for all Jewish university
Introduction
|
xix
women. Many of these women are truly extraordinary personalities and no individual can be categorized as “typical,” yet each example contributes to our understanding of the group as a whole. Female, Jewish, and Educated serves as a collective biography of a varied and colorful array of women of Jewish origin who attended Central European universities in the early twentieth century. I spread my research net widely so as to include not only women who identified themselves as Jews by religion, but women of Jewish descent who shared the same socioeconomic and cultural background, some of whom were baptized. All of these women would be considered Jews according to Jewish law, since their mothers, and nearly all of their fathers as well, had been born Jews, but in some cases, they or their parents left the Jewish community, whether as children or adults. The women whom I have researched can be divided into two groups of roughly equal size: the older generation, who were born before the turn of the century and began their university studies before the end of World War I; and the younger age cohort, born between 1900 and 1916, who received their higher education during the interwar years.14 Slightly less than two-thirds of these women were born in Germany and about one-third in Austria-Hungary, while the rest were from Russia or elsewhere in Europe.15 They all studied for at least four semesters at a German-speaking university, mainly in Germany or Austria, but in some cases in Switzerland or Prague; the majority completed doctorates or professional certification. The group includes physicians, educators, academics, social reformers, writers, and lawyers. During the Nazi era, most, but not all, of these women were able to emigrate to the United States, England, Palestine, or other safe havens. This book is structured around the life cycle and personal experiences of these university women. In the first three chapters, I focus on the family background, early education, and socialization of future women students, both as females and as Jews, and the obstacles they had to overcome before they could embark on a university education. I also investigate university life as it was experienced by Jewish women students, exploring how the fact that they were both women and Jews affected their choice of university, field of study, and career expectations. In the three central chapters that follow, I assess the European career experiences of Jewish university women, especially the members of the older generation, and explore the professional career opportunities open to university-educated women in early twentieth-century Central Europe. Could women freely make their own career decisions or were they channeled into segregated “women’s fields” as teachers, social workers, or librarians? Did the early generations of women physicians, psychologists, and social scientists primarily treat, or conduct research on, women and children? How did
xx
| Introduction
women fare when they sought to enter the male bastions of academia as scientists, mathematicians, medical researchers, or historians? A major concern of parents and those opposed to higher education for women was that women university graduates were less likely than other women to marry and have children. To what extent was this fear borne out for the first two generations of Jewish university women in Central Europe? In the early twentieth century, was it possible for women successfully to combine a professional career and a family? What factors enabled or prevented women from doing so? In this book, I discuss the career patterns of both single and married women professionals and provide a wide range of examples. I also examine the challenges facing middle-class working mothers in the early twentieth century, reporting on their feelings of guilt and ambivalence. This study also analyzes the personal and political identities of university women as Jews, Germans or Austrians, liberals or socialists, and feminists. It deals with their attitudes toward, and their involvement or noninvolvement in, Judaism, Zionism, and the Jewish community on the one hand and political parties and women’s organizations on the other. With respect to Jewish identity, I have for convenience divided these women into three general, somewhat fluid categories: “Jewish Jews,” who practiced Judaism in their daily lives, did research on Jewish topics, and/or became Jewish nationalists or advocates for Jewish women; “Just Jews,” who remained nominally within the formal structure of the Jewish community (known as the Kultusgemeinde in Central Europe) and socialized primarily with other Jews; and “Former Jews,” who were baptized or who officially opted out of the Jewish community. I explore what being Jewish meant to these university women, how their attitudes toward their Jewishness changed over the years, why many became alienated from the organized Jewish community, and why some chose to leave it behind. The personal identities of Jewish university women were multiple and complex. They were Jews by descent and by fate, but not necessarily by religious conviction or affiliation; they were Germans (or Austrians) by citizenship and culture but not accepted as such by nationality or ethnicity. Despite their middle-class upbringings, they were often on the political left. Although some were ardent social reformers who sought to transform society and improve the lives of women and children, others were very private individuals who sought personal self-fulfillment and apolitical lives. All university women directly benefited from the achievements of the nineteenth-century woman’s movement that enabled them to attend university and gain access to previously all-male professions, but relatively few identified themselves as feminists or became affiliated with women’s organizations. Thus, like Jewish professional women in the late twentieth century, not all can be labeled as feminists.
Introduction
|
xxi
The final two chapters of this book examine the impact of Nazi legislation and persecution on the lives and careers of these Jewish university women and their experiences as refugees. Most of the women in this study eventually managed to leave Central Europe, but many individuals suffered the great misfortune of not emigrating soon enough or far enough to escape Hitler’s nefarious clutches. Did having a higher education and a profession facilitate or hamper women’s emigration options? How portable was a university education, especially for women? This study explores the range of émigré destinations and the difficulties that university women, whether married or single, encountered in different places. Were they able to find employment commensurate with their education? What effects did marital status, age, field of expertise, and destination have on women’s chances of making a successful personal and career adjustment? To what extent was it possible for women émigrés to reestablish themselves professionally? I compare the experiences of the two generations of Jewish university women, the members of the older age cohort who had already established themselves professionally in Central Europe, and the younger group who had received their higher education in Germany or Austria but who developed their careers after emigration. Was it possible for women refugees to requalify as physicians, lawyers, or academics? What permanent adaptations had to be made in order for writers, educators, psychotherapists, social workers, and others to overcome language and cultural barriers? How many returned to Germany or Austria after the war? Female, Jewish, and Educated assesses the importance in the lives of Central European university women of two central factors over which the subjects had no control: being born Jewish and female. This book also evaluates the impact of higher education on women and whether or not their education helped them to adapt to the various situations that they confronted at different stages of their lives. Many of these women were exceptional individuals who lived highly unusual lives. Some, like political theorist Hannah Arendt, psychoanalyst Helene Rosenbach Deutsch, philosopher Edith Stein, mathematician Emmy Noether, and nuclear physicist Lise Meitner, have become well known internationally. Others never became famous, except perhaps within their own specialized fields of expertise. What contributions did they make both individually and collectively? This book is about educated women; it was written primarily for educated women readers interested in learning about the lives of their predecessors. Many changes have occurred in the educational and professional opportunities available to women in the past century. A woman with a university doctorate was a rarity a hundred years ago; today, such a woman is no longer seen as particularly exceptional. Women doctors, lawyers, and professors have ceased to be such a tiny minority within their chosen fields. By studying the lives and careers of earlier generations of educated women
xxii
| Introduction
we can better understand how such a major transformation in women’s lives has come about. We are now ready to embark on our exploratory journey of the lives of Central European Jewish university women. Together we will explore just how effective higher education was in emancipating women from their traditional roles. We shall also discover the ways in which the “New Woman” of the early twentieth century helped pave the way for women in the twenty-first century. Examining the challenges facing earlier generations of educated women, the choices they made in response, and their achievements over the course of their lifetimes may lead us to have greater insights into ourselves and our own lives. By finding our mothers, we can also find ourselves.
NOTE ON WOMEN’S NAMES
Since women’s names often change over the course of their lifetime, it becomes difficult to keep track of individuals. In this book, I have used both birth and married names, as appropriate to the context and stage in their life. For unmarried women, married or alternate names are generally provided in brackets when the woman is first mentioned in a chapter, e.g., Rahel Goitein (Straus), to indicate the name she used later in life. For married women, their birth names usually become their middle names, e.g., Helene Rosenbach Deutsch. When women hyphenate their own names, I use the version that they themselves used. In some cases the birth name comes first, e.g., Irma Klausner-Cronheim; in other cases the married name precedes, e.g., Julie Braun-Vogelstein. When women retain their birth names after marriage or when women remarry, I try to use the names that are most commonly found in the literature.
FEMALE, JEWISH, AND EDUCATED
France
Cologne
Frankfurt
Bonn
Mannheim
Hesse
Italy
Switzerland
Munich
Berlin Leipzig
Moravia
Silesia
Breslau
Budapest
Slovakia
Map created by Noel Lojeski
Bosnia
Croatia
Galicia
Poland
Warsaw
East Prussia
Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria
Vienna
Bohemia
Prague
Saxony
West Prussia
Posen
Pomerania
Brandenburg
Nuremberg Alsace- Karlsruhe Stuttgart Lorraine Wurttemberg Bavaria Baden
Lux.
Rhineland
Belgium
Germany
Westphalia
Netherlands
Hamburg
Danzig
Konigsberg Vilna
Prussia
International Boundaries
State and Provincial Boundaries
Legend
Bukovina
Ukraine
Russian Empire
Lithuania
Kovno
Central Europe,1871-1914: Birthplaces of Jewish University Women
Strasbourg
Bavaria
Erlangen
Zurich
Italy
Prague
Silesia
Breslau
Vienna
East Prussia
Konigsberg
Hungary
Map created by Noel Lojeski
Least
Small
Medium
Highest
University Attendance by Jewish Women
Legend
Poland
Germany
Czechoslovakia
Saxony
Leipzig
Brandenburg
Berlin
Pomerania
Greifswald
Austria
Innsbruck
Munich
Switzerland
Bern
Basel
Tubingen
Wurzberg
Frankfurt
Wurttemberg
Heidelberg
Freiburg Baden
Geneva
France
Rhineland
Lux.
Marburg Giessen
Gottingen Halle Cologne Hesse Jena
Bonn
Belgium
Braunschweig
Germany
Westphalia
Munster
Netherlands
Rostock
Hamburg
Kiel
Central Europe, 1919-1938: Cities and Towns with Universities
Prussia
International Boundaries
Rumania
State and Provincial Boundaries
ONE
Emancipation through Higher Education
U
niversity education empowered women, enabling them to live more fulfilling lives and make greater contributions to society. This book chronicles the lives and careers of 460 educated Jewish women in Central Europe, exploring the choices pioneering Jewish university women made while trying to overcome obstacles facing them, both as women and as Jews. When male institutions of higher learning in Germany and Austria finally opened their doors around the turn of the twentieth century, new opportunities for personal development and professional training allowed women to expand their horizons and enter previously male-dominated spheres for the first time. Attending university helped to emancipate modern middle-class women from conventional roles as wives, mothers, and volunteers, and paved the way for them to achieve intellectual creativity, personal self-fulfillment, and a variety of new careers. Central European Jewish women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries epitomized the “cult of domesticity,” according to the leading authority on German-Jewish women, Marion Kaplan.1 They were middle-class wives and mothers who served as guardians of the Jewish home. Expectations were that young women remained in their parental households until marriage, found appropriate mates by their mid-twenties, and then stayed at home to raise children. Women who attended university, however, were “New Women” who chose a different path. They were not satisfied to follow their mothers’ examples as homemakers and volunteers, but preferred becoming physicians, educators, scientists, lawyers, or social reformers. For them, marriage was an option, not a necessity. Jewish women were prominent among the pioneering generations of university women in both Central and Eastern Europe. Many middle-class European Jewish girls desired to escape the almost exclusively female realm of home and school in which they had been raised and gain access to the traditionally male domain of university and professional life. These young women did not necessarily wish to become like men, nor did they always
2
| , ,
aspire to economic independence. By attending university they wanted to realize their intellectual potential as human beings and emancipate themselves from at least some of society’s constraints against women. Rahel Goitein (Straus), the valedictorian at the very first graduation ceremony from a girls’ academic high school, or Gymnasium, in Germany in 1899, expressed the aspirations she shared with her classmates: “We wanted to learn how to learn, how knowledge gives people independence and inner freedom. . . . The second, and stronger reason, however, was the thought: we want to have a vocation, we want to occupy a place in life.”2 JEWISH EMANCIPATION AND WOMEN’S EMANCIPATION Emancipation, the liberation of groups or individuals from civil or legal restraints, is a central theme in modern Jewish history. Jewish emancipation in Central Europe is generally viewed as a lengthy process, beginning in the late eighteenth century and culminating in legislation formally granting Jews civil rights in Austria in 1867 and in Germany in 1869. During that period, Jews lost most of their special status in society and gained nominal civic and political equality. Jewish men acquired geographic mobility, greater economic freedom, and voting rights.3 In the course of the prolonged struggle for emancipation, Jews tried to shed many of their distinctive characteristics, at least in public, if not in their private lives as well. They spoke German, dressed like German Christians, attended German schools, and adopted German culture. They began moving to larger urban centers and became overwhelmingly middle-class in both behavior and lifestyle. By the late nineteenth century, most major Central European Gemeinden, or organized Jewish communities, had adopted Liberal Judaism as their dominant mode of religious affiliation and practice, although smaller Orthodox communities remained. Some individuals formally seceded from the Jewish community by accepting Christian baptism or officially designating themselves as free thinkers or without religion (konfessionslos), but the vast majority of Jews by birth remained at least nominally within the Jewish fold. In the aftermath of emancipation, east-west migration and urbanization typified the European Jewish experience. On the eve of World War I, roughly 615,000 Jews lived in Imperial Germany, making up slightly less than 1 percent of the total population. Unlike German Christians, over half of German Jewry lived in large metropolitan areas and almost onethird resided in Berlin. Another 1.3 million Jews lived in the Austrian portion of Austria-Hungary, where they were concentrated primarily in cities and towns in Lower Austria, Bohemia-Moravia, Galicia, and Bukovina. Overall, they comprised just under 5 percent of the inhabitants of this area, which is sometimes known as Cisleithania. Vienna, the Austrian cap-
Emancipation through Higher Education
| 3
ital, boasted the largest Jewish community in Central Europe, with 175,000 Jewish residents. Many Viennese Jews were recent arrivals from other parts of the Habsburg Empire, especially the eastern province of Galicia. The emancipated Jews of Germany and Austria had thus become highly urbanized, and were increasingly modern and acculturated citizens of the states in which they were living.4 Jewish women, however, were not emancipated in the nineteenth century; they might have been citizens, but they did not enjoy equal rights. They remained almost as restricted as before the time in which Jews had been granted civil rights, not because they were Jews but because they were women. Jewish women benefited only indirectly from the process of Jewish emancipation insofar as their fathers or husbands often moved their families to larger cities, climbed the economic ladder into the middle or upper middle class, and gained social prestige by acquiring higher education.5 Most Jewish girls in Germany and Austria grew up in middle-class households, attended girls’ schools, and were steeped in the cultural values of the German bourgeoisie. They were expected to complete their education by the age of sixteen, marry before they reached twenty-five, and then stay home and raise a family as their mothers had done. Unlike their male counterparts, young Jewish women in the nineteenth century were not free to decide where they would live, whether they wanted to earn their own living, or even whether they wished to remain affiliated with a religious community. For the most part, fathers or husbands made such decisions for them. Even a woman’s citizenship status depended on that of her father or her spouse. Society frowned upon single middle-class women living or working on their own, except perhaps as teachers, and it was definitely not considered proper for married women to work outside the home for pay. Paid employment would reflect badly on their fathers’ or husbands’ ability to support them. Before the late nineteenth century, laws prevented wives from controlling their own income and property, or even from gaining custody of their children in cases of divorce. Women did not enjoy the right to vote or hold political office before World War I. Prior to 1908 they were not even permitted to belong to political organizations in either Germany or Austria.6 Women’s emancipation lagged significantly behind Jewish emancipation. In both cases, the process was never really completed and indeed proved to be reversible during the Nazi era. Eastern European Jewry did not achieve emancipation before World War I either. In Tsarist Russia, some five million Jews continued to face restrictions as to where they could live and how they could earn a living. A majority of the population were impoverished, barely eking out a living as artisans or small shopkeepers. Jewish women played an important economic role in Eastern Europe, frequently managing or “helping out” in
4
| , ,
running small family-owned businesses, as they had done in Central Europe, especially during the era before emancipation. Regardless of marital status, women often needed to work for pay to supplement the family income, whether as petty traders, seamstresses, or in other fields requiring little formal education. Although most Jews in Russia or Russian Poland belonged to the lower middle or working class, some Eastern European Jewish men managed to achieve middle- or upper middle-class socioeconomic standing, whether as merchants, bankers, industrialists, or professionals. These more affluent Jewish families could sometimes afford to provide their daughters, as well as their sons, with a good secular education so that they could break through some of the barriers that fettered their lives as Jews. GAINING ACCESS TO HIGHER EDUCATION Before the mid-nineteenth century, virtually all institutions of higher learning in both Europe and North America were closed to women. Coeducation was almost unheard of beyond the elementary level and only on rare occasions did individual women receive permission to study at a university or medical school. In 1831, Oberlin College in Ohio was the first post-secondary school in the United States to admit women as matriculated students, but very few women could avail themselves of such an opportunity for higher education because they lacked college preparatory training. In 1847, Geneva Medical College in New York became the first American medical school to allow a woman entry, but it barred its doors again after the first woman, Elizabeth Blackwell, graduated with her medical degree.7 When state universities in the United States began accepting women as undergraduates in the late nineteenth century, they often segregated female students into separate colleges or special majors for women, such as domestic science. Since American colleges and universities severely restricted access for women, private women’s colleges and medical schools for women were established in the late nineteenth century.8 A similar pattern developed in England9 and Russia. In Germany, Austria-Hungary, Switzerland, and France the only institutions for advanced learning and professional training were the public universities, which were strictly male and predominantly Christian. In their protracted struggles to achieve personal emancipation in Central and Eastern Europe, Jews of both sexes frequently turned to secular education, especially at the advanced level, as a vehicle to help them gain acceptance into general society and expand their economic horizons. Central European Jews greatly valued Bildung, a German term that translates into a combination of education, culture, cultivation, and refinement. Not content to belong merely to an urban commercial middle class by virtue of
Emancipation through Higher Education
| 5
their relative economic affluence, many Jews yearned to become part of the more prestigious Bildungsbürgertum, the educated bourgeoisie.10 Men generally earned this status by attending a humanistic Gymnasium, an academic high school that emphasized classical languages, and then acquiring a university doctorate. Women, however, could not attain this distinguished rank through study, since they were not permitted to matriculate at German or Austrian universities before the turn of the twentieth century. They could only acquire the honorary title of Frau Doktor through marriage, by becoming the wife of a Herr Doktor. Acculturated middle-class Jewish families in Central Europe in the late nineteenth century tried to provide both their sons and their daughters with the best secular education available to each sex. They desired to speed their children’s integration into German society by preparing their sons for successful careers in business or the liberal professions and improving their daughters’ marriage prospects. In the modern era, upwardly mobile Jews often transferred their traditional commitment to learning from the religious to the secular domain and no longer restricted education to their male offspring. In earlier eras, few Jewish women had received much formal education outside the home, but by the late eighteenth century it was not uncommon for wealthy Jewish families in Central Europe to provide private tutors for their daughters to teach them such fashionable refinements as literature, French, and piano.11 In the nineteenth century, Jewish girls began attending schools, at first mainly privately owned or Jewish institutions, but later state-supported public girls’ schools as well. By 1820, the Frankfurt Jewish community, for example, had set up a separate girls’ section within the local Jewish communal school, the Philanthropin. The curriculum of the secondary school for girls included modern languages, art history, and mythology, as well as needlework.12 Some Jewish girls continued to receive private instruction at home, while supplementary piano, drawing, and dancing lessons became de rigueur in many middle-class Jewish homes. By the end of the nineteenth century, it had become very common for adolescent Jewish girls to attend either public or private secondary schools for girls, variously known as Höhere-Töchterschulen, Höhere-Mädchenschulen or Mädchen-Lyzeen, completing their formal education by the age of sixteen.13 Around the turn of the century, a much higher percentage of Jewish than Christian children, especially girls, received a secondary school education in Central Europe.14 The contrast was particularly striking in large cities, such as Berlin and Vienna, but also apparent in smaller cities and towns.15 In Berlin, at least half of the Jewish children gained more than an elementary school education, but only about 10 percent of the Christian children did so. Whereas Jews made up about 5 percent of the population of the German capital, Jewish boys accounted for a quarter of the classical
6
| , ,
Gymnasium students and almost 20 percent of the modern Realgymnasium students, while Jewish girls made up over 20 percent of the students in girls’ secondary schools, both public and private, and almost a third of the students in public girls’ high schools.16 In Vienna, where Jews constituted about 10 percent of the population, Jewish boys made up 30 percent of the Gymnasium students; Jewish girls constituted roughly half, and sometimes an overwhelming majority, of the students in private MädchenLyzeen.17 A Gymnasium education, completed by age eighteen or nineteen, prepared boys for passing the Abitur or Matura matriculation examinations, the entrance requirement for all universities in Germany and Austria, as well as Switzerland. The Abitur involved a series of fairly rigorous oral and written examinations in a variety of fields, including Latin, Greek, German language and literature, history, mathematics, physics, and religion. Before the turn of the century, neither public nor private girls’ secondary schools provided the requisite background for meeting these matriculation standards; even the finest girls’ private school education emphasized modern languages rather than Latin and Greek and spent little time on mathematics or sciences. Such subjects were considered too difficult for the female brain and of no practical value for girls, especially since German and Austrian universities did not yet admit women as regular students.18 Central European universities were public institutions that served primarily as professional schools to train clergy and civil servants, as well as physicians and lawyers. Jewish men gained entry to German-speaking universities several generations before women were allowed to matriculate. They had already begun to study medicine in the eighteenth century; during the nineteenth century, they also entered the faculties of philosophy and law in increasing numbers.19 The majority of Jewish men in both Germany and Austria, including many with secondary and university education, continued to be concentrated in the field of commerce. But as time went on, more and more Jews joined the more prestigious so-called “free professions,” including medicine, law, and journalism. However, civil service appointments, including positions as judges, teachers, and professors, for the most part remained closed to unbaptized Jews before World War I, and Jewish professionals, in particular lawyers, continued to face discrimination in employment.20 In contrast to the situation in Tsarist Russia, interwar Hungary, and the United States,21 there were no anti-Jewish quotas, either official or unofficial, to prevent Jews from attending universities in Germany or Austria, aside from certain restrictions against foreign citizens after World War I. Nevertheless, antisemitism often limited the job opportunities for Jewish university graduates. Jewish men stood out as disproportionately represented among university students, but Jewish women were even more conspicuous among the
Emancipation through Higher Education
| 7
vanguard of women studying at institutions of higher learning, especially medical schools, in Western and Eastern as well as Central Europe. The first woman physicians trained in Holland and Russia were Jews, as was the first Austrian woman to receive her medical degree in Switzerland. Aletta Jacobs, born in 1854, the daughter and sister of physicians, needed authorization from the Dutch Prime Minister in order to study at a university and become the first woman physician in the Netherlands. After receiving her doctorate in medicine in 1878, she established the first birth control clinic in the world and later became a prominent Dutch feminist and pacifist.22 Varvara Kashevarova-Rudneva, a midwife born in 1842, also had to receive special permission to attend the Medical Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg in 1863. After qualifying as a physician and overcoming many obstacles, she became the first woman to receive her medical degree in Russia, also in 1878.23 Soon other Eastern European Jewish women began following Kashevarova-Rudneva’s example by pursuing higher learning and becoming physicians. The vast majority of Jews in Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century were poor and lived a traditional, Orthodox Jewish life in the restrictive area of western and southwestern Russia, known as the Pale of Settlement, where Jews were allowed to reside. The average Jewish household provided little secular education for their sons and minimal formal education, whether religious or secular, for their daughters. Nevertheless, it is striking that so many relatively well-situated, middle-class Jewish families, influenced by the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment, and often living with special permission outside the Pale, were willing to allow, and even encouraged, their sons and daughters to acquire a higher education, whether in Russia or abroad. In Eastern Europe, in contrast with Central Europe, separate institutions developed to provide higher education for women. Since in Tsarist Russia, as in the United States and England, coeducation was not the norm, special programs were established to train women as medical doctors and in other fields. Jews were very highly represented in the new women’s courses initiated in Russia in the 1870s and early 1880s.24 Soon thereafter, however, quotas were introduced for Jews and new restrictions were imposed upon the education of women within Russia. As a result, numerous Eastern European Jews of both sexes decided to go to Switzerland and, later, Germany and Austria, in order to attend university. The Rabinowitsch family of Kovno, Lithuania, for example, had nine children. After the death of the father who had owned a large brewery, the widowed mother made sure that at least five of her children attended university. Three sons enrolled at the nearby German university in Königsberg, East Prussia; one became a physician, another, a dentist, and the third, a merchant. One daughter studied law, apparently in Russia, and then
8
| , ,
married a lawyer. Lydia Rabinowitsch(-Kempner), the youngest daughter, born in 1871, had to go Switzerland in order to earn her doctorate in bacteriology from the University of Bern, because no university closer to home would accept her as a student.25 In Central Europe, where separate colleges or medical schools for women never were established, women were barred from pursuing a higher education or careers in professional fields until they were given permission to matriculate at universities. In 1867, the University of Zurich became the first in Central Europe to admit women as matriculated students; Bern and Geneva followed soon thereafter. A majority of the women studying in Switzerland before World War I hailed from Tsarist Russia; of the estimated five thousand Eastern European women students, three-quarters of whom studied medicine, between 60 and 80 percent were Jews.26 In Russia, Gymnasia for girls had begun to open up during the second half of the nineteenth century for the primary purpose of educating teachers. Young, middle-class Jewish women eagerly streamed into these institutions. Unlike boys’ Gymnasia, the female equivalents were not intended as preparation for university entrance examinations, but they did provide instruction in German, Greek, and Latin as electives.27 Young women from Eastern Europe were less well prepared for university than most young men with Gymnasium training, and were sometimes admitted to institutions of higher learning despite their inferior academic qualifications. Nevertheless, they generally had a better foundation for passing Swiss Abitur examinations than young women who had completed German or Austrian secondary schools for girls in the nineteenth century and who then had to study privately before taking matriculation examinations. The early female pioneers who left home to study at Swiss universities in the late nineteenth century included a somewhat smaller contingent from Germany and Austria. Among the Central European Jewish women trailblazers were four Welt sisters from Czernowitz, Bukovina, whose efforts to study at the University of Vienna in the 1870s had met with failure. Their father, Sinai Welt, a petty merchant who had rebelled against his Hasidic background, had become convinced that only through higher education could one gain respect and status in society. Having no sons, he was absolutely determined that his daughters all earn a university degree because, he said, “I want the whole world to be open to my daughters and that they enjoy esteem everywhere. And that will only happen, if they are doctors!”28 Rosa Welt, who was born in 1856, graduated from the University of Bern in 1878 and became the first Austrian woman to receive a medical degree. Her sisters, Sarah and Leonore, earned similar degrees from Zurich in 1885 and 1888, while the youngest sister, Ida, obtained her doctorate in chemistry from Geneva in 1895. Although most of the foreign women
Emancipation through Higher Education
| 9
who studied in Switzerland returned to their homelands, none of the Welt sisters went back to Austria, perhaps due to lack of professional jobs for women. Leonore Welt Gourfein, an ophthalmologist who later became an unsalaried instructor (Privatdozentin) at the University of Geneva, continued to live in Switzerland, as did her sister, Ida. Rosa Welt Strauss and Sarah Welt Kakeles both emigrated to the United States and practiced medicine in New York; Rosa Strauss moved to Palestine in the 1920s.29 To improve the educational and occupational prospects for middleclass Central European women, the woman’s rights movements in both Germany and Austria struggled for several decades to gain access for women into universities.30 Although some women, especially foreigners, including both Americans and Russians, managed to study as special students or auditors, German and Austrian universities only began admitting women as regular students around the turn of the century: Austria in 1897, Baden in 1900, and, finally, Prussia in 1908.31 Once German and Austrian institutions of higher learning finally opened their doors, many more women were able to take advantage of the new opportunities to study and embark on professional careers without going so far from home. Once again, Jews were strongly represented among the female pioneers, especially in medicine and the natural sciences. Among the notable pioneering students around the turn of the century who were natives of Germany or Austria were Rahel Goitein (Straus) at the University of Heidelberg and Irma Klausner(-Cronheim) at Halle, both in medicine; Elsa Neumann at the University of Berlin and Lise Meitner at the University of Vienna in physics; and Clara Immerwahr (Haber) in chemistry at the University of Breslau. Many, if not most, of the Jewish women enrolled as students and auditors in Berlin and Vienna before 1914 hailed from Eastern Europe.32 By contrast, comparatively few Jews, especially Jewish women, were to be found among American university students prior to World War I. German Jews who had emigrated to the United States in the mid- to late nineteenth century did not usually encourage their daughters to attend university. When women’s colleges were established in the Northeast, and private, as well as state, universities in the Midwest and the West began opening their doors to women, the daughters of the relatively small German-Jewish population did not attend these schools in significant numbers. Women’s colleges, often expressly Christian institutions with mandatory chapel attendance, were not particularly hospitable places for Jewish women.33 Eastern European immigrants could generally not afford to send their sons, let alone their daughters, to university until at least the interwar years, nor were they sufficiently acculturated in order to do so.34 The American college population began to expand beyond the Protestant elite in the early twentieth century to include Catholics and African
10
| , ,
Americans, as well as Jews. By the 1920s, however, antisemitic quotas, official or unofficial, kept down the numbers of Jews at elite private colleges and professional schools, especially in the Northeast. As a result, Jews gravitated toward public institutions, especially in New York City, where the sons of Jewish immigrants were heavily concentrated at City College and their sisters flocked into teacher-training programs at Hunter College and, later, Brooklyn College as well.35 Unlike in the United States, in Germany and Austria no anti-Jewish quotas hampered access to universities. Once women gained access around the turn of the century, Jewish women enrolled in nearly all major institutions of higher learning in disproportionately large numbers even before the outbreak of World War I. They continued to do so during the interwar years. Thus Jewish university women remained much more conspicuously overrepresented among the overall female student population in Central Europe before 1933 than on the American scene prior to World War II. FINDING A FEMALE ROLE MODEL It took great courage for young women in Central Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to decide to attend university. They had to overcome many negative stereotypes and had few positive female role models to emulate. Lillian Stern Bader, born in Vienna in 1893, described the situation that she and her widowed mother, who directed a girls’ boarding school, confronted when she was eleven years old. They had to decide whether or not Stern should attend a newly established MädchenGymnasium (classical high school for girls) in order to prepare herself for her Matura, the Austrian university entrance examination: At the time that this future was being considered for me, only a very limited number of women registered yearly at the University of Vienna. Not all studies were yet available to women. They could become doctors of medicine, could study sciences or languages, but not yet, for some strange reason, become lawyers. The “girl student” was a type offering great possibilities to the cartoonists of the time, who depicted them smoking cigarettes in mantailored suits and in high-collared shirtwaists. They were thought to be “emancipated,” which set them apart from the average and which gave them a definite handicap as far as getting married is concerned.36
The stereotype of the woman student as unattractive, unfeminine, and unfashionably dressed was largely derived from the caricatured image of the radical Russian women studying in Switzerland in the late nineteenth century. They were characterized as having short hair and large blue glasses and wearing shapeless, “nun-like,” or “completely unadorned, umbrella-
Emancipation through Higher Education
| 11
like” black dresses, and smoking cigarettes. Eugenie Nussbaum (Schwarzwald), a Jewish student from Galicia who later became a prominent educator in Vienna, disparagingly described her fellow students in Zurich during the 1890s as follows: 37
They came to study out of unhappy love, out of Weltschmerz, or, what was the worst, out of principle. That girl who with great effort had passed the Matura exam was namely a pioneer. A real Brunhilde. Every remark wore armor. Everyone wanted to show the men. Whether they were dissecting, whether they were going for phonetics [i.e., philology] or whether they stood beside a beaker, they were always priestesses who had a mission. It was always necessary to prove something, to convince someone, to triumph. The one who best understood how to express her hatred of men in clothing and behavior was the president of the women’s student association. . . . They would have so ardently liked to have been men, but would certainly not like to be told so.38
With such negative images in mind, it must have been difficult indeed for young women to persuade their parents to allow them to embark on an educational path with so few guideposts along the way. Among the older generation of aspiring university women, few had come into contact with other women who had attended university or chosen their proposed field of study. Several women looked up to the Russian mathematician Sophia Kovalevskaia as their academic prototype. Lise Meitner, one of the first women to earn a doctorate in physics at the University of Vienna, cited Polish-born but French-educated Nobel Prize winner Marie Curie as her role model. The example set by Lise Meitner encouraged Lillian Stern (Bader) to attend university in order to become a chemist and, later, an educator.39 Leftists Helene Rosenbach (Deutsch) and Marie Glas (Langer) sought socialist models with whom to identify. They greatly admired such revolutionary figures as Vera Figner and Rosa Luxemburg, who were among the women student radicals from Tsarist Russia studying at Swiss universities in the late nineteenth century.40 But some aspiring physicians, like Rahel Goitein (Straus) and Irma Klausner(-Cronheim), decided to become medical doctors even before they had ever met a female doctor.41 The women teachers whom they encountered in girls’ secondary schools provided the most obvious female professional role models for young girls. This was true for whatever type of institution they might have attended: a traditional Lyceum, a more modern Reform-Lyceum, a Gymnasium, which emphasized classical languages, or a Realgymnasium, which focused on modern languages. In their memoirs, university women sometimes recalled their favorite woman teacher on whom they had an
12
| , ,
adolescent crush or the one who most influenced their intellectual development.42 Among the schools that groomed future Jewish university women by fostering their academic self-esteem and offering them positive role models among their faculty was the Schwarzwaldschule, a private girls’ school in Vienna, founded by Eugenie Nussbaum Schwarzwald. An eccentric and highly assimilated member of the pioneering generation of Jewish university women, Schwarzwald, born in Galicia in 1872, received her doctorate in German literature from the University of Zurich in 1900 and established her progressive school soon thereafter. Among the most beloved members of Schwarzwald’s faculty was Aline Furtmüller, her successor as director. A Social Democratic activist, Furtmüller was born in Vienna in 1883 and earned her doctorate in French and Italian from the University of Vienna in 1908. Schwarzwald, Furtmüller, and other women educators of Jewish origin did not inspire very many of their Jewish pupils to follow in their footsteps as teachers, but they encouraged them to develop their academic abilities to their fullest potential and to pursue their professional dreams. Psychoanalysts Marie Langer and Elsa Pappenheim, historian Hilde Koplenig, and writer Hilde Spiel were among the many Jewish university women who attended the Schwarzwaldschule.43 TEACHING AS A CAREER FOR WOMEN In the late nineteenth century, teaching, whether as a governess or as an instructor in girls’ schools, was regarded as one of the few socially acceptable occupations for middle-class women who wished to become self-supporting. Teacher training was generally provided by teachers’ seminaries, which were often one- or two-year extensions of public or private higher girls’ schools (Mädchen-Lyceen). These institutions tended to be heavily Christian in orientation. At the age of eighteen, girls were eligible to take teaching certification examinations in specific subjects, whether or not they had completed formal training programs. Teaching was not a very promising career path for Central European Jewish women, however. One woman, Recha Rothschild, recalled a school inspector who concluded his remarks to her graduating class of a teachers’ seminary in Frankfurt in the 1890s by pointedly stating: “Jewish ladies know that they cannot count on employment.” After hearing such a dire prognosis, this budding educator, like many other young Jewish women, changed her mind about teaching and decided to prepare for university and pursue a different career.44 Central European Jewish women born in the nineteenth century often took a long and circuitous route before entering university. Quite a few young women decided to take teaching certification exams, even if they
Emancipation through Higher Education
| 13
did not aspire to teach in girls’ schools. They viewed a certificate in a conventional women’s teaching field, such as languages or pre-school, as a kind of insurance policy should they not marry and therefore need to support themselves. Thus, the mathematician Emmy Noether and the nuclear physicist Lise Meitner both obtained teaching licenses in foreign languages. Marie Munk, one of the first women judges in Germany, trained as a kindergarten teacher, while Hedwig Guggenheimer (Hintze), who was to become a historian specializing in the French Revolution, held a license to teach French. Chemist Clara Immerwahr (Haber) and microbiologist Emmy Klieneberger(-Nobel) also qualified as teachers before beginning their scientific studies. Very few of these certified teachers actually taught school for any length of time before deciding to pursue a university education, even though some engaged in private tutoring or coaching to earn extra income on occasion.45 There were several drawbacks to careers in education for Central European women, especially before World War I. As in the United States, women teachers were poorly paid and not allowed to marry. Men held most of the teaching and administrative positions not only in boys’ schools but also in girls’ secondary schools. They were significantly better paid than their female colleagues and not required to be celibate. Philosophy, the Central European equivalent to Liberal Arts, nevertheless became by far the most popular university faculty for women students, especially Christians, since it prepared them for certification as high school teachers (Studienrätinnen), an occupation that required university training after 1908. Many of the pioneering women university students were teachers who wished to change professional fields or improve their academic qualifications in order to teach in girls’ secondary schools.46 Teaching certification did not provide Jewish women with guaranteed job security.47 Many Central European Jewish women with pre-school, elementary, or middle-school certification did not pursue a teaching career because they could not find jobs due to antisemitism or because they decided to marry. Licensed women teachers frequently opted to attend university, thereby making a different and somewhat riskier choice that might lead to careers in traditionally male professional fields, such as medicine, academia, science, or law, as well as secondary education.48 PREPARING FOR UNIVERSITY Young women who wanted to pursue higher education had to overcome numerous obstacles before they could even embark on university studies. First, they had to deal with parental objections and social stigmas facing women who wanted to enter male educational and professional spheres. Then they had to prepare for matriculation examinations, often under con-
14
| , ,
siderable handicaps. Among the earliest generation, those born before 1900, women students tended to be somewhat older than their male counterparts, since their entry into university often had to be delayed for many years until hurdles could be surmounted. Before the first Gymnasium for women opened in Karlsruhe in 1893, attending a classical academic secondary school in order to prepare for university seemed like an impossible dream for young women in Germany or Austria. Elise Richter, who eventually became the first woman professor in Austria, was born in Vienna in 1865. She and her sister Helene, who was four years older, hated the fact that they were girls and were extremely jealous of boys’ access to a Gymnasium education. While they were young they studied German language and literature, as well as history and geography, with governesses, but received very little formal instruction in mathematics or science. Later, they studied foreign languages on their own, audited university lectures with special permission from professors, and enrolled in special classes sponsored by the Association for Advanced Education for Women in the 1890s. Both Richter sisters became seriously ill in their twenties, Elise suffering from severe rheumatism and Helene afflicted with various eye and nervous disorders; nevertheless, they continued their studies.49 Although Helene Richter, who specialized in English literature, remained an autodidact and received only an honorary doctorate, her younger sister was determined to pursue a university degree. After an Austrian ministerial decree in 1896 granted women permission to take Matura examinations as externs at a boys’ Gymnasium, Elise Richter, already thirtyone years old, began preparing for her examinations with various tutors, encountering special difficulties with math and sciences, in which she had little background. She had to take all twelve subject exams at once, with a two hour pre-test, then the main oral examinations, lasting four and a half hours, followed by five days of written exams. The most difficult challenge she faced, however, was not passing the written tests, but reaching the second story of the Akademisches Gymnasium in order to take her orals, since her rheumatism made it almost impossible for her to climb steps. She received special permission not to have to stand during this lengthy crossexamination. In Richter’s opinion, her Matura in 1897 proved much more of an ordeal than subsequent qualifying examinations. She passed her doctoral orals in comparative linguistics with highest distinction (summa cum laude) in 1901, and then her post-doctoral dissertation defense for her university teaching credential (Habilitation) in Romance philology in 1905. Elise Richter overcame great odds to become the first woman professor at the University of Vienna, whereas her sister Helene, a self-taught scholar, devoted much of her life to looking after her mother and then her sister, and continued to suffer from illness and depression.50
Emancipation through Higher Education
| 15
Preparation for the Abitur examination presented a major hurdle for young women who did not have access to a girls’ Gymnasium. Although some university women among the older generation, like Elise Richter, received nearly all of their education at home from governesses and tutors, most attended private or public girls’ schools. Girls’ schools provided an adequate foundation in such subjects as modern languages, geography, and history, but did not prepare their pupils for the matriculation requirements in Latin, Greek, mathematics, or physics. Hence, after completing the standard curriculum for girls, women had to make up all the material they had missed by not being able to attend Gymnasium. Some chose to prepare for their matriculation examinations through several years of intensive private tutoring, particularly in math and science. Others opted for special “cram courses” for young women, which provided very intensive preparatory training in those fields not taught in girls’ schools. Irma Klausner(-Cronheim), who passed her Abitur, the German matriculation exam, in 1896, was among the first graduates of such a course, which had been organized by the prominent feminist educator Helene Lange in Berlin.51 Lillian Stern (Bader) also completed her preparations for her Matura in a similar program in Vienna, which she described as follows: Many girls, past school age, found that they were handicapped through lack of higher education and that they would miss their opportunities in life. Their pressing demands brought a new type of school into existence. For those grown-up girls and women, who . . . could not afford to spend eight years in a Gymnasium, crammers’ courses were established, which taught in four years the subjects required for the “Matura,” the examination prerequisite to entering the University. These schools of course operated without any possibility of making the studies attractive. They could not lose any time on demonstrations or experiments. All the required material was condensed into streamlined lessons. Most of the work had to be done at home by the students themselves. As they, however, had entered the courses with a purpose, and never lost their goal, a university career, from sight, they were quite in accordance with these shortcuts and cooperated willingly.52
Some young women who lived in larger cities, like Lillian Stern, could avail themselves of advanced courses for women close to home. Others left their hometowns as teenagers in order to take special courses or study at a girls’ Reform-Lyceum or Gymnasium in order to prepare themselves for these examinations.53 Several women were fortunate enough to receive special permission to study at a local boys’ Gymnasium, but such cases were rather exceptional.54 Women who had not attended a Gymnasium had to take their Abitur or Matura examinations as externs at a boys’ Gymnasium, an often harrowing experience since their male examiners, whom they had never met before, frequently seemed hostile to women students.55
16
| , ,
Girls who had the opportunity to study at a girls’ Gymnasium generally encountered less difficulty preparing for and passing their Abitur exams than graduates of less academically oriented girls’ high schools. Together with their classmates, they could take their examinations in familiar surroundings; among the younger generation, those who did well on written examinations were sometimes even exempted from the additional ordeal of orals. But in order to benefit from eight years of Gymnasium education, a young girl had to make up her mind at an early age that she indeed wanted to study at university.56 Before World War I, a Central European woman who attended university or even enrolled in a girls’ Gymnasium or a cram course to prepare for her Abitur or Matura examination was considered a somewhat outlandish individual intent on defying the conventional norms for women. By the interwar years, Gymnasium education for women had become more widespread and women university students had lost much of their novelty. Although increasing numbers of Jewish women gravitated toward universities during and after the war, they no longer appeared quite as conspicuous or radical as they had seemed before. WHY SO MANY JEWISH UNIVERSITY WOMEN? Scholars studying women’s higher education in Central Europe have been struck by the extraordinarily high percentages of Jews among the women students in Germany and Austria, especially prior to 1920. While doing research on women students at the University of Vienna, Waltraud Heindl was astonished to discover that not only did Jewish women make up over 70 percent of the female foreign students from Russia before World War I, but Austrian Jewish women, many of them from Galicia, comprised between a quarter and a third of the women students in the faculty of philosophy and a majority of the women medical students.57 Claudia Huerkamp, in her definitive study of university women in Germany before 1945, points out that although Jews comprised less than 1 percent of the Prussian population, Jewish women made up 18 percent of the female students at Prussian universities in 1908, when women were first admitted, and 28 percent of the medical students in 1911.58 During the interwar years, their absolute numbers continued to increase steadily, but the proportional overrepresentation of Jewish women began to decline once university attendance became more popular among Protestant and Catholic women.59 Many more Jewish men than women received a higher education in twentieth-century Germany and Austria, but the proportion of Jewish women among the female student population remained roughly twice as high as the proportion of Jewish men among male students.60
Emancipation through Higher Education
| 17
Recent scholars have attributed the overrepresentation of Jewish women in the student body to a variety of factors, both socioeconomic and cultural, which we shall explore in greater depth in the next chapter. 61 A high proportion of Central European Jews belonged to the “well-situated” middle class, which could afford the luxury of educating their daughters, as well as their sons. Claudia Huerkamp hypothesizes that a lower Jewish birthrate that had begun in the late nineteenth century resulted in fewer sons to educate and therefore more money to spend on the education of daughters. Jews tended to live in large cities where major universities were located; as a result, their daughters could often attend university without leaving home. Many of the fathers, uncles, and brothers of middle-class Jewish women had acquired a university education and greatly esteemed the value of higher learning. As has already been suggested, the secular Jewish culture developing in acculturated Jewish homes fostered the pursuit of higher education for both men and women as a means of more effective integration into the Bildungsbürgertum, the educated bourgeoisie. Jewish women thus began attending university in disproportionately large numbers before Protestant women began following the same trend, while Catholic women lagged even further behind. Jewish families often encouraged their daughters’ pursuit of higher education by providing them with both moral and financial support, even though some parents feared that attending university might hamper, rather than help, their daughters’ marriageability. Given a strong preference for endogamy in most Jewish families and the relatively low rate of interfaith marriage among Jewish women but somewhat higher rate for Jewish men, some young women and their families might have been concerned about a possible shortage of appropriate spouses.62 Should a bright young woman decide not to marry, she would need a worthwhile alternative. Because of discrimination against Jews in the teaching profession, Jewish girls who wished to become self-supporting often had to consider training for occupations other than teaching. Attending university opened up new and exciting career possibilities for women who desired greater self-fulfillment and were not certain about their marriage prospects. Higher education thus seemed to provide an opportune path to personal emancipation.
TWO
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers: Shaping the Jewish University Woman
W
ho were these young women who set off on the path to selfemancipation through higher education? How did their home environments shape their Jewish and gender identities, as well as their educational decisions and career choices? As individuals, Central European Jewish university women demonstrated a wide spectrum of personalities and behaviors, including openly rebellious tomboys, idealistic dreamers, and dutiful daughters. Still, their shared common family background reflected Jewish parentage, middle-class socioeconomic status, and commitment to German cultural values or Bildung. Collectively, they also manifested above average intelligence, a willingness to defy conventional norms for women, and strong determination to overcome obstacles in order to attain a higher education and the possibility of a professional career. In certain respects, these future women students differed from more typical middle-class German or Austrian girls of their day. Their fathers, not their mothers, were likely to serve as their role models. Like most Central European Jews, they belonged to the commercial or professional middle class, often the upper middle class; their fathers tended to be merchants, doctors, or lawyers rather than civil servants or army officers. These young women were not satisfied with the standard education for girls, which would lead to marriage and family rather than independence and a career. As teenagers and young adults, they chose to develop their intellect rather than their femininity and were not primarily interested in finding a husband. These young women often preferred studying to socializing and enjoyed reading books more than attending dancing lessons. In many cases, they considered themselves to be physically unattractive and felt awkward in social situations. Their Jewishness, as well as their intellectual bent, frequently set them apart from their Christian classmates. Preparing themselves for study at university provided alternative options to replicating their mothers’ lives as middle-class Jewish homemakers.
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 19
GROWING UP URBAN AND MIDDLE CLASS The families of prospective Jewish university women were geographically mobile and highly urbanized. Only about a quarter of the women researched were born in the same place or region as both of their parents. Two-thirds of the German-Jewish women were raised in ten cities: Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Breslau, Munich, Nuremberg, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Cologne, and Stuttgart, and more than a quarter came from Berlin alone. Similarly, roughly half of the women from Austria-Hungary grew up in Vienna. Many families migrated westward, especially during and after World War I, so that girls born in eastern Germany, Galicia, or Tsarist Russia were often raised in Berlin, western Germany, or Vienna. Whereas the Jewish women who attended Swiss universities in the late nineteenth century all had to travel long distances in order to pursue a higher education, those who studied in Germany or Austria in the early twentieth century frequently had the option of remaining at home, since their parents had already located in cities that had major universities.1 The memoirs of Central European university women often portray almost idyllic childhoods in affluent, middle-class households with domestic servants, nurses, and governesses.2 Ruth Feitelberg Hope, born in Munich in 1905, described the environment and values that she shared with nearly all of her school and university friends: The middle-class background included strict upbringing, emphasis on manners, devotion to parents and family, [and] restraint in behavior at all times, but especially in public places. It was considered extremely bad form to talk about money or to mention that one lived in comfortable circumstances. On the other hand, one was expected to keep up with all cultural and artistic events, dress well, but not ostentatiously, and travel at the right time to the right places. In school, one had to study, and study hard. Books were one of the approved means of relaxation, as were visits to museums, art galleries, and theaters. Self-discipline was a goal to be achieved, and discipline meted out by one’s elders was accepted as routine. Being Jewish imposed additional social and cultural obligations upon my upbringing.
Hope went on to state: My childhood and youth were happy. . . . This does not exclude unhappy experiences and memories—nor does it mean that I was immune to the difficulties of making the transition from childhood into adult life. Considering that from the year of my birth to the year of my marriage, 1930, Germany fought and lost a World War and after that was ravaged by a run-away inflation and political strife, my childhood and youth were peculiarly free from worry and tragedy.3
20
| , ,
Not all university women, especially those who migrated from east to west, presented their childhood as quite so carefree, but among those born in Germany or Austria, solidly middle-class economic status and cultural values emphasizing German literature, art, music, and theater provide a common thread within the narratives of their early lives. Whether future students grew up in large cities or smaller towns, the family homes in which they were raised were frequently equipped with the latest modern innovations. Frieda Gotthelft Sichel, born in Kassel (Hesse) in 1889, depicted her family’s “imposing three storey mansion in a select part of town” as follows: All the most modern conveniences, such as hot and cold running water in the main bedroom, which emptied into a bucket under the basin, caused quite a sensation. Gas light soon replaced paraffin lamps and at the turn of the century the house was modernised even more by the installation of electricity throughout. . . . I clearly remember the sensation when a telephone with an adjustable mouthpiece was installed on a wall of the passage. As the telephone number, 641, indicates we must have been amongst the earliest subscribers to this means of communication.4
Similarly, Henrietta Magnus Necheles, born in 1898, contrasted her family’s modernity with the traditional values of their middle-class Christian neighbors in the small garrison town of Wandsbek near Hamburg: [T]heir wives were exactly as their grandmothers had been. They cooked, ate and cleaned as they had one hundred years earlier. Vacuum cleaners and steam heat were considered unhealthy, just like electric lighting. When we had electric lights put in people were very upset, they regarded my father as extravagant and money wasting.
Necheles commented that her next-door neighbor, a very proper Protestant woman who was afraid of using a telephone, was terrified by the mere idea that Henrietta wanted to go to university and recommended that she learn to cook instead.5 But cooking, cleaning, and housekeeping were precisely the jobs future university women wanted to avoid, if at all possible. They wanted to be modern, up-to-date “New Women,” not traditional housewives. MOTHERS AND DAUGHTERS Aspiring students did not wish to follow in their mothers’ footsteps by becoming middle-class homemakers, even though their mothers often were highly cultured women who had received the best education available to
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 21
girls in the mid- to late nineteenth century and had domestic servants to take care of the heavier physical labor in the household. While a few of the mothers of university women were self-taught or had only elementary education, many had attended girls’ secondary schools (Mädchen-Lyzeen) or boarding schools. In some cases, they had earned teaching certification, while others studied at art academies or music conservatories. Among the younger generation of university women, a small group had mothers who had attended a girls’ Gymnasium or university, and several mothers were physicians. By and large, however, Central European Jewish mothers were primarily housewives who might have done volunteer work but generally were not gainfully employed outside the home. Nevertheless, widows and divorcées sometimes needed to support their families, and some married women, particularly lower middle-class migrants from Galicia or Russia, also worked at home or “helped out” in the family business.6 Although university women often expressed considerable admiration and respect for their mothers, especially those who were widowed or divorced,7 they seldom wished to emulate their examples. The women who referred to their mothers as the dominant influence in their lives sometimes described them as feminists, political activists, and writers; other women praised their mothers’ artistic and musical talent, as well as their homemaking skills and selfless work on behalf of others. Nonetheless, only a few considered their mothers as their primary role models. Among these notable exceptions was Rahel Goitein Straus, a practicing physician and the mother of five, whose widowed Orthodox mother raised four children while working as a private tutor and housekeeper.8 Some women saw themselves as achieving their mothers’ unfulfilled girlhood dreams by embarking on a university education and a professional career.9 Some mothers had ardently yearned for a university education, but restrictions against women students and opposition from their families prevented them from attaining this goal. The mother of Lydia Ehrenfried, for example, had a burning desire to learn. Born in the 1860s in Lithuania, she studied Sanskrit and astronomy on her own, but her father would not allow her to attend university, since he did not want her to be like the Russian nihilist students in Zurich. As a result, she had to give up her wish, but as protest she cut her hair, a highly unusual step for a woman of her day. Later, she strongly advocated higher education for her daughter, even though her husband wanted Lydia to learn housekeeping instead. Thanks to her mother’s backing, Lydia Ehrenfried eventually became a physician, like her father.10 Microbiologist Emmy Klieneberger, born in Frankfurt in 1892, described her mother as the driving force in the family and the greatest influence on her decision to study:
22
| , ,
[My mother] had always wanted only sons, since she thought they could have a better education and, as a result, a better life than girls. She herself, although very talented, never had the opportunity to satisfy her ardent desire to study. When she bore two daughters in addition to two sons, all of whom she loved equally, she was determined that the same amount of money be made available for the education of her daughters as for the education of her sons. She thought [in a] very modern [way, and] rejoiced over her daughters’ studies just as much as her sons’. [She] often told me, “If you marry, it is right; if you don’t marry, it is also right.”11
While some mothers strongly supported their daughters’ academic strivings and exerted considerable positive influence over their education and careers, not all were enthusiastic about their daughters’ studies or professional aspirations. Some even tried to prevent their daughters from leaving home and pursuing independent lives. Alice Salomon, a pioneer in women’s social work education in Germany who became actively involved in feminist activities in the League of German Women’s Associations (Bund deutscher Frauenvereine, BDF) and the International Council of Women (ICW), provides an example of a devoted daughter of a demanding mother. Salomon, one of the oldest women in this study, was born in Berlin in 1872, the second youngest of six children. After she completed the standard girls’ school education at the age of fourteen, she wanted to become a teacher, but her widowed mother objected to her further education. For the next six years she searched for socially acceptable ways of making her life more meaningful: she learned to cook, sew and knit; she read, studied languages, and attended lectures; she went to dances and played tennis. But eventually she concluded that the life of a höhere Tochter (middle-class “elevated” or “refined” daughter) was unbearable, so she became a volunteer social worker and then began to develop courses to train women as professional social workers. After successfully petitioning to be accepted as a special student without having to pass the Abitur examination, she earned a doctorate in economics from the University of Berlin in 1906, two years before women were officially admitted as matriculated students.12 Alice Salomon remained single, taking care of her sickly, widowed mother, who, unlike most Jewish mothers, had little desire to see her daughter wed. As Salomon recounted in her autobiography, entitled “Character Is Destiny,” Although I had wanted and discovered an independent life, independent thoughts and interests, ever since my childhood, I was more deeply rooted in the family than most of my friends—perhaps more than most career women who do not marry. . . . [T]his may be because I stayed in my mother’s home, never went away to school or university, and never was away
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 23
for any length of time. Or it may be the result of her dependence on me after all her other children had married. Our lives were closely interwoven.13
A further sign of her deep attachment to her mother is seen in the fact that Salomon postponed her conversion to Protestantism for many years so as not to offend her mother’s religious sensibilities.14 Salomon was truly a dutiful daughter who devoted her life to helping others, as well as to looking after her mother, yet she also fought on behalf of women’s rights and greater personal freedom for women. Few university women were as selfless and devoted to their mothers as Alice Salomon; many rebelled much less covertly against the conventional norms that their mothers represented. Instead of viewing their mothers as positive influences on their early development, some women expressed strongly negative attitudes toward their mothers, and sometimes also toward sisters who resembled them. Helene Rosenbach Deutsch, Margaret Schoenberger Mahler, and Marie Glas Langer, three prominent psychoanalysts who trained under Freud, all articulated powerful resentment toward their mothers, criticizing them for extravagance, frivolity, and concern for appearances.15 FOLLOWING IN THEIR FATHERS’ FOOTSTEPS Mothers were generally responsible for supervising their daughters’ education and cultural development, whereas fathers were frequently remote or absent for extended periods. Nonetheless, many future university women craved their fathers’ love and approval and sought to be their fathers’ favorite child. They credited their fathers’ libraries for developing their early love of books and attributed their love of nature or interest in science to childhood walks with their fathers.16 One woman, Edith Weisskopf-Joelson, a psychologist who struggled with her own mental illness, entitled her memoir Father, Have I Kept My Promise? 17 It was not unusual for a university woman to express considerable ambivalence about her gender, claiming that her father would have preferred a son to a daughter, and hence the woman would rather have been a boy than a girl. Charlotte Wolff, a physician born in West Prussia in 1897 as the second of two daughters, recounted that at her birth, her father engaged in wishful thinking by announcing, “My little boy has arrived.” While growing up, Wolff chose to wear boys’ rather than girls’ clothing; she quoted an uncle as saying, “You have always been a camouflaged boy.” Yet she commented that her belonging to the “wrong” sex made no difference in the love and devotion of her parents, since they took great pride in their daughters.18 Helene Rosenbach Deutsch, born in Galicia in 1884, despised her mother but adored her lawyer father. Instead of seeing herself as her
24
| , ,
mother’s daughter, she longed to be her father’s son. She claimed in her memoirs, entitled Confrontations with Myself, that “[My father] accepted me fully, not as a substitute for a boy but as his spiritual heir as well as his beloved girl with the beautiful eyes. I was endowed with the qualities of ‘old Rosenbach,’ regardless of my sex.”19 After graduating from a private school at age fourteen, she was expected “to live the idle life of a debutante under my mother’s tutelage until marriage,” but, like Alice Salomon, refused to accept such an existence. When her father opposed her desire to leave home in order to prepare for her Abitur, she ran away twice and only returned when he capitulated to her wishes.20 Helene Rosenbach Deutsch and Charlotte Wolff were by no means the only university women who chose their fathers rather than their mothers as their preferred role models.21 It was quite common for male family members, especially fathers but sometimes uncles or brothers, to exert a strong influence on a young woman’s career choice. One father, a prominent lawyer and socialist, encouraged his daughter, who had at one time wanted to become a ballerina, to make a more prudent career choice. As a result, she followed her father’s example and studied law.22 At first, Helene Rosenbach (Deutsch) also desired to became a lawyer like her father, but since women were not allowed into law school in Austria before World War I, she decided to become a medical doctor instead.23 Roughly half of the fathers of the women highlighted in this book were involved in commerce, manufacturing, or banking, as were most Central European Jewish men. The remaining half was comprised mainly of university-trained professionals, including physicians, lawyers, professors and other educators, engineers, editors, chemists, and rabbis. Whereas only one woman attributed her decision to study economics to her aspiration to enter her father’s business firm,24 many others sought to follow in their fathers’ footsteps and become professionals. In some cases, they wanted to enter the same occupations as their fathers, but in most instances, they simply desired to be university educated, like their fathers.25 It is striking to note that among the women I have researched, almost 40 percent of the daughters of physicians studied medicine and that, despite the serious obstacles facing women in the legal field, twenty percent of the daughters of lawyers studied law. Yet only 12 percent of the educators’ daughters pursued careers in education or academia. Emmy Noether, arguably the most famous woman mathematician of the early twentieth century, was the daughter of a professor of mathematics; her brother was a professor of mathematics as well. Likewise, Marie Munk, one of the first women judges in Germany, was both the daughter and the sister of judges. Such women represented dutiful daughters of a different variety than Alice Salomon; they sought, and generally received, their fathers’ blessing to enter the “family business,” so to speak. Jewish parents, especially fathers
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 25
who were professionals, generally did not view their daughters’ desire for a university education as a rejection of the family’s values, but often shared a sense of pride in their achievements. Some fathers, however, expressed ambivalence or downright opposition to their daughters’ desire for a higher education. Julie Braun-Vogelstein, born in Stettin in 1883, recalled that her father, a prominent Liberal rabbi, once said hypothetically that his daughter was capable of becoming a rabbi like her oldest brother. Yet he refused to teach her Greek or Latin to prepare her for university because “girls are different from boys.” Julie’s father, Rabbi Heinemann Vogelstein, strongly objected to her continuing her education after the age of sixteen, despite the fact that his wife was an active feminist involved in organizing advanced courses for women in Stettin. He warned his daughter, “You do not know yourself. I know who you are: a woman. Do not alienate yourself from yourself.” Julie Vogelstein felt guilty going against her beloved father’s wishes and postponed her university studies for several years, only completing her doctorate in art history after World War I and her father’s death. She was, nonetheless, always uncomfortable using the title Doktor.26 Although some fathers encouraged their daughters to become economically independent, many considered it inappropriate for female members of their family to become teachers or physicians or to earn money through private tutoring or paid employment.27 More traditional fathers firmly believed that a woman’s proper place was in the home and insisted that their daughters obtain training in cooking and household arts in lieu of, or at least prior to, entering university.28 Several were convinced that it would be a complete waste of money to pay for a daughter’s university education, since she would most likely drop out and get married.29 Yet other parents feared that their daughters might become too learned and turn into an emanzipiertes Frauenzimmer (bluestocking) or a Mannweib (virago) and never marry or have children.30 In the early twentieth century, young women and their parents did not regard attendance at a university as enhancing a woman’s marriage prospects. PERSPECTIVES ON MARRIAGE Adolescent girls aspiring to higher education were not primarily interested in getting married, however, and they certainly had little intention of replicating the traditional marriages of their parents’ generation. In their memoirs, women tended to emphasize the unequal, and frequently unhappy, relationship between their parents due to differences in age, interests, temperaments, and educational background.31 Among nineteenth-century Central European Jews, marriages were generally not the results of love matches, but were often arranged on an economic basis and required sub-
26
| , ,
stantial dowries.32 Husbands were frequently ten or more years older than their wives.33 Young women contemplating university studies were not always certain about wanting to get married, but if they were to marry, they preferred to enter a more modern and egalitarian marriage based on love, not finances. They wanted to marry out of choice, not necessity, and were certainly not willing to waste their late adolescence and early adult years sitting around waiting for a marriage that might never occur. Even though they came from relatively affluent backgrounds, prospective female students desired personal independence and did not wish to remain totally dependent on their parents or future husbands for economic support. Some young women decided at a relatively young age that they would never marry and therefore would have to be able to support themselves. Toni Sender, a Social Democratic Reichstag deputy from 1920 to 1933, who entitled her memoirs The Autobiography of a German Rebel, informed her mother while she was still a teenager that she neither wanted nor needed a dowry. Born in 1888 to an Orthodox family in the Rhineland, Sender left home at age thirteen in order to work and become independent. After her family vetoed her desire to study economics, she became actively involved in the socialist movement and later participated in the revolutionary upheavals in post–World War I Frankfurt. By no means a typical woman student, she entered the University of Berlin as a special student in her mid-thirties, after she was already serving as a member of parliament, but did not complete her degree. Toni Sender indeed never married, although she had several long-term relationships with men.34 Young Jewish women who felt ambivalent about their marriage prospects or who desired a more companionate marriage thus kept their options open by going against the standard expectations for middle-class women and acquiring a higher education, often following the path of their fathers or their brothers. SISTERS, BROTHERS, AND BIRTH ORDER Generally, young women who decided to attend university selected their own field of study based on personal interests and goals, but in many cases, both siblings and parents influenced their choices. An analysis of family size and composition, as well as birth order, among the women in this study reveals some interesting trends, yet the patterns are not conclusive. Ten percent were from families with only one child; 37 percent came from families with two children; 30 percent from three-child families; and the remaining 23 percent were born into families with four or more children.35 Most of the daughters of large families belonged to the older generation born before the turn of the century, whereas nearly all of the only children
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 27
were born thereafter. Such evidence, however, tells us more about the rapidly declining family size among Central European Jewry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century than it does about educational opportunities for Jewish women based on family size. In 1871, Jewish families in Prussia had an average of 4.3 children; by 1910, however, the figure had dropped precipitously to 2.4 children per family. In the German Empire as a whole, the Jewish birthrate was roughly half that of the general population.37 The German scholar Claudia Huerkamp hypothesized that the overrepresentation of Jewish women students at German universities can be attributed at least partially to the smaller family size among Central European Jews, which resulted in Jewish parents having fewer sons to educate.38 However, even though the fertility rate among Jews in Germany began to decline sooner than that of the overall population, the disproportion of Jewish women students was greatest while Jewish families were still fairly large and decreased once small families became more the norm for middleclass Central European families in the twentieth century. Roughly two out of five women whom I have researched came from families that only had daughters,39 but the majority were born into families with boys as well as girls to educate. Within a two-child family, a girl appears to have been equally likely to attend university whether she had a sister or a brother. Among larger families, there seems to have been a higher frequency of university attendance when daughters outnumbered sons,40 yet single daughters and younger daughters with numerous brothers were also well represented among the women in this study.41 The fact that almost half of the women discussed in this book were either firstborn or only children would indicate that sibling order, especially for the oldest child, was a highly significant factor in determining which women were more likely to obtain a higher education.42 The remaining half of the women who were later born were almost evenly divided between middle and youngest children, with a youngest child having a slight advantage over a middle child.43 Earlier born daughters seem to have been more prone to attend university than later born, yet whether one was born the second of two or more than two children, or the third of three or more than three does not seem to have made a notable difference. Among the older generation born before 1900, one-sixth of the women were fourth or lower in birth rank. 36
SIBLING SUPPORT, SIBLING RIVALRY, AND CAREER CHOICES Just as considerable diversity concerning family size and sibling order existed among Central European Jewish women, so too did members of a
28
| , ,
single family exhibit a broad range of choices in education and professions. In many cases only one daughter chose to attend university, whereas her siblings did not; however, in numerous instances two or more daughters availed themselves of the opportunity to obtain a higher education, sometimes in the same field but more often in a different field. Although it was rare for women to attend university before World War I, among the first generation of female students it is striking to note how many Jewish families, like the Welts from Czernowitz, Bukovina, supported the advanced education of all of their daughters, as well as their sons. Among the Jewish women who began their medical education in Switzerland in the 1890s but completed their training in Germany after restrictions against women in medicine began to be lifted were the Ziegelroth sisters, Helene, born in 1868, and Nathalie, born in 1871. They were the daughters of a cantor from Warsaw whose family had moved to Germany around 1870. In deciding to become physicians, these two women followed their brothers’ footsteps, since two of their five brothers had already become medical doctors and one was trained as a dentist.44 The Klausner family of Berlin demonstrated a similar pattern with their four daughters and two sons. Irma, the oldest, born in 1874, earned her medical degree in Germany, thanks to her father’s political intervention that enabled her to take her state board examination in 1899. Her sister Gertrud, born in 1878, received her doctorate in Romance languages and became a high school teacher and later a German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei, DDP) deputy in the Prussian Landtag. The youngest sister, Edith, an economist born in 1883, eventually became a labor court judge. The remaining sister, Judith, attended an art academy and became a sculptor.45 In the case of Lise Meitner, the nuclear physicist who was born in Vienna in 1878, all four of her sisters, as well as her three brothers, received some form of higher education.46 Relationships between siblings varied considerably and changed over the years, sometimes having an influence on educational and personal choices. Both sibling rivalry and bonding could affect gender identity as well as career decisions. However, members of the same family sometimes went in such different directions during the course of their lives that it is impossible to attribute any specific path to family background alone. All three Zaloscer sisters were born in Bosnia to Galician Jewish parents but moved to Vienna after World War I, where they attended university. The oldest, Hilde Zaloscer, received her doctorate in art history and emigrated to Egypt in 1936. Although a self-declared Zionist, she became a nominal Muslim and a professor at the University of Alexandria, specializing in Coptic art. The middle sister, Erna Zaloscer Sailer, following in her father’s footsteps, became a lawyer and, many years later, served as the Austrian ambassador to India. Sailer was an ardent Social Democrat, who converted
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 29
to Catholicism when she married a Catholic socialist. The youngest sister, Ruth Zaloscer Gutmann, who was also a socialist, earned her doctorate in medicine and married another Jewish physician. After surviving the Holocaust, she and her family emigrated to Palestine/Israel.47 When one highly acculturated Jewish family can produce an Egyptian Muslim Zionist agnostic professor of art history, an Austrian Catholic socialist lawyer, and a leftist Israeli physician, generalizations on family and sibling influences on the development of personal identity or career choices become somewhat risky! Some sisters who shared a particularly close relationship while growing up went very separate ways as adults, while others managed to maintain warm bonds. Erna and Edith Stein, the two youngest siblings in a family of seven children from Breslau, shared a bedroom for eighteen years, had many friends in common, and began attending university together. After completing her doctorate in medicine, Erna Stein Biberstein married a fellow medical student and had two children, whom she raised as committed Jews, whereas Edith Stein, having earned her doctorate in philosophy, converted to Catholicism and became a Catholic educator and later a nun.48 In a few cases, sisters who never married continued to live together for most of their lives. Elise Richter, the professor of Romance philology at the University of Vienna, compared her relationship with her older sister, Helene, the self-taught English specialist with an honorary university degree, to a marriage that provided mutual support and companionship.49 Most university women, however, tended to have more distant, and often more ambivalent, relationships with their siblings, whether during their childhood or as adults. Some university women recalled having closer ties with brothers than with sisters.50 Others expressed resentment against brothers who were favored because they were boys and given educational opportunities and freedoms denied to girls, except after a difficult struggle.51 Many women were jealous of sisters whom they considered more beautiful, more talented, or their mothers’ favorites.52 It is striking to note that more than a few prospective university women saw themselves, and perhaps were perceived by others, as plain or unattractive. They seem to have considered themselves the “ugly duckling” in the family, who felt the need to emphasize their superior intelligence in order to compensate for supposed deficiencies in physical appearance.53 Some young women had to cope with serious illnesses, such as polio, curvature of the spine, rheumatism, and various other ailments.54 In certain cases, they sought to develop their intellect through academic training as a form of compensation for their physical disabilities.55 Younger siblings sometimes tried to overcome shyness and feelings of inferiority as adolescents by proving their competence academically.56 In certain cases at least, studying at a university provided a way to outshine
30
| , ,
one’s siblings or offset a physical handicap, a lack of beauty, or a paucity of social graces. SEXUALITY AND FEMININITY While growing up, future university women had to confront many issues of personal identity, both as females and as Jews. Their decision to attend university and their choice of field of specialization depended to some extent upon their attitudes concerning their sexuality and their assumptions as to whether or not they expected to get married. Especially among the older generation raised during the late Victorian era when girls and boys were educated completely separately, sexuality was not a topic that was openly discussed. Mothers rarely explained menstruation or the “facts of life” to their adolescent daughters. As Alice Salomon commented, “For all I knew about sex and marriage, I might as well have been brought up on an island inhabited by the female of the species only. . . . When we met with the physical effects of adolescence we considered them a nuisance. Sex was not discussed.” As a result, she added, children tended to mature later, physically, mentally, and spiritually.57 It was not uncommon for academically oriented adolescent girls to feel uncomfortable or ambivalent about their own sexuality or femininity. In their memoirs, university women tended to attribute their conflicting attitudes, on the one hand, to their relationships with their parents or siblings, and, on the other hand, to uncertainty about their physical attractiveness and hence their marriage possibilities. Katia Pringsheim Mann, born with a twin brother in Munich in 1884 as the only daughter and last born of five children, introduced herself and her family as follows: “My father was a professor of mathematics (Privatdozent) at the University of Munich, my mother was a beautiful woman, and I was a completely unexpected addition to the family.”58 She went on to claim that I now think I must have been quite pretty as a girl, but the sad part about it is that I wasn’t aware of it then at all. No one in my family ever had the kindness to inform me. Since my mother was a celebrated beauty and one of my grandmothers (my father’s mother) said to me whenever she saw me, “Ah, you’ll never be the equal of your mother!” I accepted that idea. A shame, really.59
Katia Pringsheim initially opted to cultivate her brain rather than her physical attractiveness, following in her father’s and her brothers’ footsteps by studying mathematics and science, for which, however, she felt she had no particular aptitude. She dropped out of university at the age of twenty in order to marry the author Thomas Mann.
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 31
It was not uncommon for Jewish university women to acknowledge feelings of discomfort with their femininity as adolescents. Some strongly preferred to escape into a world of books instead of participating in the social whirl of middle-class girls. Käthe Pick Leichter, born in Vienna in 1895, admitted being shocked at the onset of puberty and feeling ashamed of her own body. She excelled at school and was happy there, but felt awkward and miserable in mandatory social situations like dancing classes and ski trips. Leichter bemoaned the fact that before World War I, there were few opportunities for girls to get to know boys of the same age, since coeducational schools did not exist and mixed youth activities were rare. As a result, girls only had the chance to meet boys who were the brothers of their girlfriends or who attended dancing lessons. As a teenager, jealous of her beautiful and popular sister who was less than a year older, Käthe Pick rejected feminine clothing, makeup, flirting, and socializing with boys. Instead, she tried deliberately to turn herself into a sexually unattractive Mannweib or virago-type. She joined a youth movement with an intellectual bent, decided to study political economy, and eventually became a Social Democratic activist, thus choosing to develop her social consciousness rather than her social life.60 Margaret Schoenberger Mahler was another woman who modeled herself after her intellectual father rather than her beautiful mother, by whom she felt rejected. A physician and child analyst, born in Sopron, Hungary in 1897, Mahler consciously chose to develop her mind rather than her body. As she elaborated in her memoir, It was to my father’s world, the world of the intellect, of science, of medicine, that I turned in early childhood. In contrast to my mother, who would not even let me enter her inner sanctum, the kitchen, my father treated me as if I were his son. I recall how he boasted to his friends: “I have a daughter with whom I can discuss mathematics and politics. . . .” In fact, it was my father’s eager adoption of me as his “son,” and my willing acceptance of this role, that confounded my childhood gender identity. It never occurred to me, and my mother never gave me reason to believe, that I could be accepted as a pretty young girl. My father was of no help in this respect, his buttressing of my intellectual self-esteem being very much at the expense of my feminine self-esteem.61
The young Margaret Schoenberger clearly had a great deal of difficulty embracing a positive feminine identity. While her younger sister, who resembled their mother, was already beginning to attract “swarms of young men” when she was thirteen, Margaret at seventeen was “busily reading everything available on Einsteinian relativity.” Not surprisingly, Margaret’s conversations tended to intimidate her dancing partners. She analyzed her situation as follows:
32
| , ,
Existing well outside the narcissistic orbit of my mother and sister . . . I tended to deny my own femininity entirely. I refused to believe that any man worth having could love me; if one per chance expressed any feeling for me, he was instantly devalued. Never having learned how to compete with other women as a woman, I learned instead how to avoid defeat as a woman in a world of men. In short, I developed a strong drive for independence at an early age—an orientation with which my father was in full sympathy.62
Margaret Schoenberger’s father did not object to his daughter becoming a physician like himself, but he was decidedly unenthusiastic about the idea of her marrying, insisting that “You are man enough for yourself.”63 Several university women expressed deep resentment that they had been born girls. At least one teenager, Hilda Weiss, attempted to avoid gender discrimination by joining the Wandervogel, the German scouting movement, in order to go on weekend hiking expeditions with boys. She wore her hair in a very boyish style and tried to hide her breasts under boys’ clothing. As she asserted, “I was so glad to be almost a boy.”64 Other young women regretted not being boys because they wanted to help defend their homeland during World War I.65 Whether to gain their father’s approval, to have easier access to higher education and professional careers, to find greater personal freedom, or to have the ability to serve their country in wartime, some women longed for the advantages of being male. JEWISH UPBRINGING Just as gender identity was influenced by the family situation in which one grew up, so too was one’s Jewish identity closely related to the household in which one was raised. Among the women of Jewish origin who attended universities in Central Europe before the Nazi era, a broad spectrum of Jewish backgrounds was evident. Consistent or significant differences in types of Jewish identification cannot be documented based on country of birth, whether Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. To be sure, there were some regional disparities within both Germany and Austria. University women from Galicia or the separate Orthodox communities (Austrittsgemeinde) of Karlsruhe or Frankfurt, which had split off from the mainstream liberal-dominated Kultusgemeinde, tended to have stronger, more positive Jewish identities than those raised in more highly assimilated communities, such as Vienna or Berlin. Nonetheless, no hard-and-fast rules apply and exceptions abound. Family background was an important influence in shaping the Jewish identity of most of the Jewish university women in this study, but a wide range of personal identification could emerge within a single family, as we have already seen with the Stein and Zaloscer sisters. Some individuals re-
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 33
belled against their upbringing and went from being “Jewish Jews” who affirmed their Jewishness to “Former Jews” who rejected it or, more rarely, from being “Former Jews” to “Jewish Jews.” Most, however, did not stray very far from their upbringing and remained at least nominally Jewish. In Chapter 6, the evolving Jewish identity of university women as adults will be explored in greater depth. To gain an understanding of the nature of their Jewish awareness and identity, we shall examine both the home atmosphere in which these women were raised and the Jewish education they received as children. By and large, Jewish university women, like German and Austrian Jews in general, defined being Jewish in terms of religion rather than ethnicity or nationality. Yet the majority did not adhere to traditional Jewish beliefs or religious practices, even during their childhood. The middle-class households in which Jewish university women were raised reflected the range of observances among Central European Jews as a whole, although Jews from Orthodox backgrounds were somewhat underrepresented and the more highly assimilated were considerably overrepresented among the women in this study, especially among the older generation. Most future women students hailed from Jewish families somewhere in the middle of the range between traditional Orthodoxy on the one extreme and baptism on the other. Orthodox families generally discouraged their daughters from pursuing higher education. They expected them to marry at a relatively young age and then to devote their lives to caring for their husbands and children. Nevertheless, some modern Orthodox families belonging to the Karlsruhe or Frankfurt Austrittsgemeinde (secessionist communities) or various Galician communities allowed their daughters to attend university.66 Rahel Hirsch, the unmarried granddaughter of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, the founder of German neo-Orthodoxy, belonged to the pioneering generation of university women. Born in Frankfurt am Main in 1870 as one of eleven children, with eight sisters and two brothers, she began her medical studies at twenty-eight, well beyond the age when an Orthodox woman would normally have married.67 Fanny Knesbach Stang, who was born in 1914 in Galicia but was raised and educated in Vienna, belonged to the younger generation but grew up in a family of traditional, observant Jews. Although her father permitted her to attend a girls’ Gymnasium and was not opposed to the idea of his daughter becoming a teacher, he strenuously objected to her studying medicine and only relented after she staged a hunger strike.68 Whereas in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, Orthodox Jews constituted roughly 15 percent of the German-Jewish population and the overwhelming majority among Galician and Russian Jewry, women raised in Orthodox families make up less than 10 percent of the university women whom I have researched.
34
| , ,
The more committed Jewish women, referred to here as “Jewish Jews,” in most cases grew up in traditional or Orthodox homes in which the kashrut regulations (or Jewish dietary laws) were likely to be followed and Sabbath and Jewish holidays were observed with festive meals.69 By contrast, many nominal Jews, whom I have labeled “Just Jews,” as well as most “Former Jews,” who were baptized or who formally left the Jewish community, came from homes in which Christmas was more likely to have been celebrated than either Passover or the High Holy Days. Descriptions of Christmas trees, gift exchanges, and family celebrations are by no means unusual in the memoirs of Central European Jewish university women, and some families observed both Jewish and Christian holidays to varying degrees.70 Both “Just Jews” and “Former Jews” tended to associate Sabbath and holiday observances with their grandparents rather than their parents, if they experienced them at all in their childhood.71 As Marie Jahoda, a social psychologist born in Vienna in 1907, recalled: Both my parents were not religious. Both grandparents were very interested in Judaism religiously and culturally. . . . And through the contact of my parents with their parents there developed a respect for Judaism without this influencing [our] daily life in any way. . . . We preferred to go to our grandparents for the major Jewish festivals. The Jewish tradition was a family tradition—but not something alive for us.72
In similar fashion, a philologist born the same year in Mannheim, Germany, reported the following: As a child I felt the influence of the very religious parents of my father, where we spent every Seder-evening with the big family, where we loved the cosy Friday evenings and the High Holydays. But father, mainly because of his scientific training, tried consciously (though often in vain) to break away from traditional rituals and in our parents’ house we did not observe any religious practices.73
JEWISH EDUCATION The vast majority of Jewish girls in Germany and Austria attended predominantly Christian public or private schools. The Jewish education these women received by and large did not exceed that of their mothers. Although the daughters, unlike their mothers, passed the Abitur or Matura matriculation exams, attended university, completed certification programs, and, in a majority of cases, earned doctorates, their formal Jewish
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 35
education for the most part remained rudimentary. Thus the depth of their secular knowledge far exceeded their Jewish knowledge. Most “Just Jews” attended Jewish religious education classes throughout elementary and secondary school, but frequently disliked them and resented being segregated from their classmates.74 Dodo Badt Liebman, born in Berlin in 1906, provided the following fairly typical description of compulsory Jewish education: Of course, we had religious instruction at school. We had Jewish religious instruction while the others had Christian religious instruction. In my school almost half the girls were Jewish, so we parted into two roughly equal groups for religious instruction. . . . The religious instruction was not very inspiring and I just took it as another lesson, and one for which we did not have to do much work. At home we did not get any religious instruction. . . . In spite of this we were brought up very much with the knowledge of being Jewish and that we were, so to speak, set aside socially.75
Mandatory religious education in public schools generally supplied little more than a smattering of Hebrew language instruction, Bible stories, and some Jewish history. It reinforced the notion of Jewish separateness and did not always leave a positive imprint on a young girl’s Jewish identity. Since most parents preferred to send their children to public or privately owned educational institutions, Jewish communal schools began to disappear in Central Europe by the late nineteenth century. Only a small number of Jewish university women had attended Jewish elementary or secondary schools, such as the Philanthropin or the Samson Raphael Hirsch Realschule in Frankfurt.76 However, “Jewish Jews” sometimes received supplementary Jewish education from tutors, as well as local rabbis and cantors, and tended to be somewhat more enthusiastic than “Just Jews” about acquiring knowledge about Judaism.77 One woman, who was born in Augsburg in 1906 and later emigrated to Palestine where she became a teacher, reported the following: On Saturday we went to school, but after school there was a special youth service for us (which we did not like). . . . During my thirteen school years we had two weekly lessons of religion, first by the local cantor and later by our rabbi. We were taught Bible stories and to read and understand the main prayers in Hebrew. We even had to write an essay on the prophets in our written Matric[ulation exam].78
When she went to university, this young woman chose to study in Berlin, as well as Munich, because there was the possibility of continuing her Jewish studies.
36
| , ,
By contrast, some “Former Jews” received virtually no Jewish education whatsoever and were barely even aware that their families were Jewish. Even if they were not baptized, they might well have been enrolled in Lutheran religious education classes. For example, the physicist Lise Meitner, who was born into a nominally Jewish family and not baptized until the age of thirty, received no formal Jewish education as a child, but instead attended Protestant religion classes while growing up in Catholic Vienna.79 RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL ORIENTATION Approximately 15 to 20 percent of the Jewish university women in this study can be categorized as “Former Jews.” They had two Jewish parents but were among the very highly acculturated Central European Jews whose identification with the Jewish community was minimal or nonexistent. In most cases, but by no means all, their lack of a positive Jewish identity stemmed from childhood experiences. In their memoirs, “Former Jews” rarely, if ever, mention attending synagogue while they were growing up; instead, several recall going to church with their Catholic governesses. Some were attracted to Christianity as young girls and became jealous of their Christian friends.80 While some “Former Jews” had already been baptized as children, in other cases, they opted for Christianity as adults, whether for marriage, career, or other personal reasons, which we shall explore further in Chapter 6.81 Other university women rejected religion altogether, often as teenagers; many, especially among the younger cohort, became secular humanists and turned to socialism or communism as an alternative to Judaism.82 Like most urban, middle-class Central European Jews, university women generally grew up in homes that one could describe as liberal, both religiously and politically. By and large, their parents were nominally affiliated with the mainstream Gemeinde (or organized Jewish community) and were likely to vote for liberal or progressive political parties, such as the German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei, DDP). For some women, such as the Reichstag deputy Toni Sender, involvement with a left-wing political movement meant rebelling against their personal upbringing and parental values as Jews and as German liberals. In other cases, however, they were merely continuing their family’s left-wing political trajectory. Edith Foster, a psychologist born in Vienna, belonged to a socialist youth group, the Association of Socialist Middle-Schoolers (Verband Sozialistischer Mittelschüler). She described her family background as follows: My parents were freethinkers, socialists, pacifists and internationalists. Rationality, science and human cooperation would improve the world in the near future. They were nominally Jews. I can only remember two visits to
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 37
temple, however: the first time in the twenties for Aunt Frieda’s wedding and my own wedding in 1937. At this point the Catholic Austro-Fascist regime had declared civil marriage illegal. . . . We were assimilated Jews. We celebrated Christmas, Sylvester [New Year’s Eve], May 1 and November 12, Republic Day.83
As Helga Embacher commented in an article entitled “Outsider Women: Bourgeois, Jewish, Intellectual—Left-wing,” for Edith Foster and many other leftists, Jewish religion had long since given way to belief in scientific progress: Being Jewish had become meaningless for [such a] family and they only acknowledged Judaism because they did not want to recognize the ridiculousness of baptism as an entry ticket into society. Like the majority of Jews living in Vienna they felt themselves politically tied to Social Democracy, whose “Festkultur” [celebratory culture] also helped replace the Jewish tradition.84
JEWISHNESS OUTSIDE THE HOME Most university women had little personal involvement with synagogues or communally sponsored Jewish activities as children or as adults. The grandparents and parents of “Just Jews” might have gone to synagogue occasionally, especially for the High Holy Days, but the daughters were not likely to attend regularly, especially after they left home. Ruth Feitelberg Hope, an economist born in Berlin in 1905, recalled the observances of her childhood, practices that she later abandoned: I was raised in the Jewish faith. Neither of my parents were orthodox, but this positive attitude toward Judaism, combined with a certain tribal nostalgia, made them observe the high and sometimes the minor holidays. I do not remember that either of them went to the synagogue except on Roshhashanah [sic] (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). The holidays were an occasion of the highest order. My father stayed home from the office, I stayed home from school. New or best clothes were donned, my father put on his silk top hat and took his prayer shawl along. Most of the service was performed in Hebrew but a few prayers and the sermon were rendered in German. . . . My parents never observed the fasting that is prescribed for Yom Kippur, while I fasted religiously during my teens, when I had a religious streak.85
A few university women articulated negative attitudes about synagogue attendance as adolescents and felt alienated because of their lack of Hebrew knowledge or because women were excluded from participation.86 Charlotte Wolff described her impressions as follows:
38
| , ,
We kept the big Jewish festivals of Rosch-a-Shona [sic] and Yom Kippur. Visits to the Synagogue were compulsory on those days. Both the atmosphere and the happenings in the Synagogue almost suffocated me. The religious service was held on the ground floor, which was reserved for males. Women did not participate in it, and had to sit in a gallery above. . . . The women, second-class citizens of God, chatted about children, house and clothes, and paraded their fineries to one another. They didn’t understand Hebrew anyway; nor did most of the men I believe, apart from the Rabbi and Cantor. I accepted neither the discrimination between the sexes nor the hollow holiness of the religious service. After my . . . experience at sixteen, I refused visits to the Synagogue.87
Some “Jewish Jews” from traditional homes attended synagogue on a regular basis during their childhood, but very few continued to do so as they grew older. For some young women, at least, synagogue attendance was more of a social occasion than a religious experience. In their autobiographical accounts, Orthodox women seem to mention socializing with young men in the synagogue courtyard more frequently than they mention praying in the sanctuary.88 Few women refer to synagogue confirmation or other public ceremonies in their memoirs or questionnaire responses.89 Later in life perhaps they married in a synagogue, but even that fact is noted only rarely. German and Jewish youth movements, like synagogues, tended to be predominantly male bastions, although several developed offshoots for girls. Young girls planning to study at university, especially those born in the nineteenth century, rarely belonged to youth groups or girls’ clubs. Some joined the Wandervogel, a popular German hiking organization, but often found themselves rejected because of antisemitism.90 By contrast, those who affiliated with the coeducational socialist youth movement generally retained their social democratic or communist affiliation while at university. Although membership in socialist groups was certainly more common than participation in Jewish youth movements, for the most part, future university women tended to be loners and not joiners. Some members of the younger generation, born after 1900, became active in the Zionist Blau-Weiss and Ha-Shomer Ha-Ttza’ir or the Liberal Jewish youth movement, Kameraden. Such groups provided coed social outlets, as well as sports, hiking, and nature lore along with informal Jewish education. The organizations often had a very strong impact on the lives and group identity of their members, sometimes transforming them into ardent Zionists against their parents’ wishes.91 Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, a Jewish educator and journalist born in Frankfurt in 1908 and raised in an Orthodox family, recounted: “Blau-Weiss filled all my waking hours— school and home were necessary evils—Blau-Weiss was meaning and pur-
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 39
pose.” These young girls belonged to a Jewish community of youth, but such cases were very exceptional rather than the general rule among prospective Jewish university women. Although affiliation with Jewish youth groups was rare, most of the women in this study tended to form friendships and social circles largely with other Jews, not necessarily by conscious choice or preference. In their childhood and youth, Jewish university women sometimes had close friendships with both Jews and non-Jews, but as they grew older, they often found themselves gravitating toward other Jews. Girls began to experience the social barriers between Jews and non-Jews at a fairly young age. Several women comment in their memoirs that they were not welcome in the homes of their non-Jewish school friends and, by the age of thirteen, no longer received birthday invitations from certain classmates.93 Nearly all Jewish university women became aware of antisemitism in their youth, even if being Jewish was not otherwise an important factor in their early lives. Hannah Arendt, who was born in Hanover in 1906 and grew up in Königsberg, analyzed her childhood awareness of her Jewishness and of antisemitism as follows: 92
[T]he word “Jew” was never mentioned at home. I first encountered it . . . in the anti-Semitic remarks of children as we played in the streets—then, I became, so to speak, enlightened. . . . As a child . . . I knew, for example, that I looked Jewish. . . . That is, that I looked a bit different from the rest. . . . My mother was not very theoretical . . . the “Jewish Question” had no relevance for her. Of course she was a Jewess! She would never have had me christened, baptized. And she would have given me a real spanking if she had ever had reason to believe that I had denied being Jewish. The matter was never a topic of discussion. It was out of the question that it be. . . . You see, all Jewish children encountered anti-Semitism. And the souls of many children were poisoned by it.94
Antisemitism helped to shape the Jewish identity of many Jewish university women and sometimes influenced their educational and career choices, either directly or indirectly. “Jewish Jews” or “Just Jews” were less likely than “Former Jews” to aspire to careers in education or academia, for example, due to their higher awareness of anti-Jewish discriminatory policies. “Former Jews,” especially those who had been baptized as children or whose parents had left the Jewish community, often present themselves as having been almost oblivious to their Jewish origins before the Nazi era.95 Marie Jahoda, the social psychologist born in 1907, noted with some exaggeration: “My Jewish identity only became a real identification for me with Hitler. Not earlier. It played hardly any role in my thinking and feeling.”96 By contrast, “Just Jews” tended to be considerably more aware that their
40
| , ,
Jewishness set them apart at school and in social situations. Several commented that they did not “look Jewish” and offered this reason to explain why they did not personally experience antisemitism in their youth.97 But at least one young woman felt the need to undergo cosmetic surgery in order to make herself “more attractive” and “less Jewish” in appearance. Edith Weisskopf, a psychologist born in Vienna in 1910 who emigrated in 1938, characterized herself somewhat inaccurately as one of the first women in the world to have her nose “fixed” by plastic surgery in 1932 simply due to her desire to look pretty, and she believed that she perhaps owed her survival during the prewar Nazi era to the fact that she no longer “looked Jewish.”98 From childhood on, Central European Jewish university women usually considered themselves Germans by language and culture and Jews by religion or descent only. For most of these women, an attachment to German culture was so strong that becoming a Jewish nationalist was almost inconceivable.99 As Erna Aronsohn Proskauer, a lawyer born in Bromberg (Posen) in 1903, expressed it, “We were so German that the idea never came to us, even in a dream, to leave Germany.” Her father was an antiZionist who found the idea of a Jewish state absurd. Although she was later to emigrate to Palestine temporarily, as a young girl, Erna Aronsohn was totally uninterested in Zionism and Zionists were completely absent from her circle of friends.100 Like Erna Proskauer, Beate Berwin asserted that while she was growing up, she was “imbued with German culture to such a degree that there was no question about [her] being and feeling German.” Born in Silesia in 1885, she claimed to “look like a German girl,” even though she encountered antisemitism firsthand. Berwin attributed her decision to stay within the Jewish fold to a lesson in Trotzjudentum, or remaining Jewish to spite the antisemites, which she had learned from her father: My father [a small-town judge in Silesia] would not hear of a change of his religion though he was quite liberal and did not cling to the dogma of his forefathers. When any of his superiors proposed to him to become converted in order to be promoted immediately after, he always rejected it saying that one must not change one’s creed like a dress. I remember this phrase well.101
Thus, she considered herself an ardent German patriot, but also a faithful Jew, since she remained within the Jewish community and retained a sense of Jewish pride.102 By contrast, Rahel Goitein Straus was among the minority who identified themselves as Zionists at an early age and lived their lives as strongly committed “Jewish Jews.” The daughter of a modern Orthodox rabbi, she
Dutiful Daughters, Rebels, and Dreamers
| 41
was raised by her widowed mother in a very observant household. She received an excellent supplementary Jewish education and became an ardent Zionist while a teenager.103 Straus’s positive Jewish identity was firmly established before she began university and did not change very radically over the years. Jewish women students were very much the products of their family backgrounds. When they entered university, they brought with them their often ambivalent attitudes toward their Jewishness and their femininity. They openly rebelled against their families’ bourgeois values by flouting societal expectations that they stay at home until they found a suitable husband. In many cases, however, they remained dutiful daughters who continued to seek parental approval and depended heavily upon their families for moral as well as financial support. When they reached the gates of the university that had so recently opened up for them, they brought with them their hopes and their dreams for a future of personal self-fulfillment, if not self-sufficiency. As one young woman, born in Vienna in 1891, expressed her goal: “I wanted to be a person, not [just] a höhere Tochter [‘refined’ daughter or school girl].”104
THREE
University Years: Jewish Women and German Academia
W
hen a young woman began studying at a university, she entered a man’s world for the first time. Fanny Knesbach Stang described her state of mind upon enrolling at the University of Vienna in 1932 at the age of eighteen: I started my medical studies full of triumph, apprehension, and eager expectation. I had left the confining walls of a girls’ school and was, for the first time, entering a mixed though male-dominated society. I was curious and wary and determined to refute any notion that women were incapable of competing with men in the scientific field. I had resolved to succeed or die. Literally!1
In the early twentieth century, Central European universities were decidedly masculine institutions, designed to train men for traditionally male professions: medicine, law, civil service, academia, and high school teaching, as well as the clergy. All professors were male, as were the vast majority of students. Fraternity life, with its emphasis on drinking and dueling, dominated the social scene at most universities.2 On the eve of World War I, women students comprised only 5 percent of the student body at German universities and about 7 percent at the University of Vienna. Women were regarded as the exception; faculty members and their fellow students often resented them. During the war, as women filled many of the spaces left by men drafted into military service, both their number and their percentage within the student body doubled.3 By the eve of the Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933, their numbers had redoubled; women constituted roughly one-fifth of the students at the twenty-five universities in Germany and more than a quarter at the University of Vienna.4 Though women were no longer a novelty on campus, many university men only grudgingly accepted their female colleagues and
University Years
| 43
viewed them in much the same way as they viewed Jews, as potential competitors in a crowded professional job market. CONFRONTING STEREOTYPES, DRESS CODES, AND HOSTILITY At the turn of the century, middle-class young women were expected to dress and to behave in a very prescribed, ladylike fashion: The women of that time wore proper, narrow and highly restrictive clothing that they could scarcely put on without the help of others. They piled up their hair artistically with many combs and pins and perched big hats on top. This tightly laced clothing is an expression of the social rules which hemmed in and limited women in their intellectual development.5
Women students were caricatured in cartoons and in the popular literature of the day as not conforming to conventional dress codes. An article entitled “The Berlin Woman Student,” published in 1902, lampooned women auditors who had not yet been accepted as matriculated students at the University of Berlin, categorizing them into five distinct types based on their appearance. First was the “modern woman,” attractively slim, with her hair parted in the middle and stylishly covering her ears. She was depicted as hoping to snare a husband by attending lectures given by untenured faculty and younger instructors. The “literary type” was second. Dressed simply and not particularly trying to attract a man, she was seen as a woman whose novels and vignettes had been rejected by publishers. She was eager to learn and sat in the front row, painstakingly writing down every word and soaking up knowledge “like a dry sponge.” Nevertheless, when her articles continued to be turned down, she lost her enthusiasm for studying and dropped out after three semesters. Third was the “fellowstudent as dilettante,” the elegantly dressed young woman who frequented the academy as if it were the theater or a concert because attendance was in good taste and she had nothing better to do. She went to lectures in philosophy taught exclusively by famous professors, but soon ascertained that such studies caused headaches, nausea, and boredom; hence, she visited the university only if she happened to be in the neighborhood and then disappeared entirely. Fourth was “the pedagogue,” who needed to study in order to earn a living and pass the certification exam to become a secondary school instructor. Her appearance was portrayed as prematurely aged, pale, haggard, and wrinkled; her clothes were not well cared for. Finally came the “feminist,” singled out as frumpishly dressed in grey or black. Her stern, aging face was framed by short hair, parted on the left side in military style, and she wore masculine eyeglasses. Extremely industrious and intent on
44
| , ,
achieving her doctorate, this archetypical university woman looked down on other kinds of women students and wanted to compete with the men on equal footing.6 The Jewish women who attended university in Germany and Austria in the early twentieth century did not for the most part conform to these highly unflattering stereotypes, whether as “fashion-plate students,” literati, old-maid schoolmarms, or “bluestockings.” Despite the fact that many of the Eastern European Jewish auditors and students in Berlin or Vienna before World War I could not afford fashionable attire, they generally dressed with care and tried to avoid appearing as conspicuous as their much maligned, more radical predecessors at Swiss universities.7 Some women students, like Käte Frankenthal, indeed sported short hair, wore man-tailored clothing, took up fencing, and smoked cigars, but such examples are relatively rare among the women in this study.8 More commonly, members of the pioneering generation of Central European Jewish university women made a deliberate effort to appear modest, yet feminine, in their dress and ladylike in their behavior.9 Physicist Lise Meitner, for example, is invariably described as conforming to the image of ideal womanhood in the Austrian Monarchy: she was well groomed, modest, shy, and uncertain in public. Her contemporaries, including her research partner Otto Hahn, saw her as a ganz höhere Tochter (or perfectly “refined” daughter) and an “essentially feminine person.”10 The younger cohort of women students attending university during the interwar years dressed fashionably and appeared little different from their less educated middle-class female contemporaries. Their clothing was determined more by their economic situation than any desire to make an ideological statement or snare an eligible bachelor.11 Although they attended university with men, women students generally did not wish to look or act like men or to draw particular attention to their gender. Fearful of both antisemitism and misogyny, they, like other Jews, affected moderate behavior and did not want to stand out in a crowd. Pioneering women students, especially those in medical school, often had to contend with ridicule from professors in lectures and oral examinations as well as with heckling from male students. Irma Klausner(-Cronheim), a carefully groomed woman who entered the University of Halle with special authorization in 1896 at the age of twenty-six, encountered almost endless bureaucratic obstacles and complex negotiations each time she needed to take a qualifying medical examination: Every semester I had to get permission again from each individual [instructor, and] was often the only female student or with my friend Else von der Leyen, occasionally also together with a fellow Abitur recipient Ethel Blume. We were treated with great distrust by professors and students. The profes-
University Years
| 45
sors were visibly unnerved because in appearance and behavior we were no different from other young women, [but] everyone had in mind certain comic characters as one thought of the bluestocking who never really existed. Comradely cooperation with [male] students, which today [i.e., in 1926] is taken for granted by everyone, was completely out of the question; one was happy if it went tolerably peacefully. What it meant for a shy girl to be always alone in an initially quite hostile environment can scarcely be imagined any longer today.12
SETTING OUT ON THEIR OWN Women entered university with a deep longing to achieve self-fulfillment as human beings, as well as to make a contribution to the world of scholarship.13 Some dreamed of careers in higher education and academic research, although they were certainly aware that they were likely to face formidable obstacles both as women and as Jews. Selma Stern, who grew up in a fairly traditional Jewish family in Baden, was convinced that she had been born to become a scholar and was willing to place high demands upon herself. As she confided in her diary in 1914, “The woman of today should have another idea than imitating men. She must be convinced that she herself is a force that can accomplish great things in her field. I dream of a link between science and literature, belle lettres and philosophy, scholarship and life. I believe that I have found the path on which I can go forward seriously and slowly.” But she was also afraid that her spirit might be broken by the daily necessities of life, by the need to earn money doing boring work, and by having to plead just to be able to give private lessons, let alone gain a teaching or research position. Like other young women, she had high hopes resting on her university education and aspired to an academic career, but feared disillusionment.14 A whole new world of experience and learning possibilities opened up for women once they were allowed to study at universities. Some wanted to sample a variety of disciplines before settling upon a field of concentration or a particular profession. Charlotte Malachowski (Bühler), born in Berlin in 1893, began studying at the University of Freiburg on the eve of World War I, where she attended lectures in philosophy, psychology, and medicine. She then transferred to her hometown university, received teaching certification in Kiel, and eventually graduated with a doctorate in psychology summa cum laude from the University of Munich in 1918. She explained her strategy as follows: “I established that I wanted to major in psychology in order to clarify for myself, if not God and the cosmos, then at least human life. I intended to lay the further foundation for this understanding through philosophical, theological and pedagogical studies and considered for a while, and even began, studying
46
| , ,
medicine in order to encompass the physical-psychological and especially psychiatry.”15 Despite discrimination, social restrictions and, in some cases, economic hardships, attending university offered Central European Jewish women greater personal independence and the possibility of a freer lifestyle than was generally available to middle-class women of their day. At the same time, such education broadened their intellectual and career horizons. In an age when young girls were normally expected to remain in their parental homes until marriage, embarking on a university education often meant leaving home and living on one’s own for the first time. Most of the women in this study lived away from home at some point during their student years and many studied at more than one university, since transferring among universities was commonplace among both men and women, especially in Germany. About a third of the women researched lived with their parents during at least part of their time as students, but less than one in four commuted from home to their lectures throughout their university days. Commuting, either on a temporary or permanent basis, was a popular option for those young women whose families resided in major university cities, especially Vienna or Berlin, but also in Breslau, Frankfurt, Munich, Königsberg, and Prague.16 Especially before World War I, many parents were unwilling to allow their unmarried daughters, particularly those still under twenty, to live away from home.17 During the interwar years, many were forced to commute because the inflationary spiral of the early twenties and the Depression of the thirties adversely affected family finances. Nevertheless, most university women took the opportunity, whenever possible, to spend at least a few semesters at a different university, further away from home and occasionally even in another country, in order to benefit from the university experience more fully, not only intellectually but also socially. Like Jewish men and like women students in general, Jewish women tended to gravitate to the larger urban universities, rather than smaller and somewhat isolated provincial institutions.18 Thus, the largest numbers of Jewish women flocked to the universities of Vienna and Berlin, while significant numbers were also attracted to the universities of Munich, Breslau, Bonn, Leipzig, Königsberg, and during the interwar years, the recently established universities of Frankfurt, Cologne, and Hamburg. Among the most popular places for Jewish women to spend one or more semesters during their university years were Heidelberg and Freiburg, two universities in mid-sized towns in Baden known for their beauty and their student life. While some Jewish women chose to attend small-town universities like Erlangen, Halle, Göttingen, or Jena, fewer selected such institutions as Tübingen, Marburg, Rostock, Giessen, Greifswald, or Münster.19 Smaller
University Years
| 47
universities in these more isolated settings, distant from major Jewish population centers, were often more conservative and more Christian in atmosphere and hence were viewed as less hospitable to women and Jews.20 Moving around among various universities proved to be more the rule than the exception among German university students. Both male and female students enjoyed a considerable amount of freedom of choice as to where and what they studied. Young women might choose a university for personal as much as for academic reasons, sometimes to be near or far from home or to be with a friend. Others chose to study with a well-known professor in their field. Charlotte Wolff, who began university in 1920 at the age of twenty-three, spent her first year in Freiburg, her second in Königsberg, her third in Tübingen, and eventually received her doctorate in medicine from the University of Berlin in 1926. She described the situation as follows: [W]e were free to organize our studies as we wished. We were responsible for ourselves, and had to show our worth only at the examinations. We had no tutors to turn to and supervise our work. The students profited from this freedom in learning to stand on their own feet, and gained in self-confidence and self-assurance. . . . German students were not only allowed to do as they pleased, but they could also matriculate in two disciplines at the same time if they wished. I took advantage of this opportunity. I had wanted to study philosophy, but had decided on medicine as my profession. At Freiburg I subscribed to lectures in both faculties.21
Similarly, Ruth Feitelberg Hope, who received her doctorate in political economy in 1929 at the age of twenty-four after studying in Freiburg, Berlin, and then Munich, explained her experience as follows: One could . . . change universities as often as he liked. It was customary, though, that the student stayed at the same university for his final exam and thesis. . . . [I]t was decided that for my first semester I should go to a pleasant smaller city, Freiburg in Baden, beautifully located near the Black Forest and famous for its Gothic cathedral. Together with a girl friend, I boarded with the widow Rosenberg. . . . She had several other boarders, old and young. Once in a while, we found our way to the University—most of the time we went for walks, on picnics, swam, or relaxed. Finals and mid-terms were unknown at German universities, and it was entirely up to the student what use he made of his time. If he wanted a degree, he had to work for it—but when and how much was of his own choosing. The required courses were few. . . . In practice, however, the ambitious student did well to attend the required lectures and seminars, at least for the last two years before exams.22
48
| , ,
In their memoirs, Charlotte Wolff, Ruth Feitelberg Hope, and Charlotte Malachowski Bühler all expressed their delight in being away from home and on their own. Living in rented rooms or boarding houses, they developed deep friendships with fellow students, both male and female, enjoyed hiking and mountain climbing in the countryside, and took advantage of the diverse cultural activities in Berlin or Munich. Their intense joy in their freedom, as well as their studies, permeated their recollections of their university days.23 Attending university was not merely a practical career decision for a young woman who might feel that she had limited marital prospects, but an opportunity to develop one’s potential as a human being. INVOLVEMENT IN STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS Jewish women students at Central European universities were generally very much on their own as individuals and did not participate actively in student organizational life, which tended to be male, German-nationalist, or Christian in composition and orientation. Since dormitories for women students, especially of a nondenominational variety, were uncommon at German universities, women students away from home had to find private lodging, although they sometimes ate meals in student mensas (or dining halls).24 They developed close friendships with other students—men and women, Jews and non-Jews—and did not necessarily lack social invitations and contacts. Pioneers like Rahel Goitein (Straus), one of the first women students in Heidelberg at the turn of the century, found themselves excluded from organized student life, since many of their male friends belonged to fraternities. Because Jewish men had been denied access to German nationalist student associations or Burschenschaften after 1880, they formed their own Jewish fraternities and dueling societies, whether Liberal or Jewish nationalist.25 So as not to feel like an outcast, Rahel Goitein was instrumental in establishing an association open to all women auditors and students in Heidelberg, which she chaired for several years even though she was its youngest member. When this women’s student association later decided to exclude foreigners and Jews from its ranks, Goitein, together with other, non-Jewish founding members, resigned and reconstituted themselves as the “Alt-Heidelbergerinnen” alumnae group.26 In becoming actively involved with women’s student organizations on campus, however, Rahel Goitein differed from most of the Jewish women students who came after her. At most Central European universities, women student associations remained largely Christian denominational. Women frequently felt unwelcome in male-dominated Zionist student societies and generally did not play a leading role in such groups. One
University Years
| 49
woman recalled how she was temporarily blackballed from membership in a student Zionist society in Vienna on the eve of World War I by the man who later became her husband.27 The vast majority of Jewish university women thus remained unaffiliated, although some joined coed socialist or Zionist student associations, especially during the interwar years, or else participated in the Freie Wissenschaftliche Vereinigung, or Independent Scholarly Association, which was nondenominational but often largely Jewish in membership.28 Attempts to form Jewish women’s student organizations, even at universities with large female Jewish populations like Berlin or Vienna, were not very successful and rarely lasted for very long. An exception was a small Orthodox women’s group, known as Beruria, which affiliated with the male Orthodox student association at several universities.29 By and large, Jewish university women tended to be loners and not joiners. They enjoyed social activities and friendship circles with other students, but seldom became active in either women’s or Jewish student organizations. The pioneering generation of women students often began their university studies at a relatively late age. Roughly 15 percent of the women in this study born before 1900 did not embark on their studies until after they turned twenty-five. Only about one-third entered university before the age of twenty, whereas over two-thirds of the younger age cohort began their studies while in their late teens, as did most male students. Therefore, many of the older group of women students were considerably more mature than the younger generation when they commenced their university life and also were significantly older when they completed their higher education.30 They were less likely to be involved in non-academic student activities and better prepared to manage on their own and concentrate on their scholarly and career objectives. DEPENDENTS OR INDEPENDENTS? Women students, especially those living away from home, gained a certain amount of personal freedom and independence from parental supervision of their social life, yet nearly all relied heavily on their families for financial support and other assistance. As Charlotte Wolff pointed out, “Parents paid for everything, and we were dependent on the money and goodwill of our elders.”31 Attending university was considered somewhat of a luxury for women. Although tuition costs, aside from medical school fees, were not very high, paying for room, board, and other university expenses could cause a drain on finances for some middle-class families, especially after World War I.32 Such considerations increased parental influence on choice of schools and field of study. Ruth Feitelberg Hope described her situation as follows:
50
| , ,
Due to my interest and ability in modern languages, I wanted to study some phase of philology. My father argued that such studies could only lead to the profession of teacher, and [insisted that] “My daughter is not going to become a schoolteacher.” The implication being that teaching was not a respected profession for women and invariably led to spinsterhood. So, to please my father, who after all had to foot the considerable bill for four years at the university, I decided to study political science and economics.33
Other relatives who were helping to cover the costs of a university education could also exert considerable pressure. For example, Hilde Bruch, who was considering studying mathematics or perhaps becoming a fashion designer, decided to study medicine when her uncle, a physician who was helping to finance her education, insisted that a woman, especially a Jewish woman, did not have a chance to succeed as a mathematician and advised her to become a physician instead.34 Likewise, Rahel Goitein (Straus), whose father had died when she was very young, had her education paid for by her uncle, who agreed to cover the cost as long as she studied medicine.35 On the whole, women students, both Jews and Christians, came from somewhat wealthier backgrounds than men students and received less scholarship aid from universities than did their male counterparts.36 Although some women students held part-time jobs to help offset the costs of their education, in general parents or other relatives footed the bill for most of their university expenses. Rahel Goitein (Straus) tutored other students in Greek and Latin, as well as natural sciences, and taught young girls Hebrew prayers and Jewish history on Sundays in order to earn spending money during her preclinical years as a medical student. However, she did not have the time to continue such activities after she began her clinical training.37 In order to help out with family finances, Lise Meitner also did tutoring while living at home during her years studying physics at the University of Vienna; nevertheless, when she moved to Berlin to do unpaid postdoctoral research, her father continued to provide money for her support.38 During and after World War I, when the economic situation worsened and many families lost their savings to inflation, the number of working students increased considerably. Several women took full-time jobs in factories to help put themselves through university.39 However, since Jewish university women tended to come from somewhat more affluent homes than their non-Jewish female colleagues, they could usually count on at least some economic backing from their families. Some Jewish women among the younger generation received partial scholarships due to their academic standing, as well as financial considerations.40 In addition to financial assistance, parents often provided moral and practical support. Irma Klausner(-Cronheim)’s father intervened politically to make sure that the Prussian Landtag (Diet) passed the requisite legisla-
University Years
| 51
tion to allow women to sit for examinations in time for his pioneering daughter to take her medical finals at the University of Halle in 1901; Klausner family lore referred to this law as “Lex Irma.”41 Even though mothers did not usually serve as role models or have the same political connections as some fathers, they were often facilitators who helped make their daughters’ university life feasible. Widowed mothers sometimes accompanied their daughters to universities, set up housekeeping for them, and occasionally even went with them to classes.42 In other cases, mothers found appropriate lodging for their daughters, made arrangements for them to eat on a regular basis (especially if they observed kosher dietary laws),43 and took care of their cleaning and laundry needs. Käte Frankenthal, who spent ten semesters at six different universities, pointed out that she never had to look after her personal effects because her mother handled everything for her: My time was filled with studying and loafing around. For practical matters there was no time and also no need. In the boarding house, my room was tidied up and my meals served. My mother had considerably more interest than I did that I was carefully clothed. Since she had foreseen that I would do nothing, not even tie up a package, . . . she thought up a system that would spare me all effort. . . . I had nothing to do except put my wash and any clothing which needed repair in a sack, which the boarding-house mailed off once a week. I then received everything back washed and fixed. Worn things were replaced by new, even before I had noticed that this was necessary. I kept this system throughout my entire student days.44
Most young Jewish women, even those who lacked basic housekeeping skills, probably did not enjoy quite such a carefree existence while away from home; nevertheless, they frequently depended on a family support system and were neither entirely self-sufficient nor self-reliant. SELECTING A FIELD OF STUDY Women entering university demonstrated a strong commitment to studying at an advanced level, yet they did not always know in advance which field of study they wished to pursue or what types of careers might be open to them. While some women, especially medical students, had definite goals in mind from the outset, others had a range of academic interests and talents and spent several semesters deciding upon their specialization, weighing practicality versus personal preferences. While parents or relatives often influenced their daughters’ or nieces’ choices in the direction of greater practicality, some young women opted to acquire knowledge for its own sake, with little thought as to where it might lead or whether they would be able to support themselves.
52
| , ,
Central European universities were divided into various faculties, including philosophy, medicine, law, and theology, and sometimes had separate schools for public affairs and natural sciences. Each faculty gave out its own doctoral degree and each professional field had its own requirements for accreditation. The medical faculty had the most rigorous degree specifications, whereas teaching certification had as requirements certain courses in pedagogy, philosophy, and psychology, as well as a field of specialization. Students were expected to register in one faculty and one concentration, but could often take courses in a different faculty or another field. Changing specializations within a faculty was more common than switching faculties, although several women obtained degrees in more than one faculty, several years apart.45 Jewish women enrolled in all faculties at Central European universities, except for theology.46 Among the women researched, roughly one in three studied medicine; about the same proportion majored in a field of humanities within the philosophy faculty; about one in six women specialized in social sciences and in natural sciences; and one in twelve studied law. For many Jewish women, practicing medicine seemed a more realistic goal than high school teaching. Law and academia offered the least promise as professional fields for women and for Jews.47 BECOMING A MEDICAL DOCTOR Medicine, the most expensive and most rigorous field of university study, required a minimum five years of training, including passing a preliminary medical examination (or Physikum) after two years and then writing a dissertation after completing six clinical semesters. Although some women decided against medical school because of the additional costs, time, and difficulties involved,48 many others concluded that becoming a physician made more sense than studying anything else.49 Some women were very young when they decided to study medicine. In certain cases, they made up their minds before they had ever met a woman physician and even before they were aware that women could actually become medical doctors in Central Europe.50 Therese Friedmann (Benedek) once declared that she wanted to study medicine, “Because I would like to know why I am living.”51 Few, if any, women medical students considered nursing as an alternative career, although several served as nurses during World War I.52 As one woman reported: “I was born with the wish to become a doctor. ‘My dolls were always sick.’” But then she added, “Besides, an uncle of mine was a very well-known physician.”53 Medical role models and mentors were almost always male, whether fathers, brothers, uncles, or the family physicians of their childhood.54 Some women gravitated toward studying medicine in order to fulfill their mothers’ unrealizable dream, but
University Years
| 53
only in rare cases did daughters of the first generation of women physicians try to follow in their mothers’ footsteps during the interwar years. In most cases, however, there was not enough time for the daughters of physicians to train as medical doctors before the Nazi era, even if they were so inclined.55 Medicine, like teaching, has often been justified as an appropriate profession for women because of their traditional nurturing role within the family. Several women physicians articulated a strong desire to help others as a motivation behind their choice of a medical career,56 but most simply took it for granted that becoming a physician was a worthy endeavor suitable for women. While some women chose to study medicine out of idealism or altruism, others viewed becoming a physician in more practical terms as a profession that would enable them to support themselves should they never marry. A medical career could also be combined with marriage, since, unlike teaching, there was never a celibacy requirement.57 At the turn of the century, when Rahel Goitein (Straus) made the pathbreaking decision to study medicine at the University of Heidelberg, many of her professors and male student colleagues, as well as her boyfriend (later to become her husband), still considered it improper, unwomanly, and perhaps even immoral for a girl to attend medical school. As a member of the first graduating class of the Karlsruhe Girls’ Gymnasium in 1899, Goitein’s goal in life was to become a physician, but as a pioneer she encountered many obstacles. Initially, she enrolled as an auditor in philology within the philosophy faculty, since women were not yet admitted as matriculated students and her widowed mother felt that medical school would be too expensive, given the fact that Rahel’s younger brother was studying law at the same time. When her uncle agreed to pay for her medical education, Goitein switched from the philosophy faculty to the medical school, but discovered that the professors in medicine were much more reluctant than their counterparts in modern languages to grant permission to women to attend their lectures, especially in fields such as anatomy and gynecology. The dean of the medical faculty, a gynecologist, tried repeatedly to dissuade Goitein from medical studies and to bid her a permanent farewell, claiming that he knew women well and that they were physically incapable of staying the course and completing medical training. In response, she retorted, “Yes, you know women, but mostly when they’re sick!” She became even more determined to show him and all men that she could succeed in her chosen profession.58 Although Rahel Goitein Straus alluded to discrimination against women in her memoir, like many other university women she tended to emphasize, in recollection, the positive aspects of her relationships with male faculty and students while making light of her personal difficulties as a female student. She joked about the fact that while she and her brother
54
| , ,
Ernst lived with their married older sister in Mannheim and commuted by train to their classes in Heidelberg, she was not considered eligible for a discounted student rail pass because, by definition, students were male. She finally convinced the authorities that she was indeed a bona fide student. Although she was the only woman in her preclinical lecture and lab courses and hence was viewed as somewhat of an oddity, she recalled receiving special consideration from her professors and brotherly protection from some of her male colleagues, since she was a naïve but determined young girl of nineteen or twenty.59 Paula Tobias, who was born in Hamburg in 1886 and began university at the age of twenty, shared similar experiences: For medical training I went to the universities of Heidelberg, Berlin, Munich. The lecturers at that time had the right to admit or refuse women, but there was ample opportunity to meet the requirements, though it sometimes became necessary to change universities for the final examinations. In Berlin, where I spent part of my premedical semesters, it was expected that girls went somewhere else to pass the premedical [or preclinical] examination [or Physikum], since they could not attend the lecturers and courses of Prof. Waldeyer, the leading anatomist, who at the same time was the chief examiner. When I prepared to leave as customary, fellow-students persuaded me to stay. They would help me to be equal to the particular demands, and they did it in a grand way. The “Pepins,” students of the Kaiser WilhelmAkademie for training medical army-officers, gave me access to their special preparatory courses. I was smuggled into the lecture- and demonstrationrooms of Prof. Waldeyer, was provided with his special questionnaires and finally was well equipped to pass his examination. Though [at] first he did not like at all to have a girl among his applicants, he was completely fair, when he found out how everything had been achieved. In a most delightful and broad-minded way he declared himself beaten by the younger generation. . . . I never can give enough credit to my teachers and fellow-students, who helped me in every way.60
Although by the interwar years women medical students had grown in number and, once they had matriculated, no longer required special permission to attend lectures, the problem that we would today label as gender discrimination or sexual harassment continued. Women who studied medicine in Vienna almost invariably mentioned Julius Tandler, a prominent Jewish professor of anatomy and a renowned Social Democratic welfare reformer, who regularly poked fun at the females in his classes, although he usually graded them fairly after giving them a hard time on their oral examinations. When he failed a woman candidate, however, his favorite remark was: “Your only way of becoming a Frau Doktor is to marry a Herr
University Years
| 55
Doktor.” Despite this overt misogyny, virtually all of the Jewish women medical students in Vienna opted to study anatomy with Tandler rather than with his more chivalrous but German nationalist colleague Professor Hochstätter, whose lectures attracted Nazis and other right-wing antisemites.62 By the interwar years, antisemitism was even more of a deterrent than sexism. Fanny Knesbach Stang entered the University of Vienna Medical School in 1932, despite her father’s conviction that she would never survive the rigors of a medical degree. She described the academic demands of the program, especially of anatomy, as follows: 61
The university year ran from October to July and was divided into two terms, the winter and summer semesters. I registered for anatomy, chemistry, physics and biology which were all obligatory and came to thirty-six hours. I added X-ray interpretation in honour of Madam Curie in my second term but found it physically impossible to attend. My thirty-six hours required as much additional study per week, for I had to keep up with running exams [quizzes]. This curriculum load explains why my father had accepted our family doctor’s consolatory advice, trusting I would find the going too hard for my reputed fragile physique. Certainly, my mind was in a turmoil and I can recall a seemingly continuous state of exaltation. I lived then for anatomy and our painstaking dissections which evoked in me a never-ending admiration for the sculptural beauty of the human body.63
Stang then went on to recount some of her vivid memories of Julius Tandler and his anatomy classes: The anatomy lectures were Professor Tandler’s famous course . . . and the lecture theatre was usually packed on our arrival. Fellow students Max and Karl would keep places for us [Fanny and her friend Hertha] in the third row. . . . Professor Tandler would slip into the lecture theatre from a side door. A large blackboard loomed behind him. The long table in front was set with anatomical specimens. “Guten Morgen, meine Herren.” This radical Social Democrat ignored the female students, unless one of them had allowed her hat to remain on her head, when he would fix her with an icy stare and give her the option of taking off the offending article or leaving. She invariably removed her hat. Then he would lift his chalk and encompass the lecture theatre with a glance before turning to the blackboard to conjure up portions of the human frame with total precision. The audience hardly dared to breathe while listening to his crystal-clear explanations.64
Central European Jewish university women often denied experiencing personally any kind of discrimination, whether as women or as Jews,
56
| , ,
during their student days, at least before 1933. Yet both misogyny and antisemitism persisted on university campuses. Before World War I, gender seemed to cause members of the older generation a greater disadvantage than Jewishness; however, during the interwar years antisemitism steadily increased in the academic world. Women students experienced antisemitism firsthand among professors and fellow students, particularly in the immediate aftermath of World War I and again in the 1930s. In the revolutionary ferment and turmoil following the war, Charlotte Wolff acknowledged encountering antisemitism for the first time while studying medicine at the University of Tübingen. Henrietta Magnus (Necheles) met up with a similar phenomenon while trying to complete her training in Freiburg, and Margaret Schoenberger (Mahler), a Hungarian citizen studying in Germany, came up against anti-Jewish as well as anti-foreign prejudice at the universities of Munich and Jena.65 Jewish women who were foreign students from Eastern Europe met up with greater hostility than native-born students and were frequently denied professional accreditation.66 Antisemitism was particularly endemic at institutions of higher learning in interwar Vienna. As one male medical student commented, “One took anti-Semitism at the University of Vienna for granted.”67 Rose-Marie Papanek-Akselrad vividly recalled antisemitic attacks directed against her male Jewish colleagues at the Hochschule für Bodenkultur (agronomy institute) in Vienna in the 1920s.68 Both men and women who studied in Vienna during the 1930s frequently described harassment and outbreaks of violence against Jews on the university campus, especially in the Anatomy Institute of the Medical School. Whereas Jewish male students were beaten up and had to fight off Nazi gangs on a regular basis, female Jewish students were warned to hide in order to avoid danger. Thus, in their memoirs, Jewish men described their own experiences as victims of, or defenders against, such onslaughts,69 whereas Jewish women students recounted their observations as bystanders to attacks on their male friends or colleagues.70 Antisemitic riots sometimes closed down the University of Vienna temporarily, but prior to the Anschluss (or Nazi takeover of Austria in March 1938), such outbreaks generally did not prevent Jewish students from receiving their degrees.71 Fanny Knesbach Stang described an outburst of violence during a lecture by Julius Tandler during summer semester 1933: Suddenly above the general chatter we heard a commotion from the top rows of the lecture theatre. We turned and saw a crowd of Burschenschaftcapped students. They bawled a chorus of the Horst Wessel Lied [the vehemently antisemitic Nazi anthem] and then started to come down the aisle in two tight gangs screaming: Juda verrecke [death to the Jew]! They were
University Years
| 57
hitting out at Jewish-looking students and fights started in the crowded auditorium. [My Jewish friend] Max was sitting near the aisle and he, with his black curly hair and semitic nose, would be their next target. We sat there hemmed in, wondering what to do. At this moment Professor Tandler appeared. Summing up the situation at a glance he took off his white coat and threw it on the table in front of him. Even the Nazis had frozen into silence. “Gentlemen, unless all my students resume normal academic behaviour I shall stop all anatomy lectures this semester. You have five minutes to clear the theatre and restore order.” He withdrew. The largely imported Nazi groups made themselves scarce, no doubt encouraged by their medical comrades. The closure of Tandler’s lectures would have meant that anatomy exams could not be held and thus the loss of half a year for Jew and Aryan alike. Such scenes never occurred again—in Tandler’s lectures at any rate. Other professors carefully ignored such incidents.72
Antisemitic violence did not end in Vienna, however, but grew increasingly worse. Nearly all women enrolled in the faculty of medicine who had completed preclinical courses and passed their Physikum examination managed to finish clinical training and received doctorates in medicine.73 Among those who left university without their certification to practice medicine, at least half left involuntarily, forced to abandon their studies or change fields due to the advent of the Nazi regime in Central Europe. Several members of the younger generation, including Fanny Knesbach (Stang), succeeded in completing their doctoral requirements even after the Nazi takeover, at a time when it was no longer possible for Jews to practice medicine in Central Europe.74 Very few women medical students in this study dropped out of university for marriage or personal reasons. The high rate of persistence among women medical students in attaining their degrees, despite discrimination against them both as women and as Jews, demonstrates a particularly high level of motivation and determination. Studying medicine presented a daunting challenge to women in the early twentieth century, but steadily increasing numbers of Jewish women rose to this challenge and met it successfully. Not only did large numbers of Jewish women qualify as physicians, but a select few even managed to embark on careers in medical research, as we shall see in the next chapter. HEADING TOWARD A DOCTORATE IN PHILOSOPHY Although medicine was undoubtedly the most popular single field of study for Central European Jewish women and an increasingly attractive option
58
| , ,
for Christian women as well, the philosophy faculty, roughly the equivalent of a college of arts and sciences in the United States, was by far the most common destination for women students in Germany and Austria in the early twentieth century. On the eve of World War I, four out of five women studying at Prussian universities, including the University of Berlin, were registered in the faculty of philosophy, whereas during the interwar years, three out of five Prussian women students were enrolled in this faculty. Similarly, at the University of Vienna before World War I, between two-thirds and three-quarters of the women students matriculated in philosophy. During the interwar years, between half and two-thirds of the women students did the same. By contrast, only half of the male students in Prussia before the war, and during the interwar years slightly more than one-third, chose to study in this faculty. The attraction of the philosophy faculty for women was due in large part to the fact that studying certain fields within liberal arts could lead to accreditation as a secondary school teacher, the most frequently chosen career goal for women students. Thus, the majority of women students in this faculty at the University of Vienna before World War I signed up for courses that were required for teaching certification, namely philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy. The most common subjects taken by women included German or Romance language and literature, history, chemistry, and physics, all of which could qualify them for teaching positions.75 These trends, which were also apparent at universities in Germany, continued into the interwar years, although not quite as markedly. Preparation for a teaching career attracted a considerably higher proportion of women than of men, but it had a much stronger appeal for Gentile than for Jewish women or men.76 The prospects for Jews finding permanent employment in the teaching profession appeared very uncertain; blatant antisemitism was pervasive in the hiring systems of public and private schools in both Germany and Austria.77 Among the Jewish university women in this study, one in three enrolled in the philosophy faculty specializing within the humanities and one in six chose science or mathematics.78 Unlike their non-Jewish counterparts, however, only a minority among these Jewish women were intent on becoming secondary school teachers. As historian Marion Kaplan has concluded, The irony cannot escape us that, in this case, the persistent and vicious antiSemitism of the German school systems actually prompted a significant proportion of Jewish women to avoid the pitfalls of a liberal arts degree. While many of their female counterparts faced the hardships of the teaching profession—a bad job market; low pay and no power compared to male teachers; antifemale colleagues and administrators; and statutory celibacy . . . , racial/religious discrimination forced a large percentage of Jewish women to turn a liability into an asset.79
University Years
| 59
The philosophy faculty provided many women with the opportunity to study the subjects that interested them most, regardless of the resulting practical application or career prospects. Some Jewish women in the humanities and the sciences aspired to academic careers in research or teaching, even though women were not even eligible for Habilitation (or official academic appointments) until after World War I. Other women saw teaching certification as a kind of insurance policy, in case their dreams of academic positions were not realized and they needed to teach at a lower level. If jobs were not available in a public school, then perhaps they could teach at a private girls’ school or in some form of adult education in order to support themselves. In 1911, at the age of twenty, Edith Stein began studying psychology, then considered a subfield within the department of philosophy, in Breslau, her hometown. She characterized her attitude toward teaching certification as follows: The “academic freedom” accorded me at the time of entrance was a twoedged sword. . . . Our only limitations were that we would have to meet the requirements for the state board examination for teachers of higher [i.e., secondary] education. Checking over these requirements, we could discern what might ultimately be expected of us. As early as my first semester, I bought a copy of these requirements, urged to do so by a fellow student who from the start had zeroed in on the state boards as her goal. That was far from being my way. After all, I would be taking the state boards merely “for the sake of my family.” My primary interest was acquiring knowledge. But I recognized the common sense of taking the essentials into consideration when planning my schedule for the various semesters. But, of course, the subjects nearest my heart could not be allowed to suffer on this account. So I was pleased to discover “Introduction to Philosophy” listed among the subjects covered by the examination. Naturally, I immediately chose this subject, thus acquiring a moral cover for my pet study.80
Among women planning to become educators, modern languages were the most popular subjects of concentration.81 A third of the women in the humanities whom I researched selected German, French, English, or a combination of languages and literature as their field; they were about evenly divided between the older and younger age cohorts. One in five of these women did not complete her doctorate, but at least half of those who did not finish their degree still passed their teaching certification examinations before leaving university. Jewish women students in the humanities generally tried to combine career preparation for teaching with development of their own personal intellectual interests, which were in some cases directly related to their Jewishness. Minna Schiffman (Lachs), born in Galicia in 1907, migrated with
60
| , ,
her family during World War I to Vienna, where she graduated from a girls’ Realgymnasium, and then began her university studies in 1927. Intent upon becoming a teacher, she enrolled in courses in German, French, psychology, and pedagogy, but also attended lectures in history, art history, and philosophy. Having decided to major in German, she found a Doktorvater (or dissertation advisor) who encouraged her to pursue her interest in Jewish themes in German literature and to write her doctoral dissertation on the late nineteenth-century Galician Jewish writer Karl Emil Franzos as a representative of the spiritual world of Ostjuden, or Eastern European Jews. After passing her written comprehensive examinations, she set off for Galicia to conduct research on Franzos’s Hasidic family roots as well as her own. She received her doctorate in 1932 and subsequently passed her teaching certification examinations in German and French.82 Among the relatively small group of women who chose classical languages or archeology as their majors, most, like Margarete Bieber and Vera Lachmann, opted for Greek and Latin as their teaching or research fields. Several, including Nehama Leibowitz, Lea Goldberg, and Trude Weiss(-Rosmarin), chose to study Semitic languages, while others, such as Betty Heimann and Charlotte Krause, specialized in Sanskrit and Indian literature. One classicist, Eva Lehmann Fiesel, became a leading expert in Etruscan philology. Despite extremely slim employment prospects for women in any of these fields in Central Europe, some individuals nevertheless chose to pursue degrees in the subjects that fascinated them most. Other specializations in the humanities that attracted considerable numbers of Jewish women but did not necessarily lead to teaching or other gainful employment opportunities were art history, history, philosophy, and musicology. Art history, sometimes referred to as a “crêpe de Chine,” or rather frivolous, field for women,83 was one of the more popular choices for Jewish women attending university. Women in such fields studied primarily out of a love of learning, rather than to increase their ability to earn a living.84 A few students, like Selma Stern, who received her doctorate in history from the University of Munich in 1914, aspired to an academic appointment, but many, like Hannah Arendt, who earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1928, had less clearly defined career goals. As one woman replied to a query as to why she chose to study medieval history, “I did so because it interested me.”85 At least some Jewish women students in the humanities could afford a luxury not available to most other students, male or female, who felt compelled to prepare themselves for a specific career; they concentrated on the subjects they most enjoyed without worrying too much about the future. The young women who opted to study mathematics or sciences had to navigate through almost completely uncharted waters for women, with
University Years
| 61
only the Russian mathematician Sophia Kovalevskaia and the Polish physicist Marie Sklodowska Curie as possible role models. Some, like the pioneers Lise Meitner in physics in Vienna, Clara Immerwahr (Haber) in chemistry in Breslau, and Emmy Noether in mathematics in Erlangen, chose their field of study out of fascination and pure love of science.86 Others, especially among the younger generation, tended to focus on practical career goals, whether as high school teachers or as scientific researchers in academia or industry. Among the women in this study who pursued degrees in scientific fields, three-quarters completed their doctorates, but the rest dropped out before receiving a degree.87 Dodo Badt Liebmann explained her decision to study physics: As I was finishing school, I had long discussions with my father about University; not whether I wanted to go to University, but what I should do there. . . . There were two subjects that interested me; one was law, which still fascinates me, and the other was science. We discussed at great length what would give me the best chance of earning a living. Father was very realistic and knew that now in 1925, girls as well as boys had to be able to earn their living. We came down on the side of science, actually Physics and Mathematics, because in that field there were more opportunities, especially for girls. I would have liked to study Mathematics, but I hadn’t quite got what it takes, so we settled for Physics, particularly as in Mathematics at that time there were few opportunities. . . . I was very much drawn to teaching, but the anti-Semitism in Germany made it a last resort. . . . With a Physics degree I could go into industry or become a patent agent. Anyhow there were at least three possibilities; so I decided to go to University and read Physics.88
In order to succeed as a scientist or mathematician within German academia, Jewish women students needed to demonstrate not only determination, persistence, and the ability to compensate for deficiencies in their educational background, but also a certain amount of brilliance. Most importantly, they needed to find professors willing to take them seriously and serve as their mentors and dissertation advisors (Doktorväter). While some women, like Lise Meitner, were fortunate in locating such sponsors, others encountered misogynists and antisemites who put additional obstacles in their paths. Professor Lenard, an experimental physicist in Heidelberg and a notorious antisemite, refused to allow Jews, men or women, to work in his laboratory.89 Salome Gluecksohn(-Waelsch), a geneticist born in Danzig in 1907, completed her training at the University of Freiburg under Hans Spemann, a distinguished experimental embryologist and Nobel laureate. She described her experience with discrimination against women doctoral candidates as follows:
62
| , ,
I started out studying with Spemann, and Spemann was a strong male chauvinist; you were told what to work on for your Ph.D. thesis. He gave me a problem that was very boring; in retrospect it was an insult to have been given such a project for my dissertation. Whereas a young man who was my colleague was given a very exciting problem. . . . I think one’s doctoral project plays a role in one’s training, in one’s development. That certainly held me back very much. . . . In my time, there was absolutely no question that women were given less challenging Ph.D. projects. Another woman whom I knew was also given a boring project. She did what I did, which was to play around at night with experiments outside her thesis project. She came up with a very exciting finding which really laid the groundwork for a lot of later research.90
Those women scientists or mathematicians who persevered managed to earn their doctorates. Some succeeded in carving out careers in their fields, but they did so in an academic environment that remained largely hostile to women. TRAINING AS SOCIAL SCIENTISTS AND LAWYERS In the early twentieth century, social sciences, such as sociology, economics, political science, and psychology, were not clearly defined fields of study at German or Austrian universities.91 Except for psychology, which was considered a branch of philosophy and was often linked with education, the other fields were generally subsumed within the framework of political economy before World War I and were taught either within the faculty of philosophy, in a law school, or in a separate faculty of public affairs or economics. During the interwar years, separate chairs and research institutes for sociology and psychology were introduced at various institutions, but disciplinary lines still remained relatively fluid and overlapping. Doctorates in these fields could, in theory, lead to careers in academia, research, civil service, welfare administration, banking, and business, but in practice, career opportunities for women were much more restricted than for men. Job prospects for Jewish women graduates in public affairs or law were very uncertain, especially before World War I, when admission to the bar was still off-limits to women and civil service jobs were largely closed to unbaptized Jews. Nevertheless, among the university women of Jewish descent whom I researched, roughly one in five specialized in economics, sociology, psychology, or political science; half of these women earned doctorates in philosophy, and a third in public affairs, while the remainder received other certification or did not complete their degrees. Women who decided to study social sciences, public affairs, or law wanted to deepen their understanding of human behavior and help others,
University Years
| 63
especially women and children, through social reform or public service. For Jewish women, the impetus for choosing to concentrate in the social sciences was much more likely to stem from feminist or socialist convictions than from traditional Jewish religious values. Although antisemitism was certainly prevalent in German and Austrian academic circles, gender and social justice, rather than race or ethnicity, seemed to be the most salient factors in the lives of these pioneering Jewish women social scientists, at least before the Nazi era. Their research interests and dissertations were much more likely to focus on issues pertaining to workers, women, and children than on Jews, antisemitism, or racism. Women’s rights activists and social reformers among the older generation, like Alice Salomon, Helene Simon, and Elisabeth Altmann-Gottheiner, were particularly interested in investigating wage differentials between working women and men, issues relating to working mothers and children, and the question of suffrage for women.92 Socialists, like Käthe Pick (Leichter) and Marie Jahoda among the younger age cohort, explored questions relating to market economies, labor, and unemployment.93 Although several women social scientists wrote dissertations on Jews,94 Jewish topics were less common in the social sciences than in the humanities.95 Law was a much less popular option for women than philosophy, medicine, science, or social science, but Jewish women made up a high proportion of the small population of women law students in Central Europe.96 Several Jewish women, including Marie Munk, Margarete Berent, and Margarete Meseritz (Edelheim-Mühsam), earned their doctorates in law before the end of the war, at a time when their prospects for professional employment as lawyers were extremely limited. The study of jurisprudence often attracted the daughters of lawyers who wanted to help others, especially women, deal with legal issues. Marie Munk, born in Berlin in 1887, studied in Berlin, Freiburg, and Bonn, as well as Heidelberg, her lawyer father’s alma mater, where she received her doctorate in jurisprudence in 1912. As a pioneer in the field, she had no preconceived career plan, but reasoned that she could at least use her knowledge of the law in legal aid clinics that had many female clients, while continuing to teach, lecture, and write on the side. Looking back at her university years, Munk concluded that [M]y studies at the university gave me far more than a knowledge of the law and the enjoyment of academic freedom. . . . I owe it to my teachers if I have been able to make a small contribution in the field of women’s rights and in my practice of law as attorney and judge. What I learned from them was not so much the knowledge of the law itself, but its interpretation, its philosophy and to look for the answer to the age-old question: What is justice?97
64
| , ,
Students at Central European universities worked at their own pace and took their comprehensive examinations whenever they felt they were ready. Although some completed their degrees in four years, five to six years was the average, while other students took somewhat longer before their graduation (or Promotion) to the status of doctor. Doctoral candidates each had to research and write an original thesis under the supervision of an advisor or Doktorvater in their field, which then had to be accepted by the entire faculty within their department. Once the dissertation was submitted, the degree candidate had to undergo an oral defense, sometimes labeled the Rigorosum, by a panel of faculty members who represented various related fields of study. In the case of Marie Munk, for example, the committee consisted of professors of civil and penal law and procedure, public and administrative law, Roman law, and Old German law. Especially before World War I, the approved thesis had to be published, not just presented in typewritten form, before a candidate could officially be addressed as Fräulein Doktor. Although formal graduation ceremonies were not always held, family and friends often celebrated with a festive meal or party once the ritual ordeal of doctoral oral examinations had been successfully surmounted.98 PROFESSIONAL ACCREDITATION AND ACADEMIC CREDENTIALS In certain fields, like secondary school teaching and medicine, state certification examinations were separate from, and generally preceded, doctoral defense examinations. Many women who passed their state board exams in education never went on to complete their doctorates, especially in the humanities. Virtually all the women with degrees in medicine, however, completed both sets of requirements, often simultaneously. The state examinations that qualified lawyers for admission to the bar normally took place after the completion of a law degree. Until 1922, in both Germany and Austria, women were excluded from the right to take the bar examinations that served as the prerequisite for working as clerks (Assessoren) in a law office or court; thus, they could not become full-fledged lawyers or judges. A similar situation also prevailed in academia; before 1919, women were not officially eligible for Habilitation, the dissertation and examination process that led to an appointment as a Privatdozent(in), or unsalaried university lecturer. In exceptional cases, however, women were beginning to overcome the discrimination against them in academic hiring, even though they remained excluded from the highest professorial ranks. Steadily increasing numbers of women studied and earned their degrees at Central European universities, but German and Austrian academia did not welcome women as faculty members. Although women who persevered and received their doctorates were able to find sponsors (or Doktorväter) to
University Years
| 65
supervise their dissertations, few succeeded in convincing these professors to serve as their mentors and help groom them for academic appointments. Elise Richter, the only woman to receive a university appointment in the humanities in Germany or Austria before World War I, was fortunate enough to have had two mentors who supported her candidacy for Habilitation. She qualified as a Privatdozentin in Romance philology at the University of Vienna in 1905 but did not formally receive this position for two more years. At the University of Berlin, two women, Lydia RabinowitschKempner in bacteriology and Rahel Hirsch in internal medicine, held research positions associated with the medical school before the war and, at least according to some sources, were granted the honorary title of professor, yet neither was formally appointed to this esteemed rank, despite the significance of their research discoveries.99 More typically, women who wished to remain in academia after receiving their doctorates served, at least temporarily, as unpaid research assistants, working alongside their professors as colleagues, but rarely receiving full credit for their findings or earning their venia legendi—their right to teach at the university level. During the interwar years, academic appointments for women and Jews became somewhat more common, but the numbers of successful attempts at Habilitation varied considerably by field and institution and depended upon strong backing from one’s Doktorvater or mentor. Medical and science faculties tended to hire more women researchers100 than did philosophy, social science, or law faculties; academic appointments for women in the humanities remained rare, even in language fields.101 Having strong personal connections with one’s advisor could sometimes prove a definite advantage for aspiring women academics. In two very exceptional cases, women who married their mentors eventually became their husbands’ academic colleagues: Hedwig Guggenheimer Hintze as a lecturer in history in Berlin, and Charlotte Malachowski Bühler as a Dozentin in Dresden and then an untenured assistant professor in psychology at the University of Vienna. Charlotte and Karl Bühler served as advisors and mentors to a sizable group of women psychological researchers, including several Jewish women, in the Institute for Child Research. Aside from Charlotte Bühler’s and Elise Richter’s students in Vienna and mathematician Emmy Noether’s protégés in Göttingen, however, few students, whether women or men, had the opportunity of working under the supervision of a woman professor.102 When choosing a Doktorvater, female students often grativated toward specific male faculty members who were known to be sympathetic to women. Jewish university women in many cases selected Jews or “Former Jews” as their mentors.103 Jewish women certainly stood out among the pioneers in women’s higher education in Germany and Austria, both as students and, later, as
66
| , ,
junior faculty members and researchers. Attempting to gain acceptance in the male bastion of academia, they initially encountered more discrimination directed against them as women than as Jews, yet both as Jews and as women they often had to work harder in order to make their way in the academic world, without much of an institutional support system. As women, they were largely excluded from the male academic mentoring system and from Jewish fraternal organizational networks. As Jews, they were subject to antisemitic prejudices and ostracized from Christian or German-nationalist women’s student or professional associations. Jewish women did not formally band together for mutual support, but struggled as individuals to achieve their academic goals. They depended on assistance from male colleagues, professors, and mentors, often Jews or “Former Jews” like themselves; few women, Jewish or non-Jewish, were available to serve as their role models or advisors. Nevertheless, even though at times their lives were lonely or difficult, Jewish university women often served as academic trailblazers and role models for other women to follow. During the first third of the twentieth century, Jewish women who had passed their matriculation examinations could enter university in Germany or Austria without worrying about discriminatory quotas against either Jews or women. They could study the subjects that interested them most and, after successfully completing course requirements, a thesis, and the requisite examinations, could receive a doctorate and professional accreditation in almost any field. They could become state certified as teachers, physicians, and, after World War I, as lawyers and university faculty as well. Substantial numbers of Jewish women took advantage of these new educational and career opportunities that had so recently opened up for women in Central Europe. Then, armed with their certificates and doctorates, they set off into the working world.
FOUR
Professional Quest and Career Options
H
aving completed their studies, armed with doctorates and initial state certification, the newly minted Jewish Fräulein Doktoren set out on their professional career paths. They often stepped out of the normal occupational framework for women and crossed gender and sometimes also class boundaries.1 After spending four to six years alongside male students, obtaining the same university training as they did, the pioneering generations of university women entered the job market, seeking positions as secondary school teachers, professors, academic researchers, economists, lawyers, or physicians, all of which had formerly been occupied by men. Along the way, they increasingly encountered discrimination directed against them as women, as Jews, and, in the case of married women, as “double earners,” or the second breadwinner in a two-income family. Before university graduates could qualify for permanent, paid employment in their fields, they often worked, either briefly or for extended periods, as unpaid research assistants, probationary teachers, unsalaried lecturers, hospital interns, or law clerks. Instead of becoming economically self-sufficient soon after completing their degrees, women with doctorates were likely to remain dependent on the financial support of their families for several more years at least. Some women who held full-time professional positions never received a salary. For example, Tilly Edinger, a prominent vertebrate paleontologist, worked as a research associate in the Frankfurt Paleontology and Neurological Institutes for six years after receiving her doctorate in 1921, and then served for over a decade as the curator of fossil vertebrates at the renowned Senckenburg Museum in Frankfurt am Main, without ever being on the payroll.2 Such a situation would have been unheard-of for a man with similar education and qualifications, yet women, especially Jewish women, had difficulty finding even unpaid jobs and then encountered further obstacles in gaining promotions or professional ad-
68
| , ,
vancement. When women did manage to secure employment, they were frequently paid less than men of comparable rank, regardless of whether they had to support themselves or contribute to the support of their families. Although women tended to follow somewhat different career paths than men in fields like education, medicine, and law, Central European universities did not establish separate training tracks for men and women. Hence, male and female students basically received the same professional preparation and, in theory at least, were competing for the same jobs. In practice, however, women were often channeled into somewhat different jobs than men with similar qualifications, and certain subspecialties, especially within education and medicine, became more open to women than other branches of these professions. Whether through choice or through necessity, women physicians were much more likely to find themselves treating primarily women and children in private practices or specializing in mental health, rather than going into academic medicine or becoming surgeons. Women educators were likely to find jobs teaching languages or history in a girls’ school rather than science or math in a boys’ Gymnasium. In some cases, women had already made their preliminary choices about fields of desired employment based on their personal preferences while at university; in other cases, the type of jobs available to them and their level of advancement were largely determined by their gender and hence were beyond their control. Job opportunities for Jewish women with doctorates were fairly limited in Central Europe in the early twentieth century. Misogyny and antisemitism combined to restrict the likelihood of their gaining civil service positions, whether as teachers, professors, economists, or public health physicians, especially before 1914. World War I temporarily opened up new avenues for professional employment for the older generation of university women in schools, hospitals, and public welfare offices once the men were mobilized to serve at the front. After the war, however, as the veterans returned and demanded their old positions, and growing numbers of both women and men attended university and received doctorates, jobs became scarcer and competition increased dramatically. Although in 1919 women officially became eligible for Habilitation, or entry-level academic appointments, and after 1922 could be admitted to the bar in both Germany and Austria, job prospects for women in either academia or law were not very bright and few women succeeded in firmly establishing careers in either field before the Nazi era. While secondary education and medicine remained the most popular professions for educated women during the interwar years, some university women entered other fields that did not necessarily require doctorates, becoming librarians, social workers, editors, and journalists.3
Professional Quest and Career Options
| 69
THOSE WHO CAN, TEACH Teaching was by far the most widespread occupation for single, middleclass women in Central Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Before 1905, women were eligible for teaching certification only in elementary, middle, and girls’ higher schools (or Mädchen-Lyceen), but thereafter, once they had the requisite university education and had passed state examinations, they could become accredited as secondary school teachers (Oberlehrerinnen, later called Studienrätinnen) and could teach in Gymnasien or Realgymnasien as well. As we have already seen in Chapter 3, the majority of women who attended Central European universities enrolled in the faculty of philosophy with the intention of becoming high school teachers, but Jewish women were much less likely than their Christian counterparts to achieve successful careers in education. Jewish women faced very dim job prospects in education at all levels, since nearly all Central European schools, whether elementary or secondary, public or private, tended to be either Protestant or Catholic. While these schools did not hesitate to accept Jewish children as pupils, they rarely hired Jews as faculty; even the interdenominational Simultanschulen, which accommodated all religious groups, were reluctant to appoint Jewish teachers. Therefore, although Jewish women often became certified as teachers, relatively few actually taught within the state-controlled public school systems or even in private schools.4 Before World War I, Jewish women made up less than half of 1 percent of the women teachers in public elementary and public and private middle schools in Prussia. During the interwar years, Jewish women constituted less than 4 percent of the female faculty members of secondary schools and Jewish men made up less than 2 percent of male high school teachers in Prussia. Elsewhere in Germany, Jews were not as well represented within the school systems.5 In Vienna, Jewish women were somewhat more visible both as school directors and as teachers, particularly in private schools. Among the one hundred women in this study who sought careers in education, at least half never achieved permanent full-time positions in Central Europe. Roughly two in five of these Jewish women educators taught in middle schools or high schools, including public, private, and Jewish institutions, while almost one in five became directors of private schools. A quarter held teaching jobs in adult education or vocational training schools, and the remainder did mainly private lecturing and tutoring. Jewish university women with doctorates in philosophy were more likely to want to pursue scholarly careers than to seek employment in elementary or even secondary education. Certainly, if one was interested in early childhood or elementary education, there was no need to attend uni-
70
| , ,
versity or earn a formal degree in order to embark on a career in that field. Some women who dropped out of university without completing doctorates or certification held jobs as preschool or elementary school teachers, or directed private schools.6 High school teaching was a more common goal, especially for members of the younger generation, but obtaining a permanent job often proved difficult due to job shortages and the prevalence of antisemitism in hiring. Dodo Badt Liebmann, born in Berlin in 1906, decided not to become a science teacher because she assessed the situation as follows: I was very much drawn to teaching, but the anti-Semitism in Germany made it a last resort. If you wanted to become a [secondary school] teacher in Germany, you had to do one year’s teaching [after completing a state certification examination] before you were fully qualified. After that you were called an “assessor” [probationary teacher] until you got an established post. Normally, it took between one and three years to become established, but if you were Jewish, it could take ten years or more! Apart from that, my father pointed out, “Have you considered the atmosphere in the staff room, with all that anti-Semitism?”7
In 1933, of the 135 women and 113 men who were dismissed from their public secondary school teaching positions in Prussia as “non-Aryans,” over half were still at the rank of probationary high school teacher, since they had been unable to secure permanent jobs.8 Johanna Philippson was among the more senior women educators dismissed in 1933. Her professional career as a high school teacher in Berlin, spanning more than two decades, serves as a somewhat rare example of a success story of a Central European Jewish woman educator within the public school system. Born in Magdeburg in 1887, Philippson received her doctorate in history and German from the University of Freiburg in 1912 and passed her state teaching exam the same year. She described her struggles during the early years of her career as follows: In fall 1912, I entered the Prussian School Service. I was sent . . . to the Falkrealgymnasium. There the director received me with the words: “I told the school board that I don’t want to train any women.” So I was sent to the Prinz-Heinrichs-Gymnasium [another boys’ high school in Berlin], where I was received in a very friendly manner and treated very politely as one of the until-then-unknown species. I was the only female among twelve candidates. When, after a time, trial lectures were held, the director said I could not attend. However, when in the next meeting the first trial lecture of a candidate was discussed, I had the courage to make clear to the director that in this fashion I could learn nothing. . . . I [completed my training] and gave my trial lecture. . . . In 1914 I became eligible for an appointment and
Professional Quest and Career Options
| 71
taught during the war as a substitute for a teacher who was drafted into military service. In 1917 I was hired by the Berlin municipal council and then taught until 1933 in Berlin girls’ schools.
Philippson served for a brief time as an acting school inspector and in 1930 was appointed a senior teacher (Oberstudienrätin) in a municipal girls’ high school.9 Johanna Philippson was a very conscientious and much loved teacher, whose pupils cried when she was dismissed from her job. Like most women educators, she never married. She felt fortunate to have had a relatively secure, salaried position within the Berlin municipal school system and blamed misogyny, rather than antisemitism, for any discrimination she encountered before the Nazi era. After losing her job in 1933, she taught at several Jewish communal schools, first the Orthodox Adass Jisroel and then a coeducational Liberal high school, where she prepared boys, as well as girls, for their matriculation examinations.10 Many Jewish women with similar qualifications, especially married women and single members of the younger generation born after the turn of the century, never managed to secure permanent teaching positions in Germany or Austria; they often had to settle for temporary or part-time jobs.11 Some Jewish women educators sought employment in Jewish schools, or at least schools owned or directed by Jews, since they could not find suitable jobs elsewhere, even though Jewish communal schools preferred to hire male teachers, especially before the Nazi era, and very few Jewish university women had competence in teaching Jewish studies. Throughout her long career as an educator, Tilly Epstein taught at the Frankfurt Philanthropin, a model Jewish school that eventually covered all grades from kindergarten through Abitur. Indeed, this school provided the mainstay of her life. In 1888, at the age of six, she became a student in the lowest class in this institution where her father taught mathematics and physics. After graduating from its girls’ high school and completing a teachers’ seminary, she returned as an assistant teacher of German and French in 1901 and received a permanent teaching position in 1904, at the age of twenty-two. She saw herself as part of the younger generation of reformist teachers. Not satisfied with her own educational qualifications, she insisted on enrolling at the University of Frankfurt after World War I, and earned her doctorate in Romance languages in 1925, which enabled her to become a Studienrätin in the upper school. After Kristallnacht in November 1938, she found herself acting director of the Philanthropin; by the time she left Germany in April 1941, the Nazi regime had shut the school down.12 Tilly Epstein was one of the few university women who taught in Jewish communal schools before 1933; many others gravitated toward such schools only during the Nazi era, when Jewish educational institutions
72
| , ,
were rapidly expanding and women teachers were more welcome on the faculty. Stella Herzig Klein, born in 1904, had studied classical philology, as well as psychology, at the University of Vienna. She received her doctorate and teaching certification in 1929, but could not find a permanent teaching position. Shortly after her husband’s death in 1933, she began teaching Latin at the Chajes Realgymnasium, the Jewish nationalist communal high school in Vienna. As a highly acculturated Jew and an ardent Social Democrat, she felt uncomfortable teaching in a Zionist-dominated school, but she admired the high academic standards of the institution and its school spirit. She was proud of her students, even though they sometimes referred to her as the Goite, or non-Jew. Klein remained on the faculty of the Chajes Realgymnasium until she emigrated to England on her thirty-fifth birthday in 1938.13 Unlike Stella Herzig Klein and most other Jewish women educators, Käte Levi (Freyhan) had a strong Jewish background, since she had grown up in an Orthodox home in Altona and had studied with Rabbi Joseph Carlebach in preparation for her Abitur. By the time she completed her teaching certification examination in German philology in 1934, there was no longer even the slightest possibility of obtaining a high school teaching position in a public school. She therefore found a job teaching secular subjects and music in a Jewish girls’ school in Berlin, and also enrolled in a special course for teachers of religion, which qualified her to teach both religious knowledge and modern Hebrew at an elementary level as well.14 Individual Jewish teachers often had an important influence on their students’ lives, but perhaps the most significant contribution by Jewish women educators in Central Europe was made by school directors who established or ran their own private schools, especially in Vienna and Berlin.15 Private girls’ schools (Mädchen-Lyzeen) directed by Jewish university women and catering mainly to Jewish pupils had already been established in Vienna before World War I. Among these institutions were the Schwarzwaldschule, an innovative and progressive girls’ secondary school founded by Eugenie Nussbaum Schwarzwald; the Cottage-Lyzeum, run by Salka Goldmann; and the Stern Pensionat, a girls’ boarding school directed by Lillian Stern Bader during the interwar years.16 In the 1930s, women educators, including Lotte Kaliski, Vera Lachmann, Leonore Goldschmidt, and Toni Lessler, set up special schools in Berlin and elsewhere to meet the needs of Jewish children during the Nazi era.17 Appointments in public institutions, especially at universities but also in secondary schools, were more likely to go to women who had been baptized than to those who remained affiliated with the Jewish community. Some of the school directors, including Eugenie Schwarzwald and her successor, Aline Fürtmuller, had officially become konfessionslos (without religion), and several prominent social work educators, like Alice Salomon and
Professional Quest and Career Options
| 73
Marie Bernays, had been baptized, but the vast majority of teachers remained within the Jewish fold, unlike most of the women who held academic positions. For highly acculturated but Jewishly identified women, teaching at the high school level or in adult education programs was sometimes seen as an alternative to the academic appointment they ardently desired but realized was beyond their grasp, whether as women or as Jews.18 In other cases, teaching served as a stepping stone toward becoming the director of a private school. For a few baptized university women, like Melitta Gerhard, who had taught German and Protestant religious knowledge at a girls’ high school before becoming a lecturer in German literature at the University of Kiel, teaching proved to be only a supplementary job or a temporary detour on the path to a more coveted academic or research position.19 PURSUING ACADEMIC CAREERS Before the Nazi era, a total of eighty-four women received academic appointments in German or Austrian universities; their numbers did not amount to more than 1.2 percent of all university faculty members.20 Only four women, all of whom were Christians by descent as well as religion, reached the rank of full professor. Of the remaining women who achieved Habilitation, including those securing both untenured assistant professorships (ausserordentliche Professorinnen) and unsalaried lecturer positions (Privatdozentinnen), thirty-two were of Jewish descent: eleven in the humanities, seven in science or math, five in the social sciences, and nine in medical research.21 It is certainly striking that women of Jewish origin held nearly two out of five of the scarce academic appointments held by women at Central European universities, at a time when antisemitism was generally perceived as a serious barrier to university hiring. The majority of the women who gained Habilitation status can be classified as “Former Jews,” however, since they had either been baptized as children or had subsequently left the Jewish community. Religious conversion did not always alleviate the problem of discrimination against hiring women of Jewish origin. Edith Stein, a very talented philosopher, served with distinction as a research assistant to her mentor, Edmund Husserl. She had received her doctorate from the University of Freiburg in 1916 and converted to Catholicism in 1922. Nevertheless, she was rejected for Habilitation by all three universities she had attended— Breslau, Göttingen, and Freiburg, and had to settle for teaching positions in Catholic teachers’ training institutes.22 Eva Lehmann Fiesel, a recognized authority on Etruscan philology who was raised as a Protestant, was hired to teach at the University of Munich on a temporary contract, but never received an official appointment.23
74
| , ,
“Jewish Jews,” like Selma Stern, who did most of her post-doctoral research in German-Jewish history, had an even more difficult time acquiring a teaching position at a university. Shortly after receiving her doctorate in history summa cum laude from the University of Munich in 1914, Stern consulted her Doktorvater about choosing a topic for her Habilitationsschrift (inaugural thesis), confident that she would be able to realize her dream of becoming a Privatdozentin in the near future, but she never received such an appointment.24 Neither did any other qualified Jewish woman who applied for a position at the University of Munich during the interwar years; not a single woman was hired as a Privatdozentin in the Munich Philosophy Faculty before World War II. Although one scholar, Hiltrud Häntzschel, has argued that latent antisemitism was responsible for so many Jewish women being rejected for academic positions in the humanities, the fact that no women at all received such appointments at the University of Munich indicates that misogyny proved an even greater handicap in academic hiring in the early twentieth century.25 Although academic careers for women in the humanities were relatively rare in Central Europe, some determined women of Jewish descent managed to overcome the tremendous odds against them. As we have already seen, Elise Richter, the only woman to qualify for Habilitation in Germany or Austria before World War I, became a Privatdozentin in Romance philology at the University of Vienna in 1907; she was promoted to the rank of untenured assistant professor in 1921.26 The career of Margarete Bieber, a classical archeologist, illustrates the new academic opportunities beginning to open up for women in the humanities during the interwar years, but also the limitations they continued to face. Bieber received her doctorate from the University of Bonn in 1907 and spent the next seven years conducting field research in Athens and Rome, financed at first by her father and then by a fellowship from the German Archeological Institute. After returning to Germany during World War I, she taught a seminar at the University of Berlin, without pay, on behalf of her mentor who had suffered a stroke, and she temporarily took charge of his research institute; nonetheless, as a woman, she remained ineligible for appointment as his successor. Soon after the war, Bieber received an offer of a lectureship from the University of Giessen and submitted a manuscript on the ancient Greek theater as her Habilitationsschrift. Because her position was unsalaried, her family continued to support her for several more years, but after losing their wealth due to inflation, they could no longer afford to do so. Eventually, she received a modest stipend from the state, which helped cover her living expenses. She lectured on ancient cities, Greek and Roman art, and Greek mythology; she also conducted research excursions exploring Roman provincial art in Germany, directed an archeological institute, and published numerous articles and books. In 1923, she became an untenured as-
Professional Quest and Career Options
| 75
sistant professor, and in 1932 she was promised a promotion to the rank of full professor with her salary guaranteed for life. Instead, however, even though she was officially registered as an “Old Catholic,” she lost her job due to her Jewish ancestry and was forced to emigrate in order to continue her career.27 In certain respects, the scientific world remained even more hostile to women than did the humanities, yet a brilliant and highly motivated few succeeded in penetrating this male universe and overcoming barriers in order to gain scarce academic appointments in mathematics or natural sciences. Acquiring even an unpaid teaching or research position was a major challenge for Jewish women scientists or mathematicians; achieving a promotion was even more difficult. Marietta Blau, who earned her doctorate in physics at the University of Vienna in 1919, worked as an unpaid research assistant in the Radium Institute and then the Physics Institute in Vienna from 1923 to 1938. When her research on cosmic rays proved successful enough to win her several prestigious scientific awards, she requested an official academic appointment, or at least some form of paid employment, but was informed that “You are a woman and a Jew and together that is too much.”28 Some women scientists and mathematicians were more fortunate than Blau in gaining academic appointments, if not salaries to match.29 Six women of Jewish origin attained the rank of assistant professor and another ten became lecturers in science, math, or medicine in Germany before the Nazi era. Most, but not all, of these women had been baptized, and the majority remained single. By far the most outstanding examples are the physicist Lise Meitner at the University of Berlin and the mathematician Emmy Noether at Göttingen University.30 Their careers illustrate both the achievements and the frustrations of women scientists in academia in early twentieth-century Central Europe. After receiving her doctorate in physics from the University of Vienna summa cum laude in 1906, Lise Meitner decided to continue her studies under Max Planck at the University of Berlin. She also obtained an unpaid research position at the Chemistry Institute. At first, because she was a woman, she was not permitted to conduct her experiments in the regular laboratory or even to use the washroom facilities of the institute, but was relegated to a basement woodworking shop with a separate entrance and had to use the toilet in a restaurant down the street. Eventually, however, Meitner became an associate, and then a laboratory director, of the KaiserWilhelm-Institut für Chemie (or Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry). By 1926, she had been appointed untenured assistant professor at the University of Berlin, without having to write a Habilitation dissertation. Meitner’s career demonstrated that women scientists could make earthshaking discoveries without sacrificing their femininity and their humanity.
76
| , ,
She largely overcame discrimination against her as a woman in academia and willingly gave up family life in exchange for a successful research career, friendship, and collegiality in Central Europe. As an émigré in Sweden, however, she encountered loneliness and sexism, compounded by ageism. Although she eventually received various prestigious awards in recognition of her contributions to the discovery of nuclear fission, she was denied the Nobel Prize, which went to her research partner, the chemist Otto Hahn.31 Similarly, Emmy Noether, who is still widely recognized as one of the foremost women mathematicians of the twentieth century, never achieved the rank of tenured full professor at the University of Göttingen, but remained an assistant professor until her emigration to the United States in 1933. Noether received her doctorate in Erlangen in 1907. Until the war she worked without compensation at the Mathematical Institute of her alma mater, doing research and occasionally substituting for her father, Max Noether, in his lectures. During the war, she became a research and teaching assistant for David Hilbert in Göttingen but remained ineligible for an official appointment as Privatdozentin, despite her mentor’s intercessions on her behalf. Hilbert supposedly exclaimed at a faculty meeting, “I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission as Privatdozent. After all, we are a university, not a bathing establishment.”32 Nevertheless, Noether, after teaching and publishing for more than a decade, only received her venia legendi, or right to teach, in 1919, when she was allowed to submit and defend her Habilitationsschrift. In 1922, she gained the designation of unbeamteter ausserordentlicher Professor, or unofficial assistant professor, an empty title without the accompanying responsibilities and salary. Finally, she managed to get a teaching contract in algebra that provided her with a small but regular stipend for her teaching.33 Emmy Noether was a brilliant mathematician who nurtured and inspired many protégés. She refused to abandon her firm personal convictions as a socialist, a pacifist, and a Jew, as well as a scholar and teacher. Not concerned about conventional stereotypes, material things, dress, or appearances, she dedicated her life to her students and her research. Her qualifications for a professorship were indisputable given her international reputation and the caliber of the many students she trained. It has been suggested that Emmy Noether was denied tenure and a full professorship because she did not enjoy giving introductory lectures to undergraduates but preferred teaching seminars in abstract algebra for more advanced students.34 It is more likely, however, that she was prevented from receiving a permanent appointment and a promotion for a combination of other reasons: because she was a Jew, because she was a socialist, but, most of all, because she was a woman. Being a member of the Social Democratic Party and a pacifist certainly did not help when it came to gaining an academic promotion, but such po-
Professional Quest and Career Options
| 77
litical views did not prevent men from gaining tenure and the rank of full professor (Ordinarius). Being a Jew, especially an unbaptized Jew, definitely did not work in Noether’s favor. Unlike most other women and many men of Jewish descent who achieved academic appointments in Central Europe, Noether never left the Jewish community. Nonetheless, Jewish men certainly held tenured positions at universities in interwar Germany and Austria and also, on occasion, were appointed to full professorships. However, among the handful of Central European women who received promotion to full professorships before World War II, not a single one was of Jewish descent. Even Emmy Noether, a woman of exceptional brilliance, could not surmount the combined barriers of misogyny and antisemitism to reach the pinnacle of the academic hierarchy in Central Europe. The main obstacle preventing Noether’s advancement was neither her Jewishness nor her left-wing sympathies, but her gender. Male professors could be forgiven for being blunt, absentminded, unstylishly dressed, jovial, or outspoken, but such behavior was less acceptable for a woman professor. The numerous anecdotes that circulated about Der Noether, the masculine epithet by which she was called informally, tended to focus on her unfeminine appearance, manner, and dress, although her students, male and female, also recalled her motherly kindness and caring attitude. Emmy Noether’s mathematical genius often intimidated both her students and her colleagues, who may have compensated for their feelings of inadequacy by pointing to her gender and emphasizing her lack of conformity to many feminine stereotypes.35 Emmy Noether was the only woman included in the exhibit “Men of Modern Mathematics” at the 1964 World’s Fair; accompanying her portrait was the following text: Emmy Noether, daughter of the mathematician Max, was often called “Der Noether,” as if she were a man. Yet her Göttingen professorship carried no salary, and [David] Hilbert (her mentor) had to fight to get her—a woman—in at all. She was fat, rough, and loud, but so kind, humorous and sociable that all who knew her loved her.36
Although women of Jewish origin were able in some cases to attain teaching or research positions in the sciences, medicine, and the humanities, they were unable to gain access to the law faculty. By the same token, very few social scientists achieved prestigious academic appointments. Aside from Charlotte Bühler in psychology at the University of Vienna, the only other woman to hold a position in a social science at a major university was Charlotte Leubuscher in political science at the University of Berlin. Both women were of Jewish descent but had been baptized as children; hence Jewishness was not an obstacle to their careers before the Nazi era. Unbaptized Jewish women who were trained in political economy—
78
| , ,
including Elisabeth Altmann-Gottheiner, Käthe Bauer-Mengelberg, Julie Meyer, Cora Berliner, and Frieda Wunderlich—held teaching positions at various technical universities and post-secondary vocational and normal schools; in these less prestigious institutions, gender and Jewish origin seem to have been less of an impediment to hiring and promotion.37 In the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women’s colleges and medical schools, as well as departments of home economics or domestic science in public universities, provided job opportunities in higher education for women with doctorates. In Central Europe, separate training programs for women generally did not exist at the university level, but women with degrees in economics, public affairs, law, or education sometimes managed to find part-time, untenured teaching positions at post-secondary vocational institutions, including teachers’ training institutes and schools of social work, commerce, and continuing education for adults. For example, Elisabeth Altmann-Gottheiner, who was born in Berlin in 1874 and received her doctorate in economics from the University of Zurich in 1903, was appointed lecturer in public policy at the Handelshochschule (college of commerce) in Mannheim in 1908 and was granted the title of professor, if not the benefits of that position, in 1925, five years before her death. She was actively involved in German feminist organizations and published extensively on issues relating to women workers and also on woman’s suffrage.38 Full-time academic positions for women social scientists were rare in Central Europe, however. Some social scientists, including Frieda Wunderlich and Cora Berliner, were able to combine part-time teaching positions with their primary jobs as civil servants or researchers. Frieda Wunderlich, who was born in Berlin in 1884 and began studying economics at the University of Berlin in 1910, received her doctorate in political science summa cum laude from the University of Freiburg in 1919. During World War I, she interrupted her studies to head a division of the National Women’s Service dealing with public and private welfare work. Thereafter, she worked for the Brandenburg War Department for Labor and Welfare as a specialist in industrial protection of women and employment counseling, and then for the Central Board for Foreign Relief, responsible for the distribution of food and textiles from abroad.39 Frieda Wunderlich lectured at a variety of educational institutions, including Alice Salomon’s Women’s School for Social Welfare and the Graduate School for Civil Administrators. In 1930, she was appointed professor of sociology and social politics at the Vocational Pedagogical Institute in Berlin. As well as being an adjunct professor, civil servant, and public policy expert, Wunderlich also became a prominent political figure within the liberal German Democratic Party (DDP). Her varied jobs as researcher, editor, consultant, politician, and professor illustrate the flexibility that was often necessary for a
Professional Quest and Career Options
| 79
university woman if she was to adapt to different economic and personal circumstances.40 Cora Berliner, who received her doctorate from Heidelberg summa cum laude in 1916, was another social scientist remembered primarily for her public service role rather than as an educator in Central Europe. Between 1919 and 1933, she held various civil service offices within the German Economics Ministry, including assistant director of its Statistical Bureau; she achieved the rank of Regierungsrat (privy councillor), an unusual distinction for a woman, especially a woman with strong Jewish commitments. During the Nazi era, she occupied the highest administrative job held by a woman within the Jewish community: head of the economic and social affairs department, as well as the statistical department, of the Reichsvertretung, the umbrella organization of German Jewry. In 1930, Berliner was appointed to a professorship in economics at the Technische Hochschule (Polytechnical Institute) in Berlin. After 1934 she taught at a Jewish teacher training institute and also gave lectures for Jewish social workers and educators. As with other women social scientists, teaching and research made up only a small portion of Cora Berliner’s multi-faceted career.41 THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF WOMEN LAWYERS Even more than academia and other branches of civil service employment, law was a notoriously difficult field for women to break into in Central Europe. Since women lawyers were only admitted into the bar in 1922, they had very limited opportunities to establish themselves in legal careers before the Nazi era. Although a disproportionately high percentage of women law students in Germany and Austria were Jews, very few Jewish women actually practiced law in Central Europe. According to official census data, fifteen Jewish women made up 40 percent of the women lawyers in Prussia in 1925 and thirty-two Jewish women comprised 13 percent of all women lawyers in Germany in 1933.42 A few of these lawyers qualified as judges at the lowest court level; others worked in male-owned law practices or as legal aid counselors. Some women with law degrees, like Margarete Meseritz (Muehsam-Edelheim), pursued careers in journalism or other non-legal fields. Marie Munk and Margarete Berent, two of the earliest women law graduates in Germany, both received their doctorates before 1914 but, as women, were ineligible to take bar examinations. Munk accepted an unpaid clerkship in a law office in Bonn, where she interviewed clients, prepared briefs, and tried cases in lower courts under the supervision of other lawyers. She then worked in a Legal Aid Clinic for Women in Munich, providing free advice to women, especially in domestic relations cases dealing
80
| , ,
with divorce, child custody, and property, and defending the rights of unwed mothers and their children. During World War I, she returned to her parents’ home in Berlin and worked as a voluntary legal assistant to the mayor of Berlin-Schöneberg. She became actively involved in the National Women’s Service and the Division of Women within the War Department, handling problems of social welfare.43 Similarly, Margarete Berent worked as a legal assistant in several law offices and also in a legal rights bureau for women in Berlin before World War I. During the war, she served as a war relief volunteer for the district of Schöneberg and also worked in the legal department of the General Electric Company (AEG).44 Soon after the war, Munk and Berent were among the first women to pass their initial bar examinations, which enabled them to continue their legal apprenticeship training with the status of Referendar (junior lawyer). Marie Munk took her final Assessor examination in 1923 and received an appointment in the Prussian Ministry of Justice, but was dismissed the following year. After being admitted to the Berlin bar association, she set up her own law practice, which handled mainly women clients, many of whom were indigent. She often dealt with family relations cases, especially divorce, custody, adoption, support, and separation agreements. Likewise, Margarete Berent, after passing her final bar examinations in 1925 at the age of thirty-eight, established her own practice in Berlin, specializing in family and commercial law and trying to promote legal equality for women by reforming marriage legislation. Whereas Berent continued to practice law in Germany until 1933, Munk achieved her dream of becoming a municipal court judge in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1929 and was promoted to the Superior Court a year later; she was proudly following in her father’s judicial footsteps. Munk’s appointment to a “life-time” salaried position as a judge was highly unusual for a woman and was undoubtedly facilitated by the fact that she had been baptized as a child. As a “non-Aryan,” however, she realized in April 1933 that her days as a judge were numbered and dared not enter the courthouse again. Granted a “leave of absence,” she traveled to the United States and made arrangements for her subsequent emigration.45 Another woman lawyer who aspired to become a judge was Erna Aronsohn Proskauer. After completing her law studies in 1926 and passing her first state bar exam in 1929 at age twenty-six, she became an unpaid probationary judge in the county court of Berlin-Schöneberg and also worked as a legal administrator in a land registry office. Unlike Marie Munk but like most other women judges-in-training, she never received a permanent judicial appointment. As a civil servant married to a lawyer, Proskauer was subject to dismissal as a “double earner,” but since her position was unsalaried and provisional, she continued to work until she received official notice in April 1933 that, as both a Jew and a woman, she had been granted “an indefinite leave of absence.”46
Professional Quest and Career Options
| 81
Misogyny exacerbated by antisemitism made it very difficult for Jewish women lawyers to attain permanent civil service positions or even to advance within a male-dominated law firm. Very few Jewish women lawyers were able to establish themselves in legal careers in Central Europe before the Nazi era, since there was simply not enough time for them to find a secure professional niche between 1922, when women first became eligible for admission to the bar, and 1933, when Jews began to be dismissed from their jobs on racial grounds. In that year, women made up less than 2 percent of the lawyers; and women judges totaled under 1 percent of the judges and prosecutors in Germany. Most women lawyers in interwar Central Europe remained on the bottom rungs of the legal professional ladder, and married women lawyers, like Erna Proskauer, faced a particularly precarious situation due to regulations against “double earners,” which were sporadically enforced. Clearly, women lawyers did not present serious economic competition for their male colleagues.47 PRACTICING MEDICINE In contrast to education, academia, and the judiciary, medicine provided a much more hospitable field for Jewish women, as it did for Jewish men. In the early twentieth century, Jewish men made up roughly 15 percent of all male physicians in Germany, whereas on the eve of World War I, approximately one-quarter of the licensed women physicians in Germany were Jews.48 Among the practicing physicians in Germany in 1933, 5,557 were Jews by religious affiliation; 4,970 Jewish men made up 11 percent of the male physicians, and 587 Jewish women comprised about 14 percent of the female physicians. Based on Nazi classification, however, roughly 17 percent of the members of the German medical profession, but 36 percent of physicians in large cities, both male and female, were considered “nonAryans.” In Vienna, 65 percent of the physicians, or 3,200 out of 4,900, including at least 400 women, were so classified as well. Women represented only 8.5 percent of all physicians in Germany in the thirties, yet Jewish women comprised 12 percent of the medical emigration from Central Europe.49 About half of the Jewish women physicians whom I have researched had private medical practices, a quarter worked in hospitals or clinics, and roughly 10 percent each were in public health and medical research. The remainder had not yet established themselves in careers before the Nazi takeover.50 Completing one’s training after receiving a doctorate in medicine and passing state examinations was not always easy. Internships, research assistantships, and residencies were often difficult to obtain for women, especially Jewish women. These positions were also frequently unpaid.51 During World War I when many male physicians were drafted,
82
| , ,
new job opportunities opened up temporarily for women physicians in hospitals, clinics, and even in rural medical practices.52 During the interwar years, however, antisemitism increased and employment competition was very stiff. This extremely tight job market by no means favored either women or Jews. Due to wartime circumstances, Erna Stein (Biberstein), a gynecologist who passed her state medical boards in 1914, was able to find a series of internships and residencies with relative ease. Her daughter described her mother’s experiences as follows: The outbreak of the war . . . propelled her immediately into a busy residency which might not have been accessible to a woman in peace time; but since most of the young male doctors had been called up, there was urgent demand for the young women. Mother used to ride the ambulance or make house calls, day or night, to deliver babies or perform minor surgical procedures. In those days, a normal delivery was supervised by a midwife, and only when complications arose did the midwife summon a physician. Erna and her friend Lilli Platau were serving their residency together. The chief of service may have had his prejudices about women doctors, but he could not get along without them now, and he had to admit, if grudgingly, that these two young women knew their stuff and were not afraid of long hours and hard work.53
After the war, Erna Stein Biberstein set up a private gynecological practice in her Breslau home. The varied career of Käte Frankenthal illustrates the range of employment options available to women physicians during and after World War I. Like Erna Stein, Frankenthal passed her state exam in 1914 and found an unpaid internship at a university clinic in her hometown of Kiel. After the war broke out, she accepted a residency at a large Berlin hospital that had many women physicians on staff, working alongside older male physicians. She soon decided to take a position as a provincial doctor, replacing a man who had been drafted into the army; this way, she could earn more money. Frankenthal treated male as well as female patients, since no other doctors were available. The presence of a woman physician, especially one who smoked cigars and drank beer in the local tavern, caused a minor scandal in the small town. Frankenthal then applied for a job as a military physician. She soon learned that because she was not eligible for appointment to the officer rank physicians normally received, she could only become an army nurse. Since the German army refused to accept a woman physician, she volunteered for the Austrian army instead and served in the Carpathian Mountains and then on the Balkan front, finding herself to be the only woman in the barracks.54
Professional Quest and Career Options
| 83
Toward the end of the war, Frankenthal returned to Berlin, where she worked at the Charité Hospital as an unpaid research assistant at the Institute for Cancer Research and as a resident directing a women’s ward and treating tuberculosis patients in a clinic. She also opened her own private practice, in which she treated mainly women, many of whom were welfare patients. As an active member of the Social Democratic Party, she was in charge of a first aid station helping the injured in the 1919 civil war, working with other medics under a Red Cross flag. She later served as a municipal deputy representing the Tiergarten district in the Berlin city council. In 1924, women physicians were dismissed from their positions at the Charité in order to make room for war veterans, but Frankenthal nevertheless continued to do research in the Pathological Institute and to work in the University Women’s Clinic. She turned down an offer of a research position that had the potential of leading to Habilitation at the University of Greifswald because she feared hostility against her as an unconventional woman, a Jew, and a socialist in a small, conservative academic community. Like most Jewish women physicians, she preferred to remain in a larger, more cosmopolitan city.55 As a physician as well as a Social Democratic politician, Käte Frankenthal became actively involved in the campaign for sex reform legislation in Germany, advocating rescinding the laws against abortion and homosexuality and promoting the establishment of marital counseling bureaus to provide sex education and birth control advice. In 1928, she gave up her busy medical practice in order to become the municipal physician for the working-class district of Berlin-Neukölln. Although she received a lower income as a civil servant than in private practice, her new position offered her job security and eligibility for a pension.56 Dismissed from her job in March 1933, Frankenthal managed to escape arrest for her political activities by fleeing to Prague, and later to Switzerland and Paris, before emigrating to the United States in 1936. She eventually set up a private psychoanalytic practice in New York, specializing in marriage counseling and family therapy.57 Käte Frankenthal was a large and physically imposing woman with the image of an enfant terrible. Her contemporaries described her as a cigar smoker, whiskey drinker, and sports enthusiast, with manly bearing and masculine attire. According to her memoirs and her biographers, she remained happily unmarried and childless, and was fiercely proud of her indifference to cooking, cleaning, childcare, beauty, and other feminine concerns. She differed from most Jewish women physicians in temperament and personal lifestyle, but not in many of her career choices. There is little doubt that she was stubborn, assertive, and staunchly independent, yet despite her rather exceptional personality, her professional trajectory after World War I was not atypical for Jewish women doctors in Central Europe.
84
| , ,
Like most women physicians, she spent at least part of her career in private practice, treating mainly women patients. She was interested in doing medical research and published several articles, yet she was reluctant to accept an unsalaried academic position with an uncertain future. As we shall see in Chapter 6, her commitment to socialism and feminism, as well as her active support for the birth control movement, were by no means unusual among Jewish women physicians; these commitments often distinguished them from their non-Jewish female medical colleagues. Becoming a municipal physician offered women a certain degree of job security in precarious economic times, but eventually Frankenthal, like many other Jewish women with medical degrees, turned to mental health, and particularly psychoanalysis, as the final stage of her career.58 As was the case elsewhere in Europe and in the United States, the early generations of female physicians in Central Europe, both Jews and nonJews, treated primarily women and children.59 Among the licensed women physicians in Germany before World War I, 14 percent specialized in gynecology, 12 percent in pediatrics, and another 8 percent had practices specifically limited to women and children. During the interwar years, the percentage of women gynecologists declined considerably but the proportion of pediatricians remained fairly constant.60 Like the majority of women physicians in Germany, Jewish women physicians tended to establish private practices, often in their own homes and occasionally shared with their husbands or fathers. Most of the general practitioners in this study, like Rahel Goitein Straus in Munich and Henriette Magnus Necheles in Wandsbek near Hamburg, treated mainly working-class women and children, with much of their caseload being patients covered by state health insurance for workers. Others, however, including Irma Klausner-Cronheim in Berlin, treated more affluent and male patients as well. Like other family physicians of their day, they developed a loyal following of devoted patients who turned to them for personal advice as well as medical care.61 Jewish physicians were more likely than other German physicians to develop a medical specialization, but Jewish medical women did not specialize as frequently as Jewish men. Women who became specialists generally chose among a relatively limited number of fields; Jewish women opted especially for psychiatry and pediatrics, but also gynecology, ophthalmology, and dermatology. Some specialized in internal medicine, but very few considered surgery or orthopedics as a realistic option for a woman physician. Jewish men branched out into a wider range of medical subfields, including surgery, but often gravitated toward internal medicine, as well as psychiatry. A much higher proportion of Jewish men than Jewish women held university appointments in academic medicine.62
Professional Quest and Career Options
| 85
Most of the Jewish women who worked in institutional settings were recent university graduates who opted to do hospital residencies in order to specialize or gain further training and experience before setting up their own practices. Among the physicians in this study, unmarried women were less likely than their married colleagues to be in private practice and more inclined to hold paid positions in hospitals or other institutions, or else to work as school physicians or as medical researchers. Some women held jobs as directors of university or private clinics, marriage counseling or birth control centers, or other medical facilities. Hertha Einstein Nathorff, for example, ran a maternity hospital and then a marriage counseling center, and Martha Wygodzinski directed a home for unwed mothers in Berlin. Frieda (Fromm-)Reichmann briefly headed her own kosher mental sanatorium in Heidelberg, sometimes jokingly referred to as the “Thorapeutikum,” since it combined psychiatric treatment with Jewish observance based on the Torah,63 while Helene Rosenbach Deutsch was director of the Training Institute of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. Jewish women physicians made up a disproportionately large percentage of those women physicians who worked actively on behalf of the sex reform movement, especially as founders of birth control and marriage counseling bureaus, as well as supporters of the movement to legalize abortion.64 About one in ten physicians in this study held civil service positions, some as school doctors and others as public health officials. Nearly all of these women belonged to the older age cohort and, in most cases, worked for Social Democratic municipal governments. The historian Atina Grossmann provides a variety of reasons why German women physicians, including Jews, were attracted to public health positions: Breaking into lucrative independent practice required substantial capital outlay as well as “old boy” contacts for referrals, and women rarely penetrated the hallowed halls of academic medicine. Women with families appreciated a steady time-limited job with minimal high stakes medical drama. Furthermore, married women physicians could rely on the substantial incomes of their spouses to maintain a comfortable standard of living. . . . Excluded from the higher ranks of the profession, professional women negotiated their multiple commitments by accepting compromises in their careers which in turn often led to low-status, low-paid, but personally and politically rewarding, public health employee positions.65
Approximately one-quarter of the Jewish women physicians under consideration eventually specialized in some aspect of mental health. Even more than male Jewish physicians in Central Europe, there was a marked tendency among Jewish women with medical degrees to gravitate toward
86
| , ,
psychiatry or psychotherapy as a specialty. Mental health constituted a fairly new medical field that had relatively low professional status and hence was somewhat more open to female practitioners than more traditional specializations. Some women evidently felt more comfortable and self-confident dealing with patients’ mental problems than with their physical ailments.66 Other women physicians undoubtedly decided to enter psychoanalytic training, especially to study and work with Freud in Vienna, in order to understand and cope better with their own personal problems.67 Their high frequency in choosing psychiatry or psychotherapy as a specialty made female Jewish medical doctors, as well as their Jewish male counterparts, significantly different from their non-Jewish colleagues in Central Europe.68 While in medical school, Margaret Schoenberger (Mahler) had decided to become a pediatrician because, as she explained, that specialty “would enable me to be what my father was [a practicing physician], while simultaneously accommodating my desire—perhaps my outstanding ‘feminine’ trait—to work with children.”69 After completing her doctorate at the University of Jena in 1922 and passing her Austrian state licensing exam the following year, she continued her pediatric training as an intern and research assistant working for Clemens von Pirquet at his well-known children’s clinic in Vienna. Pirquet refused to promote a woman to resident status, however, and even complained about Schoenberger wearing her glasses while working at his clinic! She recalled him saying: “I will never have a woman as an assistant [i.e. a resident]. You are very smart, and I like you very much, but if one is a woman, and especially if one looks like you, one should marry and have children.”70 Realizing that she had little future in Pirquet’s clinic and feeling dissatisfied with what she regarded as his sterile methods of treating sick children, Schoenberger established a private pediatric practice in her tiny apartment, which consisted of only a large dining room and a small anteroom that served as both office and living quarters. She also became affiliated with the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and underwent the required training analysis, first with Helene Deutsch and then with August Aichhorn and Willi Hoffer, two male disciples of Freud. Her practice flourished, but she was constantly worried about the sick children in her charge, many of whom required hospitalization. After she began adding analytic cases to her pediatric case load, she felt great relief when her burgeoning work in child analysis permitted her to taper off her pediatric management of very ill children. In addition, the City of Vienna appointed her to be a youth and welfare physician; she also conducted research on juvenile delinquents in Aichhorn’s child guidance centers and became an expert on the administration of Rorschach tests. In emigration after 1938, building upon her training and experience in Vienna, Margaret Schoenberger Mahler was able to establish an even more successful career
Professional Quest and Career Options
| 87
as a child analyst in New York, becoming a highly respected teacher, clinician and researcher.71 As is widely known, Jews dominated the early psychoanalytic movement, not only in Vienna but in Germany as well. By the interwar years, many of the psychotherapists were women. Although some women psychoanalysts, including Anna Freud and Melanie Reizes Klein, did not have university degrees, most held doctorates in medicine. Some of the more prominent physicians who became psychiatrists or psychotherapists were Therese Friedmann Benedek, Grete Lehner Bibring, Hilde Bruch, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, Edith Jacobson, Marianne Rie Kris, Marie Glas Langer, and Annie Pink Reich, in addition to Helene Rosenbach Deutsch and Margaret Schoenberger Mahler. The growing trend among Central European Jewish women physicians toward careers in mental health intensified even further among émigrés.72 In general, women physicians, whether Jewish or non-Jewish, found themselves in less prestigious fields of medicine and in less lucrative practices than male physicians with the same educational background, including many of their husbands. Nevertheless, nearly all of the women within this study who became licensed physicians before the advent of the Nazi regime were gainfully employed within the medical profession, even after their marriages. Like their male counterparts, however, those women who completed their medical training in the thirties in Germany or in Austria had great difficulty embarking on their medical careers in Central Europe. The first two generations of Jewish university women in Germany and Austria faced daunting challenges in establishing careers for themselves in the early twentieth century. Among the women researched, physicians comprised the largest, as well as the most successful, professional group. In public education, academia, and other civil service fields, antisemitism often restricted employment opportunities, especially before World War I, but job prospects improved somewhat during and immediately after the war. In the 1920s and the early 1930s, however, as the economic situation deteriorated and competition for scarce jobs increased dramatically, being a woman was a distinct disadvantage for most positions, and being Jewish presented an additional disability, which frequently went unacknowledged. Single women were more likely than their married counterparts to hold full-time, paid positions, although many unmarried women continued to hold unsalaried posts and receive financial support from their families. The older generation of university women, born before the turn of the century, had much greater opportunities to pursue their career goals than members of the younger cohort. As we shall see in the next chapter, they were less likely to marry and to have children, and often chose to devote their lives to their professional careers instead. Because they had time to
88
| , ,
complete the lengthy training and internship process, members of the older group could explore a wider variety of job options. Due to the inflationary spiral of the twenties and then the Great Depression, the younger generation could not count on as much financial backing from their families at the time they were seeking jobs, and they faced stiffer competition and increasing antisemitism in the workplace. Although most managed to complete their doctorates, they often did not have the opportunity to acquire full professional certification or job experience before the Nazi era. A higher proportion of the younger generation eventually married, in part perhaps because they could not rely on their own ability to support themselves.
1. Lise Meitner with her family, Vienna, 1887. Nine-year-old Lise in center with doll. All of the children in this photograph received some form of higher education. Churchill Archives Centre, Meitner Papers. Courtesy Churchill College and Mrs. Ulla Frisch.
2. Hilde Bruch and her siblings, Dülken, 1910. Six-year-old Hilde third from the right. Courtesy Herbert and Joanne Bruch.
3. Erna and Edith Stein as young girls, Breslau, ca. 1901. Courtesy Susanne Batzdorff.
4. Hannah Arendt (age 8) with her mother, Königsberg, ca. 1914. Courtesy Hannah Arendt Literary Trust.
5. Käthe Leichter as a young girl, Vienna, ca. 1904. Courtesy Verein für Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung, Wien.
6. Marie Jahoda’s school class in Vienna, 1921. Marie in top row, second from the right. Courtesy Marie Jahoda.
7. Cora Berliner (on the left) with her mother and sister, Berlin, ca. 1910. Courtesy Leo Baeck Institute.
8. Clara Immerwahr as a young woman, Breslau, ca. 1890. Courtesy Archiv zur Geschichte der MaxPlanck-Gesellschaft, BerlinDahlem.
9. Rahel Goitein as a student at the Karlsruhe Girls’ Gymnasium, 1896. Courtesy Leo Baeck Institute.
10. Selma Stern as a student in Heidelberg, ca. 1912. Courtesy Susi Saltiel.
11. Archeologist Margarete Bieber reading in her lodgings, 1906. Collection of the late Margarete Bieber.
12. Social work educator Alice Salomon, Berlin, 1904. Portrait taken for ICW Congress, inscribed on back with words “My fatherland is where I am useful.” Courtesy May Wright Sewall Collection, Library of Congress.
13. Physicist Lise Meitner and chemist Otto Hahn in their woodworking shop/laboratory, Berlin, ca. 1909. Courtesy Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin-Dahlem.
14. Medical researcher Rahel Hirsch in her laboratory, Berlin, 1910. Courtesy Leo Baeck Institute.
15. Physician and child analyst Margaret Schoenberger (Mahler), Vienna, 1920s. One of the first Viennese women physicians to buy a car to make housecalls. Margaret S. Mahler Papers, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library.
16. Below: Lawyer and judge Marie Munk, Berlin, 1925. Courtesy Ullstein Bild.
17. Philosopher, later nun, Edith Stein, Breslau, 1926. Courtesy Susanne Batzdorff.
18. Mathematician Emmy Noether, untenured assistant professor, Göttingen, ca. 1930. Courtesy Niedersächsische Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Sammlung Voit: E. Noether.
19. Marriage of physicians Helene Ziegelroth and Wilhelm Stoeltzner, Berlin, 1904. Helene’s sister and two of her brothers pictured here were also physicians. Courtesy Helmut and Rochelle Lecke.
20. Physician Felix Deutsch and psychoanalyst Helene (Rosenbach) Deutsch at the time of their marriage, Vienna, 1912. Estate of Helene Deutsch.
21. Hans Tietze and Erica Tietze-Conrat, by Oskar Kokoschka, 1909. Both husband and wife were prolific art historians in Vienna. Oil on canvas. Courtesy The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund. (Photograph © 2000 The Museum of Modern Art, New York.)
22. Bacteriologist Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner, with her husband and children, Berlin, ca. 1906. Archiv Kempner.
23. Reichstag deputy Toni Sender campaigning for the Social Democratic Party in Frankfurt, ca. 1928. Courtesy Institut für Stadtgeschichte, Stadt Frankfurt a.M.
24. Social Democratic Physicians’ Association Conference, Leipzig, 1931. Käte Frankenthal in the center front. Courtesy Archiv der sozialen Demokratie der Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, Bonn.
25. Romance philologist Elise Richter, first woman professor at the University of Vienna, in the 1930s. Courtesy Gidal-Bildarchiv im Steinheim-Institut, Duisberg.
26. Physician Erna Stein Biberstein, New York, ca. 1939. Courtesy Susanne Batzdorff.
27. Pediatrician Selma Meyer, New York, ca. 1939. The only woman professor of pediatrics in Germany. Courtesy Ruth Thalheimer.
28. Psychiatrist Hilde Bruch, New York, 1945. Courtesy Herbert and Joanne Bruch.
29. Below: Historian Selma Stern in Cincinnati in the early 1950s. Courtesy Susi Saltiel.
FIVE
The Marriage Plot: Career versus Family?
U
nlike most middle-class women in early twentieth-century Central Europe whose lives revolved around marriage and family, many career-minded university women decided not to marry or to postpone marriage until later in life. The norm for both Jewish and non-Jewish women was to marry by their mid-twenties and then to stay at home and raise their children. Even though the majority of Jewish university women within this study married, many did so at a later age than most women of that era and less than half had children. In most cases, their families remained small, but this was an increasingly common pattern among Central European Jewry as a whole by the interwar years. Some women managed to combine family and career, but many did not. Whether to marry, when to marry, and whom to marry are undoubtedly some of the most crucial decisions in any person’s life. These choices became especially decisive for a university woman, since they, in turn, helped determine whether or not she would pursue a professional career and then often shaped the nature and scope of that career. Jewish men in Central Europe generally married later than women, after they were already established in their careers, whereas women were likely to marry before they had a chance to develop their career potential. Jewish men in Prussia in 1925, for example, usually married slightly after they turned thirty, whereas the average marital age for Jewish women was twenty-six.1 Marriage was a plus for a man’s career, but often a detriment for a woman professional. Having a spouse, for a man, was unlikely to affect his career advancement adversely and indeed might well have enhanced it. By contrast, for a woman, getting married and having children severely restricted her job prospects. Middle-class social norms frowned upon working mothers and “double earners,” husbands and wives who both earned good incomes, especially as government employees or professionals. Since marriage generally obviated the need for middle-class women to work outside the
The Marriage Plot
|
109
home to earn a livelihood, married career women who chose to work were often criticized for taking away jobs from male heads of households and for neglecting their family duties. Although supportive husbands sometimes helped to advance their wives’ careers, in most cases married university women were overshadowed professionally by their spouses. Thus, marriage, and especially childbearing, tended to have negative effects on women’s professional lives in the early twentieth century, frequently interrupting their careers and reshaping their options. Nevertheless, in interwar Central Europe, some university women, particularly physicians, enjoyed unprecedented new opportunities for combining careers and families. As historian Atina Grossmann has pointed out: [M]iddle class professional women profited during the Weimar years from a transient historical conjuncture of traditional bourgeois privilege and radically expanded, albeit subordinate, employment opportunities. . . . Married women physicians enjoyed the privileges of comfortable homes, domestic help, and adequate childcare. Even their segregation and subordination within the medical profession usefully connected them both to female colleagues and women of other classes and, in many cases, radicalized them far beyond what would be expected of them by class origins or identification. For a highly visible minority of women, therefore, this liminal moment provided an extraordinary opportunity for integrating family, career, and social activism without overwhelming guilt or exhaustion.2
By and large, women physicians, who could often have their medical office in their homes, had a somewhat easier time combining career and family than most married female professionals in the early twentieth century; other university women, including educators and lawyers, had to overcome more obstacles if they tried to “have it all.” DECIDING NOT TO MARRY Not all young women intended to wed, however. Unlike on the American college scene after World War II, where most young women sought to acquire their “Mrs.” along with their B.A. degree, Central European women students generally did not view universities as a marriage market where they could meet a desirable mate and vicariously receive the title of Frau Doktor, rather than earn a doctorate on their own merits, becoming a Fräulein Doktor. For the most part, the women in this study did not go to university to find a husband; in many cases, they wanted to obtain an academic degree in order to become professionals and be able to support themselves, precisely because they were convinced they would never marry. Women entering university were often very uncertain about their marriage prospects and
110
| , ,
felt ambivalent about wanting to get married or have children. Especially among the older generation of Jewish university women, those born before the turn of the century, deciding to attend university often seemed to preclude, or at least diminish, the possibility of marriage. One of the major concerns of those opposed to higher education for women, including many parents of prospective university women, was that women with advanced degrees were less likely than other women to marry and have children.3 This fear of never having grandchildren was certainly a legitimate trepidation among the parents of Central European Jewish university women. More than a quarter of the university women in this study remained single throughout their lives. Among the older generation, as many as two out of five never married, but within the younger age cohort, only one out of six stayed single, although a large proportion did not marry until after they had left Central Europe during the Nazi era. Despite the fact that a fairly widespread feeling existed that suitable husbands might not be readily available for highly educated, upper middleclass Jewish women, in most cases the decision to remain unmarried was a personal choice, not due to a lack of potential marriage partners. The deaths of many young Jewish men during World War I certainly skewed the marriage market, especially for women born in the 1890s. In their memoirs, several university women mention boyfriends or fiancés who were killed or disabled during the war. In most of these cases, they eventually married other men, sometimes older or younger, whom they might not have married under different circumstances.4 Although many university women opted not to marry, there does not appear to have been a major surplus of Jewish women of marriageable age in Central Europe in the early twentieth century.5 University women of Jewish origin who remained single tended to be more highly assimilated into German culture and more likely to have been baptized or to have formally left the Jewish community than those who eventually married. Since such women would not necessarily have preferred Jewish spouses, they would, in theory at least, have had a somewhat wider pool of possible mates from which to choose, had they wished to do so. The views on marriage expressed by Alice Salomon and Marie Munk exemplify the attitudes of many Jewish university women who chose to remain single. Salomon, a social work educator, had already established her career before beginning her university studies in 1902 at the age of thirty. She did not marry, she claimed, because “I could not get the men I wanted and did not want the men I could get.”6 While in her twenties, it had never occurred to her that she would not marry, since the marriage tradition was so strong and she thought unmarried elderly women a bit “queer.” However, she never attracted the “right sort of man.” She described herself as neither good-looking nor wealthy, but serious and intellectual. She ex-
The Marriage Plot
|
111
pected men to live up to her ideals of equal moral standards for both sexes and was not unconventional enough to choose a mate without regard to social standing and prevalent class-consciousness. Although she fell in love several times, none of her attachments led to marriage. She concluded that since passion rarely lasted a lifetime, and given her “faculty for deep unhappiness,” it would have been a serious mistake for her to marry. Her commitment to her work had already estranged her from her middle-class background and values and made her reluctant to form a union that could not combine love with common interests and convictions.7 As Alice Salomon understood the situation, German women depended on marriage because they had few opportunities for work and because the civilization in which they lived stressed marriage as the exclusive career of women. She believed that married life was easier than life as a single woman, since the duties of a married woman were obvious and she need not make decisions about what to do with her life. Nonetheless, Salomon was convinced that some women were made to be single, and she was among them.8 Likewise, Marie Munk, one of the first women judges in Germany, never married because, she claimed, she was afraid that men would fall in love with her looks and not love her as a person. She felt that her burning quest for knowledge and for leading a useful life would hardly be fulfilled by being a wife, a homemaker, or even a mother; she needed other outlets and had a passion for freedom. She believed that since few women were strong enough to combine the responsibilities of wife and mother with those of an exacting job, she would have felt guilty attempting both a marriage and a career. Since she was convinced that an unhappy marriage would have crushed her completely, she dared not take the chance.9 According to Munk, there was less emphasis placed on getting married in Germany than in the United States in the early twentieth century. In Central Europe, a girl did not consider herself, and was not looked upon, as a failure if she remained a Fräulein (or “Miss”) and never became a Frau (or “Mrs.”). Many of her friends, Munk pointed out, were very attractive and did not lack opportunities, yet remained unmarried or married late in life.10 Some career women, like the physician Käte Frankenthal and the journalist and economist Toni Sender, both of whom were left-wing political activists, deliberately defied middle-class social conventions by not marrying, but had numerous sexual relationships. Frankenthal expressed interest in neither marriage nor motherhood. She asserted that sexuality did not pose a problem for her, since she lacked scruples about extra-marital relationships; she always allowed a place for sex in her life, but never allocated it a domineering role, wanting to avoid long-term commitments. Frankenthal claimed to have consciously chosen a housekeeper over a husband once she came to realize during a personal crisis that what she really needed was
112
| , ,
a wife. As she pointed out, “a husband would not have relieved me of the little problems of daily life, only increased them. . . . So I bought furniture, got a better apartment, and hired a housekeeper. Then I felt better again.”11 Similarly, Selma Meyer, the only female assistant professor of pediatrics in Germany, “did not have much time to spare for men.” According to Gerda Thalheimer, a cousin who knew her well, she often said that she had not married because “she did not want to play the servant girl for any man.”12 A few university women, like the physician Charlotte Wolff and the educators Hildegard Lion and Emmy Wolff, openly lived as lesbians and had long-term relationships, sometimes called “Boston marriages,” with other women.13 Homoerotic women who remained “in the closet” are, of course, impossible to identify with certainty. Not all university women agreed, however, that it was socially acceptable for a Jewish woman to decide not to marry. Edith Weisskopf(-Joelson), a psychologist who was twice married and divorced, made the following observation: Surely I have always wanted to get married, but mostly because society demands that women should do so, because Mother and most other people would view me as a failure were I to remain single, because I wanted to appear “normal” to Mother and to others. In order to achieve this disguise of marriage, however, I must marry a suitable partner. And to Mother, that would mean only a well-educated, cultural, intellectual man.14
DIFFICULT CHOICES Most university women undoubtedly thought about getting married at some point in their lives, although not all would choose marriage over a career.15 Those definitely planning to marry, or already engaged to be married by their early twenties, were often less concerned about completing their doctorate or preparing for a specific career than women who were less certain about marriage and wanted to keep all their options open.16 Some women worried that they might be forfeiting their marriage chances entirely, or at least delaying marriage and childbearing considerably, because of their decision to attend university. Rahel Goitein Straus, for example, recounted how, after she informed her boyfriend of her intention to study medicine, he exclaimed, “Then you will probably never marry!” She clearly understood that he was implying that he was not interested in marrying a “lady doctor,” but this threat did not deter her from pursuing her career goal and the two got married six years later.17 Selma Stern and Paula Odenheimer (Weiner), as women students at the University of Munich on the eve of World War I, also anticipated having to sacrifice marriage for careers. They even went so far as to make a pact
The Marriage Plot
|
113
around 1910 that, should neither of them ever marry, they would both have children out of wedlock, live together, and bring up their respective offspring, helping one another. As it turned out, both women eventually married, Odenheimer soon after she received her doctorate in 1914 and Stern thirteen years later. As we shall see, Selma Stern (Täubler) had a successful career as a historian, but no children, whereas Paula Odenheimer Weiner, an economist, had two children but no career.18 Many women gave up the prospect of a career as an educator when they decided to get married. Celibacy regulations for women teachers, which prevented married women from teaching in public schools, were enforced by nearly all state and municipal boards of education in Central Europe, at least before 1919, if not thereafter.19 Even in the post–World War I era, the majority of women teachers in public schools were single. Private schools tended to be more hospitable to married women, although relatively few teachers with full-time employment had children. The directors of educational institutions whom I researched were evenly divided between married and unmarried women. Most married Jewish women educators held only part-time jobs, however. Among the women in this study with doctorates in philosophy, many of whom aspired to careers in teaching or academia, almost 40 percent remained single; three out of four of these unmarried women belonged to the older generation. Furthermore, almost half of the women with degrees in the humanities or sciences who married remained childless. Hence, even though a majority of the women with Ph.D.’s married, only a third of them had children.20 Thus, the educators, scientists, and humanists who securely established themselves in professional careers in Central Europe tended to be unmarried, or at least childless, members of the older generation who gained a foothold in the job market that they did not relinquish until the Nazi era. Although significant exceptions existed,21 married women with children, like members of the younger age cohort of Ph.D.’s, generally held only part-time, freelance, or temporary positions. Due to antisemitism and job discrimination against “double earners,” they had little prospect for fulltime employment. The pioneers of the older generation had the advantage of entering the job market before, during, or immediately after World War I, when professional opportunities were opening up for women. During the interwar era, with growing competition from returning male veterans, steadily increasing numbers of university graduates, and skyrocketing unemployment especially due to the Great Depression, the economic situation seemed so bleak for Ph.D.’s that many women with limited job prospects undoubtedly found marriage an attractive and more realistic alternative to supporting themselves.
114
| , ,
The situation among the much smaller group of women with degrees in law, political science, or economics resembled that of the women with doctorates in philosophy, except that a higher proportion married and had children. As in the case of the humanists and scientists, the members of the older generation of social scientists and lawyers were more likely to remain single or childless and to carve out careers for themselves in Europe. The overwhelming majority of the younger generation never had the opportunity to establish themselves professionally before the Nazi era; most eventually married and had children. Among the women who did not complete their doctorates, these trends are even more pronounced.22 Even if they had earned professional certification in their field, very few married women without degrees maintained full-time jobs in Europe. In most cases, they consciously chose family over career. SACRIFICING CAREERS FOR MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN Female students generally regarded male students as colleagues and friends, rather than as potential spouses. Nonetheless, especially among the older generation, women who left university before receiving their doctorate or certification often did so because of a decision to marry someone whom they had met at university, whether a fellow student or a professor. The dropout rate for women enrolled in the philosophy faculty was considerably higher than in the medical faculty, since women medical students tended to be more highly motivated and committed to a career than women with less focused goals who realized they might have considerable difficulty pursuing a career, especially if they planned to marry.23 Among the women in this study who dropped out of university after at least two years without obtaining a certificate or doctorate, almost nine out of ten married and two-thirds had children.24 Most women of the older generation abandoned their studies around the time of their marriage due to pressure from their fiancé or spouse; they purposely opted for a family rather than a career. Among the members of the younger generation attending university in the 1930s, the reasons for not completing their degrees had little to do with marriage but can be attributed to the adverse conditions for Jewish students during the Nazi era. They did not quit, but were often expelled. Most of these women married soon thereafter, at least in part because their prospects for a career were virtually nonexistent in Central Europe. Among the youngest cohort of women born after 1910, only 5 percent never married; most married during the Nazi era and had children after emigration. It is striking to note that women who left university with no diploma in hand were much more likely than their counterparts who earned degrees not only to bear children but to raise larger families. Although dropouts
The Marriage Plot
|
115
comprise roughly one out of ten of the women whom I have researched, they make up about a quarter of all the mothers and a majority of the women with four or more children.25 More often than not, a woman who permanently interrupted her studies in order to marry did not pursue a career in Germany or Austria, but devoted her life to helping her husband and raising a family. Katia Pringsheim (Mann), for example, abandoned her study of natural sciences in 1905 at the age of twenty-one in order to marry the novelist Thomas Mann. She reflected in her memoir that although she was probably not as well suited to become a physicist or a mathematician as her father and brothers, Maybe I would have completed my studies and taken my degree. However, I had studied for only four or six semesters when I got married; soon after that the first baby arrived, and the second one right away, and very soon the third and fourth. That was the end of my studies.26
Katia Mann eventually had six children and spent the rest of her life as a full-time wife and mother. A different case is that of Charlotte Blau Kurrein, born in 1894, who studied physics and mathematics at the University of Berlin during World War I. She gave up her studies upon her marriage in 1917 because her husband, a professor at the Technische Hochschule (Polytechnical Institute) and later at the Technion in Haifa, insisted that “one academician in the family is enough.” Their daughter recalled that “my father used to give his books for comments to my mother before sending them to the publisher.” She added that “at that time it was quite unusual for women to take up a profession, so most probably [my mother] later did not feel ‘cheated’ out of a career. Post-war Germany with its enormous economic problems and [the difficulties in] raising a family would . . . not encourage such unorthodox thoughts.”27 In the early twentieth century, married women students were a relatively rare phenomenon at Central European universities, although some women managed to pass their state examinations or complete their dissertations after their marriage and even, on occasion, after the birth of children.28 At the time they received their doctorates, less than 10 percent of the women whom I researched were married, and under 3 percent had children. Among the handful of women who completed their degree more than five years after both marriage and childbirth was Rosy Bender Bodenheimer, who was born in 1900 and began studying history at the University of Heidelberg in 1920. She married in 1923, had her first child in 1925, and received her doctorate from Giessen in 1930. She wrote the following explanation in a letter:
116
| , ,
After I had studied a few semesters I got married. We lived at Darmstadt— not a university place. So it was hardly possible to continue at that time. Later we moved to Giessen with its university, where I continued my studies and made my doctorate—a month before having twins.29
Rosy Bodenheimer did not have a career in Europe, but became a university librarian after emigrating to the United States. Another woman who returned to university quite a few years after marriage and childbirth in order to finish her degree was Margarete David (Sallis-)Freudenthal. Born in 1893 in Speyer (Rhineland), she began studying art history and then economics in 1914, but left university upon her marriage in 1917. At the outset of her married life, Margarete Freudenthal felt very inadequately prepared for her new responsibilities as a homemaker since she, like many other Jewish university women from comfortable middle-class backgrounds, had very little practical knowledge of housekeeping. While married, in addition to helping her law professor husband by transcribing and copyediting his manuscripts, she became increasingly interested in learning more about the theory and the practice of household management and began collecting references and publishing articles on the subject. After the death of her husband, although she still had a young child, she returned to university to complete her degree in sociology and received her doctorate in 1933. Her dissertation was a landmark study of the history of domestic economy in Germany. Freudenthal eventually emigrated to Palestine, where she remarried, but she never managed to develop a paying career based on her expertise in household management.30 Several women who married as students succeeded in carving out professional careers for themselves, but these were rather exceptional cases of very determined individuals with somewhat unusual marriages, such as the historian Hedwig Guggenheimer Hintze, who married twelve years before receiving her doctorate, and the psychologist Charlotte Malachowski Bühler, who married and had her first child before she finished her degree. Another example is the psychoanalyst Melanie Reizes Klein. At the age of fourteen, Reizes had decided to study medicine, but once she became engaged at seventeen, she abandoned her plans for a medical career and enrolled in courses in art and art history instead. She dropped out of university to marry in 1903 at the age of twenty-one, and had three children before separating from her engineer husband. Although she never earned a degree and always regretted not becoming qualified as a doctor, Melanie Klein became prominent as a pioneer in the field of child analysis, first in Budapest, then in Berlin and, after 1926, in London. It is unlikely, however, that Klein would have been able to fashion such a remarkable career had her marriage to a professional in an unrelated field not dissolved.31
The Marriage Plot
|
117
Most Jewish university women who married did so after they had completed their degrees, even though that sometimes meant a prolonged engagement period, but the majority married less than five years after receiving their doctorates. Women who became mothers tended to marry at a younger age and to have children within five to ten years of completing their university studies, whereas those who remained childless often married later, in a third of the cases ten or more years after obtaining their degrees. It stands to reason, therefore, that many university women, especially those who had children, did not have the opportunity to establish themselves firmly in careers before their marriage and encountered considerable obstacles in continuing professional pursuits after marriage and especially after childbirth. Roughly two out of three married women in this study eventually had children; 40 percent of the mothers belonged to the older generation and 60 percent to the younger generation. Since about two-thirds of the younger age cohort bore their children after the onset of the Nazi era, they did not have the option of combining family and career in Central Europe before World War II. The analysis that follows therefore focuses mainly on the marriages and careers of women of the older generation, born before the turn of the century. The decision to marry and, in many cases, give up the possibility of a full-time career was by no means an easy one for women who had worked so hard to earn their degrees and were eager to apply the knowledge and skills they had acquired. Clara Immerwahr (Haber), for example, born in 1870, was the first woman to receive her doctorate in chemistry at the University of Breslau in 1900. She was an enthusiastic researcher who, even before completing her degree, had published numerous articles in professional journals. In 1901, however, she reluctantly accepted a proposal of marriage from a fellow chemist, Fritz Haber, whom she had known since childhood when they attended the same dancing classes and had met again at a scientific congress. Although she was well aware that she might not be well suited for married life, she explained her decision as follows: It was always my conception of life that it was only worthwhile to have lived if one could develop all one’s abilities to the fullest and experience as much as possible everything that a human life can offer. And therefore I finally decided to marry at that time under the impulse that otherwise a crucial page in the book of my life and a side of my soul would lie fallow.32
But after her marriage, she longed for her lab work and could not imagine a life without involvement in scientific research. In 1902, after giving birth to her only child following a difficult pregnancy, she commented in a letter to
118
| , ,
her former advisor that “I would rather write another ten doctoral dissertations instead of having to suffer so much.”33 Her husband dedicated one of his books to her “with thanks for her quiet collaboration,” but he gradually excluded her from his professional life and their relationship deteriorated. While Fritz Haber rose to the rank of full professor and director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin, Clara Haber taught occasional adult education courses to women and gave lectures on topics such as “Physics and Chemistry in the Household.” When she realized that her husband no longer respected her opinions or her scholarly knowledge and only valued her role as a homemaker, she began to feel increasingly despondent and isolated. Clara Immerwahr Haber committed suicide in 1915, at least in part as a protest against her husband’s role in the development of gas warfare during World War I. Her marriage might well have been a mistake; it destroyed her career and perhaps her life as well.34 Other women with doctorates who had hoped for a professional career prior to their marriage also had to give up these aspirations under pressure from their husbands. Paula Odenheimer Weiner, who received her degree in political science and economics in 1914, married the same year and had her first child the following year. During the war, she worked for the Ministry of the Interior in Berlin, while her husband served in the army and her mother and sister took care of her baby daughter. When her husband returned after the war and opened his law practice in a small town, Paula Weiner wanted to continue working in her field, but her husband argued that this would reflect badly on him and his financial condition, so she capitulated to his wishes. She felt that she owed an obligation to her two children to be a full-time mother. Perhaps, her daughter reflected, she also lacked the energy and the temperament to battle such hindrances during the 1920s. When she applied for a job as a statistician after emigrating to Palestine in 1933, she was told that her skills were outmoded because the field of statistics had changed over the twenty years. She stayed a housewife, albeit against her will.35 SEEKING COMPANIONATE MARRIAGES Married university women, especially those who had earned degrees and professional certification, were frequently not satisfied with becoming fulltime homemakers like their mothers, devoting their lives to looking after the needs of their husbands and children, and utilizing their academic expertise only when editing their husbands’ manuscripts or helping out in the office. Unlike women of their mothers’ generation who accepted traditional marriages, often to older men with whom they had little in common, university-educated women generally sought companionate marriage partners
The Marriage Plot
|
119
closer in age who shared their interests and respected their professional commitments and aspirations. Even if, in many cases, marriage meant giving up full-time employment outside the home, at least temporarily, women with higher education usually tried to maintain their involvement in intellectual or professional pursuits, if only on a part-time or freelance basis. As a general rule, university women rejected their parents’ more traditional marriages as role models for their own. They almost unanimously disavowed the notion of arranged marriages or dowries, wanting to marry for love and companionship and not appearing greatly concerned about status or money. Highly educated women tended to marry somewhat later in life than their mothers or their less educated sisters. Less then a third of the women in this study married before they reached the age of twenty-five; the majority married in their late twenties or early thirties; and almost 15 percent married for the first time when they were over thirty-five. They did not always seek or obtain parental approval of their prospective spouses. Quite a few chose to get married in civil, rather than religious, ceremonies, even if they were marrying Jews.36 Jewish university women usually married men with similar class and religious, as well as educational, backgrounds. The majority married professional Jewish males who were at least nominally affiliated with the Jewish community. Women of Jewish origin who had been baptized as children tended to marry baptized Jewish men or else Christians from birth.37 Less than 10 percent of the marriages within this study can be classified as intermarriages. Thus, although marriages between Jewish university women and Christian men did occur, the intermarriage rate among university women did not exceed the overall rate of intermarriage for Jewish women in Germany in the early twentieth century, which increased from 11 percent of Jewish brides marrying non-Jewish grooms in 1910 to almost 18 percent of Jewish brides by 1932.38 Intermarriage seems to have been the exception among highly educated Jewish women; it sometimes occurred in a second or late marriage and, on occasion, involved rather unconventional matches and “marrying down” in class terms.39 As a general rule, however, Jewish university women married Jewish university men with comparable upbringing. The marriages of university women tended to be considerably more egalitarian matches than those of their parents, if only because they were more likely to marry men of a similar age and educational background. Whereas 40 percent of their fathers were ten or more years older than their mothers and only about 10 percent were the same age or slightly younger, roughly 25 percent of the husbands of the university women researched were exactly the same age as, or younger than, their wives, and only 15 percent were more than ten years older.
120
| , ,
UNEQUAL PARTNERSHIPS Women who married professors or prominent intellectuals who were many years their senior often had great difficulty in becoming equal partners in the marriage.40 As already noted, Katia Mann, Margarete Freudenthal, and Charlotte Kurrein all dropped out of university to devote their lives to looking after their husbands who were considerably older; such women often served as their husbands’ editors or secretaries. Some university women who married men who had been their academic mentors or employers managed to develop their own careers, but they tended to remain in the professional shadow of their better established and more famous spouses. One example of an unequal academic partnership was the marriage of the historians Hedwig Guggenheimer and Otto Hintze. They married in 1912, when he was fifty-one and a full professor at the University of Berlin and she was twenty-eight and one of his students. She abandoned her studies temporarily in order to nurse her husband through several serious health crises. After his early retirement in 1920, she completed her doctorate in 1924 and then her Habilitation dissertation, receiving her venia legendi (or right to teach) as an unsalaried lecturer in 1928. She combined the roles of housewife and hostess with those of scholar and professor by holding regular open house receptions for afternoon tea for colleagues and friends. Although Otto Hintze never complained publicly, his contemporaries and students resented Hedwig Hintze greatly and never forgave her for writing her own articles, instead of helping her sight-impaired husband with his research. A friend of theirs, the art historian Julie Braun-Vogelstein, made the following barbed comment: [A prominent historian] asked me to convince the wife of a mutual friend [i.e., Hedwig Hintze] to help her suffering husband with his important research, instead of focusing on her own work and her own career. She was a gifted and diligent historian who habilitated in Berlin as one of the first Privatdozentinnen in Germany. We were very close to one another, but we were very different. [Unlike Hedwig Hintze,] I considered myself above all as a wife and behaved accordingly without regrets.41
But Hedwig Hintze did not accept the advice given to her by friends and colleagues and continued to pursue her own research. Hedwig Guggenheimer Hintze, of Jewish descent but raised as a Protestant, was politically left-wing, whereas Otto Hintze was a much more conservative Prussian. When Hintze lost her position in 1933 and moved temporarily to France and later to Holland because of her non-Aryan status and her socialist politics, she was accused of abandoning her husband, who
The Marriage Plot
|
121
was Christian by birth, and leaving him in the lurch, since he remained in Berlin due to his advanced age and ill health. Indeed, one of their colleagues complained in 1935 that “Mrs. Hintze would be better to look after her husband instead of playing the role of political martyr in Paris.” On the one hand, this can be seen as a loving, dual-career marriage that withstood extreme circumstances, but on the other hand, it can be viewed as another situation in which a younger wife was expected to sacrifice her own career on behalf of her distinguished husband’s comfort and reputation.42 Another instance of an unequal partnership was the marriage of Selma Stern and Eugen Täubler. Unable to obtain an academic position, Stern became a research associate at the Academy for the Science of Judaism, directed by Täubler, in 1920. Both were historians of the Jews, Täubler specializing in the ancient world and Stern in Prussian Jewish history of the early modern era. The two married in 1927, when she was thirty-seven and he was forty-eight. Whereas Eugen Täubler managed to become a professor of ancient history at Heidelberg, Selma Stern never received the academic appointment she had dreamed of, but instead had to settle for a position as historical researcher and later as archivist; she wrote most of her books on a freelance basis. Although she retained her own name and was eventually recognized as an important scholar in her own right, Selma Stern-Täubler always regarded her husband as her teacher and mentor. She remained in his shadow until his death and then continued to edit his work, as well as publish on her own, dedicating her magnum opus on Prussian Jewry to his memory.43 Perhaps the most exemplary of these unequal partnerships was between the psychologists Charlotte and Karl Bühler. When Professor Karl Bühler, at age thirty-seven, proposed marriage to his twenty-two-year-old student Charlotte Malachowski in 1915, two weeks after they had met, she was speechless. As she wrote, “anyone who knows the respect which German students of that time had for their professors can understand how remote the idea was for me, the youngest student in the [psychology] institute, of marriage with the professor in charge of the institute, a much older man.”44 They married a year later and soon had a child. In 1918, Charlotte Bühler received her doctorate from the University of Munich summa cum laude and her husband was appointed professor of psychology at the new Technische Hochschule (Polytechnical Institute) in Dresden. After the birth of their second child, Charlotte Bühler completed her Habilitation (inaugural thesis) and became a Privatdozentin in Dresden. Several years later, the family moved to Vienna, where Karl Bühler held the professorship in psychology and headed the Psychological Institute, and Charlotte Bühler became an unsalaried lecturer and then an untenured assistant professor of psychology. She also ran the day-to-day operations of the Institute and its Child Research Center. Although their scholarly interests differed, Charlotte and
122
| , ,
Karl Bühler worked together as a team in Vienna. He held the prestigious and well-paid chair and continued to publish in his field, while she did most of the work with students, directed their research, and also published extensively. Both husband and wife received travel fellowships and visiting lectureships in the United States during the interwar years and were offered permanent academic positions abroad, which they turned down because neither wished to leave Vienna. After they were forced to emigrate in 1938 because of Charlotte Bühler’s Jewish origins, Karl was no longer able to find an appropriate university appointment due to his relatively advanced age. Charlotte held positions as researcher and clinical psychologist, but never received a tenure-track academic appointment. Although Karl Bühler was the better known and more respected psychologist in Europe, Charlotte Bühler was able to adapt more successfully to emigration and came into her own in Los Angeles, especially after the death of her husband. There can be little doubt that her marriage helped to further Charlotte Malachowski Bühler’s career, but sheer determination and hard work were also necessary to help her overcome the obstacles she confronted as a wife and mother, as well as a pioneering researcher in psychology.45 MORE EGALITARIAN MARRIAGES The most common and successful type of dual-career marriage was generally between two professionals of roughly the same age and in the same or closely related fields. Roughly nine out of ten university women in this study who married chose men who were university-educated professionals; four out of ten husbands had academic training in the same field as their wives. Such common educational bonds and shared professional interests were particularly prevalent among physicians, psychoanalysts, scientists, and lawyers; these shared ties enhanced the likelihood of a woman pursuing a career after marriage. Women physicians were much more likely than other women with doctorates to marry and also to continue their professional careers. Eight out of ten physicians in this study married and two-thirds of the married physicians had children,46 yet nearly all of the women who earned medical degrees before 1930 practiced medicine in Central Europe. The younger generation of physicians were more likely to marry and have children than the older age cohort, but the generational differences are not as marked as in other fields. Women physicians had a somewhat easier time combining career and family than other female professionals in the early twentieth century, although their decision to marry undoubtedly influenced their career options.
The Marriage Plot
|
123
At least half of these medical doctors were married to other medical doctors, some of whom had been their classmates in medical school or colleagues in hospitals. Although on occasion husband and wife had a joint medical practice, more frequently, the wife had a private general or pediatric practice, while the husband was a specialist in a different branch of medicine or held an academic position. In virtually every case, the husband had more senior professional status than the wife and earned more money, even if they had the same medical training. A fairly typical example of the career of a married woman physician is that of Erna Stein Biberstein, born in 1890, who met her future husband Hans on the first day she began studying medicine at the University of Breslau. Postponing marriage due to the war and her medical training, she received her doctorate in 1916, married four years later, and had her first child soon after. After completing a hospital residency in gynecology and obstetrics, Erna Biberstein set up private practice on the ground floor of the family home, which the couple shared with her mother and several of her siblings, while Hans Biberstein became a dermatologist on the staff of the university hospital and taught at the university as well. Erna Biberstein was able to continue her practice after the birth of her two children, since her office was at home, and grandmothers, aunts, and domestic servants were available to help look after them. Since her husband worked more regular hours and shared childcare responsibilities in the evenings, she was available to handle night calls and emergencies when necessary. From the point of view of their daughter, this shared arrangement within an extended family worked very well.47 Another example of a harmonious medical partnership was the marriage of Hertha Einstein and Erich Nathorff. Born in 1895, Hertha Einstein (Nathorff ) received her medical degree from Heidelberg, then did her internship in Freiburg and a residency in a Berlin hospital, where she met her husband-to-be, who, as chief of staff, was her boss. In 1923, she became the director of a maternity and infant home of the German Red Cross and ran a small private practice on the side. She married the same year and had a child in her own clinic two years later. The maternity home gradually grew from thirty to two hundred beds under her direction. In 1928, she established one of the first family and marriage counseling centers in Germany; she also became actively involved in medical professional organizations. In her diary, Hertha Nathorff described her life before the Nazi era as rich, not in money but in happiness, with days overfilled as she juggled her many roles as physician, clinic director, landlady, wife, and mother. Her husband was no doubt more prominent and better paid, but she derived great satisfaction from her job and her professional accomplishments in Europe.48
124
| , ,
While many other examples of dual-career medical couples can be cited, perhaps the most remarkable cluster of such partnerships can be found among the disciples of Freud within the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and its branches in Germany. The second generation of psychoanalysts, which developed during the interwar years, included a remarkably high proportion of Jewish women physicians, nearly all of whom were married to physicians or to men actively involved in the psychoanalytical movement as well.49 Although not all of these marriages survived,50 many of these women seem to have been the dominant partners in their marriages and managed to carve out even more successful careers in their field than their spouses, if not already in Central Europe, then after they emigrated to the United States.51 A particularly supportive and egalitarian marriage between two members of the Viennese psychoanalytic community was that of Helene Rosenbach Deutsch, who became director of the Psychoanalytic Training Institute, and Felix Deutsch, who was Freud’s personal physician. In his biography of Helene Deutsch, Paul Roazen claims that both Helene and Felix Deutsch shared the conviction that their work was a sacred vocation; he characterizes their marriage as more of a partnership than a passionate, romantic relationship. Shortly before Helene Rosenbach and Felix Deutsch met, Helene had broken off a lengthy affair with an older married man, the socialist parliamentary deputy Hermann Lieberman, because she wanted to be able to have a legitimate child.52 Helene and Felix were both the same age; they married in 1912, while Helene was completing her medical degree. After several miscarriages, their son Martin was born in 1917, in the midst of World War I. Although as an expression of masculine protest Felix, like nearly all European men of his day, “refused completely to become a domestic helper” by assisting with housework, he willingly shared the burdens of parenting and was an unusually loving and conscientious father.53 As Helene Deutsch openly acknowledged in her memoir: It was seldom the household that threatened to come between me and my career. It was my motherhood, not in the actual time it required, but in its libidinous demands. I have always tried to deny this. . . . My situation was eased by [Felix’s] willingness to give up much of his “man’s role” in order to provide me with some leisure and time for my professional work.54
Physicians were not the only women professionals to enter into egalitarian marriages that enabled them to further their own careers. Scientists tended to marry fellow scientists and sometimes worked together as a research team. Lawyers often married other lawyers, although, as we have seen, few women lawyers, married or single, managed to establish themselves in the legal field before having to leave Central Europe. Productive
The Marriage Plot
|
125
professional partnerships occurred among social scientists, humanists, and educators as well. Married couples in closely related fields occasionally collaborated on joint projects and published their findings together.55 Other couples supported one another in their careers or their writing, but tried to maintain separate professional identities. Bacteriologist Lydia Rabinowitsch, who had briefly held an appointment as lecturer at the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia, married Walter Kempner, a fellow biologist at Robert Koch’s Institute for Infectious Diseases in Berlin, while both were attending a medical conference in Madrid in 1898. Jointly they conducted research on epidemiology, especially tuberculosis, and traveled widely; their son, Robert, named after their mentor Koch, was born the following year on their way home from combating an outbreak of malaria in Montenegro. They subsequently had two more children, forming a very close-knit family. While maintaining her roles as wife and mother, Rabinowitsch-Kempner continued her research, becoming the first woman to gain a professorial title at the University of Berlin before World War I. Walter Kempner was always very supportive of his wife’s career, which in many respects overshadowed his own. He died of tuberculosis in 1920 and their daughter, a philologist, also succumbed to this disease at a young age. After World War I, until her dismissal on racial grounds shortly before her death in 1935, Rabinowitsch-Kempner served as director of the Biological Institute of Berlin-Moabit Hospital. Much of what we know about Rabinowitsch-Kempner’s struggles in life, her successes and her failures, we glean from the memoir of her son, Robert Kempner, a well-known lawyer and prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials after World War II, who expressed great pride in the achievements of his trailblazing mother.56 Another extraordinarily close and productive professional partnership was the marriage of two Viennese art historians, Erica Conrat and Hans Tietze. Conrat, born in 1883, was one of the first women to earn a doctorate in art history at the University of Vienna. The same month in 1905 in which she received her degree, she married a fellow student, Hans Tietze; they had four children, one of whom died in childhood. While Hans Tietze became a civil servant, working for the Commission for the Preservation of Austrian Monuments of Art, Erica Tietze-Conrat devoted her life to research and writing, specializing in Renaissance and Baroque art. The couple traveled extensively together and often published joint works, but Tietze-Conrat also wrote prolifically under her own name, publishing more than two hundred scholarly articles, numerous book reviews, three major books, and about a dozen shorter volumes over a forty-five-year period.57 In the introduction to one of their jointly authored books, entitled The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the 15th and 16th Centuries, the Tietzes portrayed their collaborative efforts as follows:
126
| , ,
The last word of this preface should be devoted to ourselves, since our way of collaboration, now continued through many years and on various subjects, is indeed rather unusual. . . . How is it possible that for thousands of separate questions in such a critical catalogue two authors always agree? Our answer . . . is that, on the contrary, we very often do not agree, but that many statements we make are the result of long and hard fights in which at the end one opinion wins. These dissensions within a team, however, are no different from those within the mind of one individual author who too at different times looks differently at the same problem. Our conflicts are only more articulate and, consequently, more thoroughly thrashed out. Otherwise we feel solidly united. In many cases we ourselves do not know after a while which of us is to be given credit for this or that idea, objection, discovery. We also honestly do not know who conceived or wrote specific passages, paragraphs, and even chapters. We wonder whether there is a merit to be shared in this book, but we are certainly ready to share the responsibility up to the last word.58
Erica Tietze-Conrat kept up with her research and writing, both separately and in collaboration with her husband, even when her children were very young. From the time their eldest child was twenty months old, the children were cared for by a “surrogate mother” and housekeeper who remained with the family for three decades, even after their emigration to the United States. As Madlyn Kahr, Tietze-Conrat’s biographer, pointed out: The children grew up knowing that their mother was not to be disturbed when she was working at home. Not only did she have little time for them when she was at home, but her work frequently took her away for extended periods, for close study of works of art was the essence of her research. Her scholarly pursuits evidently took precedence over any of the other demands of life. When a friend asked her: “How can you do all this work as an art historian and at the same time have the responsibilities of a wife and the mother of four children?,” she replied: “It’s easy. I just go away.”59
The children were raised to be independent; the two sons and the daughter who reached adulthood all had very productive careers. Erica TietzeConrat enjoyed an exceptionally happy companionate marriage, managed, with assistance, to raise three children, and had an impressive career as a freelance art historian as well.60 COMBINING CAREERS AND MOTHERHOOD Finding suitable childcare was not a major issue for professional women in Central Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century, since affordable domestic help was readily available and extremely common, especially
The Marriage Plot
|
127
in middle-class Jewish households, even if the wife was not employed outside the home. As Atina Grossmann has pointed out: Professional working mothers did not agonize about leaving their children with nannies and governesses. As bourgeois women, they saw nothing unusual in handing over childcare to servants; after all, their own mothers had done the same, even if not in the name of career. Having accepted a basic sexual division of labor in which they retained major responsibility for household and childcare, they did not struggle with recalcitrant mates about division of domestic drudgery or negotiate guilt and finances in the employment of household help. Nor as bourgeois women were they expected to cook, clean, or shop and even during the years of the “servant crisis,” the family income of two professionals was more than ample to support household help.61
Not all professional career women with children felt guilt-free, however. Charlotte Malachowski Bühler, who developed an early research interest in child psychology, certainly had some serious qualms about the subject of motherhood. Since she had married and had her first child while still a student, before embarking on her academic career, she needed financial assistance from her parents to enable her to afford household help, even though her husband already had an academic appointment. She hired a nurse, and later a governess, to look after her children to allow her time for her scholarly work and to share common intellectual interests with her husband, Karl. She traveled extensively, both alone and with her husband, and spent extended periods away from her family doing research and lecturing in the United States. But, she commented, looking back on her earlier years as a mother, Therein, of course, lay a big problem. In all the years during which my children were growing up, I lived in a tension as to how much time I should devote to them and how much to my career. This career, which . . . developed early into international connections and travels, laid increasing claims on my time. My children, with whom I am thankfully close friends, told me as adults that I had not given them enough time. They had, it is true, an excellent governess who lived with us for many years and with whom we are still friendly, with whom I discussed many questions as they arose. But I myself did not spend very much, or enough, time with my children and there surely lies one of the greatest problems of the career woman.62
Although marriage did not necessarily impede the careers of Jewish women professionals, especially physicians, motherhood caused increased tension and often pangs of guilt. Under the extra pressure of the wartime demand for medical doctors, Helene Deutsch, for example, continued her
128
| , ,
hospital residency in neurology, even when her infant son was very young. She hired a nurse, whom she described as “dependability itself and the perfect mother substitute,” but insisted on nursing the child herself, since milk was hard to come by during the war. Eventually, her husband Felix acquired two goats, who grazed near the hospital. Nevertheless, Helene harbored deep feelings of guilt about neglecting her role as mother. These pangs of conscience are reflected in her writings on the subject of motherhood, including The Psychology of Women, as well as in her memoir, published in 1964 when she was eighty years old. She concluded that When it comes to a discussion of the conflict between a woman’s professional work and her motherhood, I can say, grown wiser through my own experience, that in the period of my son’s childhood, this conflict could be worked out only on an individual basis, and with many compromises. Since then social progress, while not eliminating all difficulties connected with motherhood, has increased women’s opportunities as active members of society outside the home. A large measure of freedom and equality has been achieved; more is coming. I welcome all progress in the direction of women’s liberation with pleasure, but also with a silent, sad realization: though woman is different now, she is forever the same, a servant of her biological fate, to which she has to adjust her other pursuits.63
Despite the qualms on the subject which many women undoubtedly shared with Helene Deutsch, three out of four Jewish women physicians in this study married and two out of three married physicians had children, a higher proportion than among women with doctorates in other fields. Non-Jewish women physicians were also more likely to marry and continue to pursue their careers than other professional women.64 Some delayed marriage and childbearing until after their careers were well established, while others worked on a part-time basis after their children arrived, but nearly all the Jewish women physicians whom I researched continued to practice medicine as long as they were allowed to do so in Central Europe. The majority had relatively small families with only one or two children, but about 20 percent of the physician mothers had three or more children.65 Rahel Goitein Straus, with five children, had one of the largest families, but, with some help, she managed to “do it all.” Since she was married to a wealthy lawyer, affording childcare and housekeepers to maintain her kosher home was never a problem. In her memoir, Straus assessed the preconditions necessary to allow a modern woman to combine successfully the roles of wife and mother with those of a full-time professional. First of all, she needed a husband who would be an equal partner and who would allow his wife to lead her own life. She must also be financially able to af-
The Marriage Plot
|
129
ford help in the house with children and housekeeping. In addition, she needed an iron disposition and an incredible ability to work in order to meet the demands of both home and profession.66 Straus recounted several personal experiences that tested her determination to combine a medical career and motherhood. When her eldest daughter was four months old and still nursing, Straus was called out on a medical emergency and was unable to return until much later. Her daughter missed several feedings as a result, and had to get by on tea. The worst case, however, was when her youngest daughter contracted diphtheria which her mother had inadvertently brought home with her. Fortunately, she was able to help her daughter overcome the disease, but had the little girl not survived, she would probably have given up her profession, since she blamed herself for her initial misdiagnosis of a patient. Men, she felt, were able to devote themselves entirely to their profession, whereas married women could not, since they had other responsibilities at home. It was hard to keep the two spheres apart and to manage both equally well.67 Rahel Straus believed that she might well have become a better-known and more financially successful physician had she not married and had children. She was not able to achieve her professional potential, yet she never regretted her full life as a woman with husband and children. She highly valued her companionate marriage, which allowed both partners to enjoy their life together as well as their professional lives apart, and felt that it would have been a great personal misfortune had she given up her chance of a family and later regretted her decision. However, she did not try to make light of the difficulties of combining job and family when she discussed this topic with young women starting out on their career paths.68 Many university women, particularly those who married in their twenties before their careers could be established, felt ambivalent about continuing their professional activities while their children were growing up. Yet interrupting one’s career temporarily in order to raise one’s children turned out not to be a very realistic option in interwar Central Europe due to the dismal employment prospects for married women professionals, especially in the 1930s. Except for physicians, relatively few married university women with children had full-time paying positions outside the home; nevertheless, many women held part-time jobs or did freelance research and writing at home. Some married university women, like Erica Tietze-Conrat, Charlotte Bühler, and Helene Deutsch, seem to have valued career advancement above childrearing, at least on occasion; most did not. SINGLE PARENTS AND DEVOTED AUNTS Single mothers—who were usually divorced, sometimes widowed, or, in a few exceptional cases, never married—generally did not enjoy the luxury of
130
| , ,
deciding whether they wanted to work while their children were growing up. Irma Klausner-Cronheim, a physician who was widowed at age thirtyeight when her two sons were very young, maintained a sizable and varied medical practice in her large apartment in Berlin and raised her children with the help of several employees. As a friend testified at her funeral almost forty years later, After only eight years of married life, in 1912, catastrophe struck. . . . Her husband became the victim of an accident. From then on she had to continue alone, relying on her ability, courage and sense of independence, and she made a clear decision, in devotion to her husband, not to marry again, lest her two little sons, seven and three years old at that time, would be brought up by a stranger. To rear and educate them would be her responsibility alone, whatever mistakes she might make; but their father would remain their father.69
Irma Klausner-Cronheim’s home was a lively place, filled with patients in the daytime and her sons’ friends in the evening; a daughter-in-law even lived with her before she emigrated in 1938. As a single parent with a busy medical practice, she competently juggled the roles of mother, father, and physician.70 Some single parents had a difficult time balancing motherhood and career, especially if they had limited resources. Hilda Geiringer (Pollaczek, later von Mises) and Eva Lehmann Fiesel were both divorcées with young daughters when they were attempting to establish their academic careers in Germany. Geiringer, a research assistant and then a lecturer (Privatdozentin) in applied mathematics at the University of Berlin, had married a fellow mathematician from Vienna in 1921 and their daughter was born the following year, but she separated from her husband in 1925 and was subsequently divorced. Although she had a prolonged relationship with her mentor, collaborator, and colleague Richard von Mises, whom she married many years later, she raised her daughter Magda on her own.71 Eva Fiesel’s life was lonelier and more difficult. Married in 1915, Fiesel gave birth to her daughter in 1921, the same year she received her doctorate in classical philology from the University of Rostock. She divorced in 1926 and received custody of her child. Although a widely published specialist in Etruscan linguistics, she was denied Habilitation at the University of Munich and only permitted to teach on an annual basis. Forced to emigrate in 1933, she briefly taught at Yale University and Bryn Mawr, but her sudden death in 1937, at the age of forty-six, left her teenage daughter an orphan with very limited financial support.72 The social psychologist Marie Jahoda, who began her university studies under Charlotte and Karl Bühler in 1926, married the sociologist Paul
The Marriage Plot
|
131
Lazarsfeld the following year against the advice of her parents. The marriage was troubled from the start. Shortly after the birth of their daughter, Lotte, in 1930, Jahoda and Lazarsfeld separated, although they continued to collaborate on joint projects. Jahoda’s mother and sister helped her look after the child while she continued her research. Both her mother and her infant daughter attended her doctoral defense and subsequent graduation celebration in 1932. After Lazarsfeld emigrated to the United States, the couple formally divorced. When Marie Jahoda was arrested for illegal socialist activities in 1936 and imprisoned for nine months, her mother again assumed responsibility for caring for her granddaughter. Upon Jahoda’s release and emigration to England, Lazarsfeld insisted that Lotte join him in New York. As a result of visa difficulties and the outbreak of World War II, Marie Jahoda was unable to be reunited with her daughter for eight long years, until she finally managed to reach the United States in 1945. She always felt extremely guilty for not having been able to be with Lotte while she was growing up.73 Margarete Bieber, the classical archeologist at the University of Giessen, provides an unusual example of single parenthood undertaken after an academic career was already established. She never married, but ardently desired a child; in 1917, she hired Katharina Freytag, an experienced governess, as her companion and housekeeper. In 1932, at the age of fiftythree, when Bieber anticipated a promotion to a full professorship, she succeeded in adopting a little girl named Ingeborg. Unfortunately, Margarete Bieber never received her tenured appointment in Germany. Instead, due to her Jewish origins, she was forced to emigrate, first to England in 1933 and soon afterward to the United States. Although there was some difficulty getting Inge, who was classified as an “Aryan,” out of Germany, the family of three managed to adjust to their new lives in New York, where Margarete Bieber found a position at Columbia University. By hiring Fräulein Freytag, her “woman Friday,” as one commentator punned, Margarete Bieber had found “a creative solution to the need for various kinds of help available to masculine colleagues from wives and secretaries,” as well as a second mother for her adopted daughter.74 Most single university women were not as fortunate as Margarete Bieber, however, in having both a lifelong companion and a child; their friendships, whether with other women or with men, had to substitute for both spouses and children. One of Lise Meitner’s biographers, Deborah Crawford, reported that, by the age of thirty-five, Meitner had settled satisfactorily into the habit of being called Fräulein Doktor rather than Frau . . . [and] single life appealed to her. She was surrounded by a group of mostly male friends whose companionship she found warm and intellectually stimulating; and even her liking for children was fulfilled in
132
| , ,
that her sisters and brothers back in Austria had begun to provide nieces and nephews for her to enjoy on holiday visits.75
Although sometimes devoted aunts helped raise nieces and nephews, more often unmarried university women forfeited family life almost entirely and channeled their energy into their careers instead.76 Unlike their male colleagues and their husbands, university women often had to make difficult choices between career and family and to compromise both motherhood and professional goals, if they opted to combine the two. Generational differences in attitude, as well as changing political and economic circumstances and job opportunities for women within their particular field of expertise, often affected their decisions. Members of the older age cohort, born before the turn of the century, were less likely both to marry and to have children than members of the younger group. Single university women, especially those of the older generation, were more likely to achieve higher professional status than their married sisters, but sometimes at the cost of personal loneliness. In Europe, they often developed a supportive network of male colleagues and women friends, while maintaining close contact with parents, siblings, nieces, and nephews. Married university women also frequently had obligations to look after other family members, especially mothers or mothers-in-law, but at the same time they preserved friendship circles with other professional women and men. Most married women gave up full-time jobs outside the home, although many continued to work within their field of expertise, at least on a parttime basis. Combining motherhood and career was possible, even though achieving a balance between the two roles often proved difficult. A companionate marriage with a supportive husband and a “surrogate mother” to provide childcare were necessary prerequisites for a dual-career family in early twentieth-century Central Europe, just as they are today.
SIX
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists: Personal Identity and Political Involvement
I
am [a] Jewish, intellectual, socialist [woman]—a threefold curse! By fate it was destined only that I be born a Jewish woman.”1 With these words, Käte Frankenthal, physician and former Berlin Social Democratic municipal councillor, began her memoir, written in 1940 for the Harvard University essay competition on life in Germany before and after 1933. She pinpointed three of the most salient factors associated with Central European Jewish university women: being a Jew; being an educated, professional woman; and being a left-wing political activist as well, all of which were to become anathema in Nazi-dominated Europe. Frankenthal identified herself as a Jew by fate, but not by religion or nationality; by choice she was a medical doctor, a feminist active on behalf of birth control and abortion rights, and a socialist politician. Although her parents had been active members of the Jewish community of Kiel, religion lacked importance in her life and she found associating with other Jews too restricting. She decided at an early age not to marry, dismissing the possibility of intermarriage and claiming to have no love for Jewish men and to be “turned off by anything Jewish in appearance or manner.” Rejecting the idea that Jews should have a monopoly on her interest, she formally left the official Jewish community (or Kultusgemeinde) and declared herself konfessionslos (atheist or without religion) in 1923.2 Frankenthal’s lack of a strong positive Jewish identity, her feminist convictions, and her left-wing political activism were by no means unusual among the university women in this study. Like many other educated Jewish women in early twentieth-century Germany and Austria, Käte Frankenthal considered herself a Jew by descent only. We already noted in Chapter 2 that although the religious, ethnic, and gender identities, as well as political attitudes, of university women were largely shaped during childhood and adolescence, they often changed and
134
| , ,
evolved in adulthood, especially as a result of cataclysmic events like the Nazi takeover and the Holocaust. Although some of the available memoirs and other primary sources on which this analysis is based were written before, or on the eve of, World War II, most were recorded considerably later and hence colored by Holocaust-related experiences.3 This chapter focuses on Jewish, feminist, and political identities before 1933, while the next two chapters will explore the transformations that occurred later. Central European Jewish university women had multiple personal identities, as women, as Jews, as Germans or Austrians, as intellectuals, and as liberals, socialists, or communists. Each woman perceived certain identities as primary and others as less important. Marie Jahoda, the Vienna-born psychologist and socialist who became konfessionslos at the age of sixteen, defined herself as follows: “I am a woman, I am a mother, I am a social psychologist; . . . I am a refugee, I am an agnostic.” The statement “I am a Jew” was not included among her self-declarations, although, as she admitted, “I am one and would never deny it.”4 The left-wing political ideologist Rosa Luxemburg prided herself on being a socialist who had little concern for either Jewish or women’s problems. By contrast, Hannah Arendt’s awareness of being a Jew by ethnicity, as well as her role as an intellectual and a political philosopher, shaped her identity, while being a woman had less impact on her personal Weltanschauung. As far as Arendt was concerned, “To be a Jew belongs for me to the indubitable facts of my life, and I never wanted to change anything about such facts, not even in my childhood.”5 The physician Käte Frankenthal emphasized being an intellectual and a socialist, rather than a woman or a Jew, whereas for Rahel Goitein Straus, being a Jewish wife and mother was primary, while being a physician, a feminist, and a Zionist were very significant but less salient. Each individual formulated her own combination of identities, although the primacy of the various categories might shift at different stages of her life, depending on circumstances. JEWISH IDENTITY AND COMMUNAL INVOLVEMENT Ascertaining and measuring the identity of modern Jewish women is no easy task. For men, one can often find public indicators of Jewish involvement, like records of payment of communal taxes, participation in synagogue and other Jewish communal or organizational activities, as well as rites of passage, including circumcision and Bar Mitzvah celebration. For women, who were largely excluded from the public domain of synagogue and community and whose documented Jewish life-cycle events were most likely to be marriage and burial, Jewish identity was expressed mainly in the private sphere of the home and was often hidden from general view. Memoirs and other available sources only graze the surface of what it really
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 135
meant to these women to have been born Jews, and how being Jewish affected their lives and behavior. While recognizing that much of a woman’s Jewish identity was personal and based on values and attitudes that defy quantification and can change over a lifetime, one can nevertheless develop a rough scale of measurable behaviors upon which to begin to evaluate women as Jews. An ascending ladder of Jewish consciousness might consist of the following eight levels: (1) women whose parents were born Jews; (2) those who acknowledged their Jewish origins; (3) members of the Kultusgemeinde, the official Jewish community in Central European cities to which each household paid annual taxes; (4) those who associated primarily with other Jews and/or married Jews; (5) women who observed, or recalled having observed, major Jewish holidays, whether in the home or the synagogue; (6) members or supporters of Jewish youth, women’s, or Zionist organizations; (7) those who sought further Jewish knowledge as adults, chose to do research on Jewish topics, or worked on behalf of the Jewish community; and (8) those who adhered to Jewish religious beliefs and observances, such as Shabbat and kosher dietary laws. Women often moved up and down this scale at different stages of their lives. For the most part, Central European Jewish university women did not strongly identify with the organized Jewish community or its institutions. Membership in the Kultusgemeinde is not necessarily a very meaningful criterion for women, since in many instances the decision whether to remain within the community was made not by the women themselves, but by their fathers or husbands, who were required to pay the mandatory taxes as heads of Jewish households. In some cases, it is almost impossible to ascertain with certainty whether an individual, especially an unmarried woman, maintained formal affiliation with a local German or Austrian Jewish community or had opted out. In general, Gemeinde leadership excluded women. In nearly all Central European communities, women who were not tax-paying heads of households could not vote in communal elections and women were not eligible to hold elected communal offices. Instead, German and Austrian Jewish women became involved in Jewish public life primarily through their volunteer efforts on behalf of Jewish women’s organizations, like the Jüdischer Frauenbund (JFB, Jewish Women’s League) and B’nai B’rith Women, or various charities and social welfare agencies. With some notable exceptions, most university women tended to shun volunteer women’s groups and did not become actively involved within the Jewish community or its institutions before the Nazi era. By and large, Jewish university women were marginal members of the organized Jewish community and remained on its periphery throughout their lives in Germany or Austria. This was true not only because many of
136
| , ,
them came from highly assimilated backgrounds, but because they often did not assume the traditional roles of middle-class Jewish women. Highly educated women who remained single, who married late and had no children, or who combined both family and career did not fit easily within the established Jewish communal and organizational framework. If they had not already felt distanced from the Gemeinde and its institutions in their youth, many became increasingly alienated as adults. The women of Jewish origin who attended universities in Central Europe before the Nazi era exhibited a broad spectrum of Jewish identification. Although the range of identity of these women forms a continuum, for convenience I have divided them into three general categories reflecting differences in both forms and levels of Jewish identity. “Former Jews,” who officially opted out of the Jewish community, make up roughly a quarter of the women in this study, a very high proportion even among highly acculturated Central European Jewry of the early twentieth century; “Just Jews,” who remained nominally affiliated with the Jewish community throughout their lives, constitute the majority; and “Jewish Jews,” who actively affirmed their Jewishness in their public, as well as private, behavior, comprise about 15 percent.6 “FORMER JEWS” On the lowest rungs of this Jewish consciousness ladder are the “Former Jews,” sometimes referred to pejoratively as apostates. Like Käte Frankenthal, they were Jews by descent who might have acknowledged their Jewish origins but who largely rejected their Jewish identity by formally leaving the Jewish community, whether through baptism or by declaring themselves konfessionslos (without religion, or atheists). Roughly half of the “Former Jews” in this study became Christians, whereas the rest officially abandoned all religious affiliation, sometimes for political reasons.7 Baptized Jews tended to identify themselves as Germans, rather than as Jews, and were more likely than other women whom I have researched to be politically right of center. By contrast, konfessionslos women were often to be found on the political left, whether as socialists or communists. Four out of five converts in this study were baptized as Protestants, mainly Lutherans, while the remainder became Catholics.8 Like most German Jews who converted to Christianity, these women generally came from highly acculturated backgrounds and had gained very little knowledge about Judaism from their homes or their formal education. Although many Jewish households in Central Europe celebrated Christmas with trees and exchanges of gifts, the families of most “Former Jews” ignored Jewish festivals almost entirely. Raised in an extremely assimilated environment, it is scarcely surprising that most of these women preferred not to identify
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 137
themselves as Jews. In some cases, their parents had already baptized them as children, but in other instances they converted of their own volition as adults. Although baptism greatly facilitated appointments at German or Austrian universities for women, as it did for men, the available evidence seems to indicate that university women rarely opted to convert specifically in order to gain an academic or civil service position. The select group of women of Jewish origin who succeeded in establishing themselves in academia while in Central Europe consisted largely of women who had been baptized at birth or in childhood.10 Nuclear physicist Lise Meitner, chemist Clara Immerwahr Haber, bacteriologist Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner, and archeologist Margarete Bieber all chose baptism as adults, but not necessarily to further their academic careers. Lise Meitner spoke for many of her colleagues when she commented that “I feel like an impostor when American Jews praise me especially, because I am of Jewish descent. I am not Jewish by belief, know nothing of the history of Judaism, and do not feel closer to Jews than to other people.”11 In several cases at least, adult baptism resulted from a quest for spiritual fulfillment. Alice Salomon, a pioneer in social work education and an active feminist, turned to Protestantism for solace and sustenance in the early days of World War I, around the time of her mother’s death. For many years, she had wanted to convert in order to live a committed Christian life according to the Christian calendar, but felt she could not do so as long as her mother was alive.12 Edith Stein, the philosopher and educator who became a Catholic nun, was influenced by the examples of baptized Jewish intellectuals, like Edmund Husserl, who served as her mentors. Her role model, however, was the sixteenth-century Spanish nun of Jewish descent, St. Teresa of Avila. Stein found Judaism as she knew it religiously and intellectually unsatisfying and devoted her life to seeking answers in Catholicism. Nevertheless, she never denied her Jewishness and entitled her memoir, which she wrote in a convent in the mid-1930s, Life in a Jewish Family.13 On the whole, however, university women who decided to abandon Judaism as adults were more likely to do so for pragmatic than for spiritual reasons; in some instances, religious conversion was a mere formality. Most of these educated women no longer believed in or practiced Judaism and some wanted to marry a non-Jew in a religious rather than a civil ceremony. Helene Ziegelroth Stoeltzner and Nathalie Ziegelroth Ferchland, two sisters who were among the earliest women physicians certified to practice medicine in Germany, both converted to Protestantism upon their marriage to Christians. Hedwig Jung-Danielowicz, another physician of the same generation, was baptized when she married an artist and subsequently became a devout Catholic. The Nobel Prize winner in medicine Gerty Radnitz Cori also converted to Catholicism at the time of her marriage, as 9
138
| , ,
did the socialist lawyer Erna Zaloscer Sailer and the agnostic physician Rita Smrçka Krause. In most cases, such conversions upon marriage were more matters of convenience or expediency; they were not based on strong religious convictions.14 INTERMARRIAGE AND JEWISH IDENTIFICATION The complex relationship between marriage, intermarriage, and Jewish identity among Jewish university women is difficult to unravel. As a general rule, university women shared the religious and political convictions of the men that they married. Their intermarriage rate of less than 10 percent appears to have been lower than that of German-Jewish women as a whole during the interwar years. The “Former Jews” in this study were significantly less likely than the affiliated Jews to marry, but those who married were more prone to marry non-Jews, whether Christians or konfessionslos socialists, or else other “Former Jews.”15 Marriage to a non-Jew might precipitate leaving the Jewish community, but did not necessitate baptism. “Former Jews” who married Christians had often been baptized or had left the community earlier. Cases where a conversion or Austritt (official withdrawal without baptism) had previously taken place cannot, however, be labeled interfaith marriages. Since the commitment to Judaism of most women who intermarried was minimal to begin with, they tended simply to drop out of the Jewish community, even though they did not necessarily cease to identify themselves as Jews.16 On rare occasions, marriage to a committed Jew prompted “Former Jews” to return to the Jewish fold. Emilie Melchior (Braun), born in 1897, was the baptized daughter of two parents of Jewish descent; her parents later divorced. Her mother, who had also been baptized, raised her as a Protestant, but even as a child, she was intrigued by Judaism. While studying law at the University of Heidelberg, Melchior became involved in a Zionist student organization, although she was ineligible to hold office since she had been baptized. Attracted to a circle of Jewish friends, she began studying Hebrew and learning about Judaism. After her engagement to a Jewish lawyer, she decided to undergo a formal conversion to Judaism, even though she had difficulty with certain religious beliefs. She was married in a Liberal synagogue, which she later attended on a regular basis. Emilie Braun no longer observed Christmas in her mother’s home; instead, she celebrated Shabbat and festivals in her own home and consciously raised her children as Jews. Unlike other university women whose memoirs mention only childhood memories of Jewish customs that they no longer observed as adults, Braun described in some detail the Jewish observances she maintained as an adult, after her voluntary return to Judaism at the age of twenty-seven.17
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 139
Women who married non-Jews often retained a Jewish identification and sometimes even maintained certain residual Jewish customs. Physician Helene Ziegelroth Stoeltzner, the daughter of a cantor, was born in Warsaw in 1868. Because she “lacked strong feelings about religion,” she became konfessionslos, but on the eve of her marriage in 1904, she underwent baptism. Despite the fact that she refused to discuss Judaism and discouraged her only daughter Gudrun from associating with Jewish children, she baked “egg bread” on Friday and ate “flat bread” around Easter time until her death in Berlin in 1961. She bequeathed to her descendents separate sets of dishes for “meat” and “fish,” crystal with an embedded Star of David, and a family heirloom kiddush cup for blessing sacramental wine. Her daughter, Gudrun Stoeltzner (Lecke, later Fett), born in 1909, studied natural sciences in Göttingen in the early 1930s but dropped out of university to marry a non-Jewish socialist and raise five children in Germany. Gudrun, who was baptized as a Lutheran at birth, reversed her mother’s history of religious affiliation by leaving the church to become konfessionslos during the interwar years and then formally returning to Judaism late in life, after emigrating to the United States in 1971.18 It is difficult to know how many “Former Jews” were really modern-day Marranos, clinging to certain Jewish symbols in private, yet no longer practicing Judaism openly. Another university woman who intermarried, yet retained a positive personal identification as a Jew, was Nellie Bruell Friedrichs, who married a Protestant professor of mathematics from her alma mater, the Technische Hochschule in Braunschweig, in 1937 and then raised five children in the United States. One of her sons, the historian Christopher Friedrichs, described his mother in a letter to the author as follows: As regards the general question of my mother’s Jewish identity, I can tell you that my mother has always been very proud of her Jewish identity and was very eager to have her children be aware of their Jewish ancestry. She would never have contemplated converting although . . . many German Jews did so, and indeed some of her own relations had done so. On the other hand, in her adult life she never had any affiliation to a Jewish congregation or organization and did not observe the Jewish holidays. My mother did not object to my father’s wish that his children be given a Protestant religious education (of a very liberal, tolerant character). As adults some of us (including myself ) have chosen to identify firmly as Jewish and some have not; in part this has had to do with our choice of spouses.
In a follow-up letter, written shortly after his mother’s death, Friedrichs added a rather poignant yet revealing remark: [My mother] took mild exception to one statement I had made . . . to the effect that she “did not observe the Jewish holidays.” She pointed out to me
140
| , ,
that she had certainly observed the holidays as a child and even as an adult she had been careful to try to stay quietly at home on Yom Kippur.19
One can therefore not assume that just because a person disaffiliated herself from the Jewish community, she no longer retained Jewish sensibilities, some of which might be positively transmitted to her children. Political theorist Hannah Arendt, undoubtedly one of the most famous, most brilliant, and most controversial Jewish university women of the twentieth century, can serve as a role model for women who intermarry but affirm the importance of their Jewishness. Like other university women, she often flouted traditional social conventions in her personal life, including her marriages. After ending a lengthy affair with one of her professors, the philosopher Martin Heidegger, she married a Jewish writer, Günther Stern, whom she later divorced. She then married a working-class, non-Jewish former communist and autodidact philosopher, Heinrich Bluecher, but never adopted his name because she wanted her own name to continue to identify her as a Jew. As she once wrote to her former mentor, Karl Jaspers, “If I had wanted to become respectable, I would either have had to give up my interest in Jewish affairs or not marry a non-Jewish man, either option equally inhuman and in a sense crazy.”20 As a marginal member of the Jewish community who identified strongly with Jews ethnically, but not with Judaism per se, she divided modern, assimilated Jews into pariahs and parvenus, willingly assigning herself to the category of “conscious pariah.”21 A striking example of an intermarried woman who retained a very strong personal Jewish religiosity is Helen Silving-Ryu. Born in 1906 as Henda Silberpfennig into an Orthodox family in Galicia, she received an unusually good foundation in Hebrew and Bible from a private tutor. While studying political science at the University of Vienna, she continued to adhere to traditional Sabbath observances, attending lectures on Saturday but refusing to carry an umbrella or ride on Shabbat. After emigrating to the United States, she gradually abandoned Jewish dietary laws, but continued praying on a daily basis, even after becoming a professor of law at the University of Puerto Rico and severing virtually all ties with the Jewish community.22 Unique among the women memoir writers, Helen Silving clearly asserted and justified her belief in God and Judaism, as follows: “I am Jewish because I believe in the Jewish God, YHWH (spelled in Hebrew without vowels). The basis of this belief is twofold: emotional and rational.”23 At the age of 51, however, she married a Korean Protestant in a Unitarian ceremony. No longer following Orthodox practices, before her death she requested that she be cremated and have her ashes buried, together with her husband’s, in a family grave in Korea, but specified that
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 141
[I] myself [be] clearly identified as a Jewish wife of a Korean, the Cross to be replaced by a Magen David. In death as in life, I wish to be identified as Jewish, precisely in a land with which I hope Israel will establish an alliance.24
Helen Silving’s personal journey from Orthodoxy to a Protestant cemetery in Korea with a Star of David on her grave was certainly idiosyncratic and the product of very specific circumstances after her emigration. Had she agreed to an Orthodox, arranged marriage with a Jewish chaplain in Europe in 1937, she undoubtedly would have perished, along with her parents. Had she not intermarried, it is highly unlikely that she would have elaborated on her personal beliefs concerning Judaism and Israel in her memoir. Undoubtedly other Central European university women who seem far removed from Jewish life due to marital choices or other special situations also had fascinating stories to tell about their complex Jewish identities, but never put them down on paper to share with others. Much about the Jewish identity of “Former Jews” and “Just Jews,” especially those that intermarry, will never be fully understood. “JUST JEWS” The vast majority of university women of Jewish origin did not leave the Jewish community. In certain cases, they remained within the fold simply because they, or their fathers, did not consider it honorable to abandon a minority group in distress.25 What the historian Michael Meyer has written about Jewish university men in the nineteenth century applies equally well to twentieth-century Jewish university women: Those Jews who had attended a university were the more likely to be estranged from Judaism. Their advanced secular studies, their contact with educated non-Jews, and their exposure to philosophical systems inimical to Judaism left many of them feeling little in common with coreligionists who had not shared their experience. They considered themselves universalists, practiced few, if any, Jewish rituals, and wondered what, aside from the accident of birth, still made them Jews. What remained, some of them said, was only a sense of filial piety and the feeling that conversion was an affront to their integrity.26
“Just Jews,” the roughly 60 percent of women in this study who were located on the middle rungs of the Jewish consciousness ladder, accepted their Jewishness as a fact of life, even though this aspect of their personal identity did not always play an important role in their lives before the advent of Nazism. For such women, being Jewish was simply what one was, not what one did or believed.
142
| , ,
Rose-Marie Papanek-Akselrad exemplifies the category of “Just Jews.” Her memoirs, like Frankenthal’s, written for the Harvard essay competition shortly after her emigration to the United States in 1938, begin as follows: I am an Austrian. I was born and raised in Vienna and the families of both my parents resided in Austria for centuries; all of their traditions and memories were tied to this homeland. I am also a Jew, but what that was and what it meant I knew very little about in my childhood and youth. One belonged to the Jewish religious community because one’s fathers and grandfathers were Jews, but otherwise one lived exactly as the other Austrian citizens who were Catholic or Protestant.27
Papanek-Akselrad thus presented herself as an Austrian by nationality and as a Jew by religion, although she implied that Judaism was not her own personal religion but that of her male forebears. Papanek-Akselrad’s Jewish identity was shaped largely by negative factors, such as social segregation and antisemitism. Born in 1904 to Jewish parents who had migrated to Vienna from Bohemia and Moravia, she was raised in a highly acculturated family; many of her relatives had been baptized. As a student at the Hochschule für Bodenkultur (College of Agriculture), a hotbed of German nationalism in the 1920s, Papanek witnessed frequent outbreaks of violence against male Jewish students, many of whom were Zionists, but as a woman whom fellow students apparently viewed as “un-Jewish” in both appearance and behavior, she rejected Jewish nationalism and claimed not to have personally experienced overt discrimination. She seems to have associated primarily with other Jews, but her marriage in a synagogue ceremony on the eve of her departure from Vienna is the only contact with the Kultusgemeinde mentioned in her unpublished autobiography. Papanek-Akselrad considered being Austrian by citizenship and residency more important to her personally than being nominally Jewish by religion, yet she did not attempt to leave the Jewish community. She accepted her Jewishness as an immutable fact of life, which ultimately compelled her to leave her beloved homeland.28 Like Papanek-Akselrad, most Jewish university women had little personal involvement with synagogues or communally sponsored Jewish activities as adults. Decreasing levels of Jewish observance both inside and outside the home can often be traced over several generations. The grandparents and parents of “Just Jews” might well have gone to synagogue occasionally, especially for the High Holy Days, but the daughters were not likely to attend regularly, especially after they left home. As one questionnaire respondent, an unmarried woman with a doctorate in chemistry, expressed it: “My grandmother went to synagogue and was involved in Jewish
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 143
organizations, my mother observed the high holidays, we did not deny being Jewish.”29 Similarly, Ruth Feitelberg Hope, a married economist with three children, reminisced in her unpublished memoir about her Orthodox grandmother who observed dietary laws and her parents who were Zionists and attended synagogue only on the High Holy Days. She described the process of generational attrition as follows: I was raised in the Jewish faith. . . . The festive dinners, prompted by the holidays, including the Passover meals, were always taken at my grandmother’s house. Somehow, any observance of the Jewish holidays has disappeared from my life. My husband had been raised differently and they meant nothing to him. I never missed them for religious reasons. They are a family and childhood memory of things past rather than a religious conviction for me.30
Thus, both memoirs and questionnaire responses clearly indicate that the Jewish observances that many women recalled from their childhood were in most cases no longer a part of their lives as adults. Jews in Central Europe generally viewed being Jewish as a matter of religious rather than national affiliation, measured by identification with Jewish institutions or by the presence or absence of ritual practices. They tended to identify themselves as Germans by language, culture, and nationality, although not by race, and considered themselves Jews by religion, ethnic bonds, and family ties. For many university women, Jewishness was simply a matter of descent and fate, since they no longer adhered to Jewish beliefs, performed Jewish ceremonies in their homes, or belonged to Jewish voluntary organizations. Many acknowledged their Jewishness simply because they “looked Jewish” or were known to be Jewish, whether or not they wanted to admit this fact publicly. Some of these women claimed that “Hitler made me a Jew,” but most indicate that they were well aware of antisemitism long before the rise of Nazism, even if it was not directed at them personally. The friendships and social circles of most of the women in this study tended to be made up largely of other Jewish intellectuals, not necessarily by conscious choice or preference, but at least partially as a result of antisemitism. In their childhood and youth, Jewish university women frequently had close friendships with non-Jews, but as they grew older, they often found themselves associating primarily with other Jews and being ostracized from Christian groups. The antisemitism experienced by Jewish women before the Nazi era was, for the most part, social in nature. While at university and thereafter, many avoided unpleasant occurrences by socializing mainly with Jews, both men and women. “Just Jews,” as well as “Jewish Jews,” were more conscious than “Former Jews” of belonging to a
144
| , ,
community of fate and, as a result, were more likely to associate with, and eventually marry, other Jews. In their professional careers, as well as their personal lives, Jewish university women generally found themselves among like-minded intellectuals in predominantly Jewish circles. “JEWISH JEWS” The “Jewish Jews” within this study, for whom being Jewish was central to their personal identity, prove to be exceptions to many of these general rules. The women in this category31 approached the higher rungs of the Jewish consciousness ladder and actively affirmed their Jewishness, whether by perpetuating Jewish observances in their homes, becoming involved in Jewish voluntary organizations, acknowledging a Jewish nationality, or seeking to acquire and spread advanced Jewish knowledge. Some, like Rahel Goitein Straus, had been raised in traditional or modern Orthodox households and received supplementary Jewish education.32 Others grew up in a Zionist milieu or rebelled against their assimilated backgrounds by becoming Jewish nationalists. A majority of these “Jewish Jews” came to identify themselves as Zionists. Indeed, it was Zionism, rather than Judaism, that attracted several highly assimilated “Former Jews,” like Rudolfine Walltuch (Menzel) and Emilie Melchior (Braun), back to the Jewish fold.33 Even for some of the women who came from Orthodox homes, identifying themselves as Jews by nationality and involving themselves in Zionist activities provided a vehicle for a more positive and modern identification as Jews. As one woman with a doctorate in history, born in 1900, wrote in a letter to the author, Why did I become a Zionist, although I was raised in the [S.R.] Hirsch [neoOrthodox] community [in Frankfurt am Main]? This was not a common event in those days, but it was not unusual either. Those were the happy and hopeful days after World War I and being Jewish was a matter of pride and joy.34
Some “Jewish Jews” clung to the ideals of German-Jewish liberalism, maintaining a strong attachment to Germany and working on behalf of German-Jewish symbiosis before 1933, often within the context of the Centralverein (CV or Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith), the major Jewish defense organization in Germany. Margarete Meseritz Edelheim (later Muehsam), who received her law degree on the eve of World War I but pursued a career as a journalist, worked as editor for the Ullstein Publishers and also the CV-Zeitung, writing articles on politics and economics, as well as on general and Jewish women’s issues.35 Eva Jungmann Reichmann, a socialist with a doctorate in political economy, also
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 145
worked for many years as a researcher, editor, and director of publications for the Centralverein and later the Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden, the umbrella organization representing German Jewry during the Nazi era.36 Other university women, including the economist Cora Berliner, also participated prominently in Jewish organizational life or worked for Jewish communal institutions. Women rarely had access to intensive Jewish education or opportunities for advanced study of Judaica, since European universities did not offer Jewish Studies courses, other than in Semitic languages, and rabbinical seminaries did not provide a very hospitable environment for women.37 Nevertheless, a small but determined contingent of university women sought both formal and informal means of acquiring more knowledge about Jews and Judaism to supplement their higher general education. Some attended lectures by German-Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen or participated in Franz Rosenzweig’s Lehrhaus; others took courses on Ancient Israel or chose to write dissertations on specifically Jewish topics in fields such as German literature or economics.38 A few pursued research on Jewish issues after receiving their doctorates.39 Such women tended to develop a stronger-than-average Jewish consciousness and commitment, although they rarely adopted a traditional Jewish lifestyle. Jewish university women who wrote doctoral dissertations dealing with women’s issues did not deal with Jews, whereas those who wrote dissertations on Jewish topics did not focus on women, but several women subsequently wrote articles and even books about Jewish women, mainly focusing on German-Jewish salon women. Selma Stern, who was to become well known for her biographies of German-Jewish men in the early modern era, as well as her magnum opus on the history of Prussian Jewry, published an essay in 1922 entitled “The Jewish Woman in Transition,” dealing with various types of Jewish women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.40 Hannah Arendt wrote a biography of one of the most famous salon women, Rahel Levin Varnhagen von Ense, in the early 1930s, although the book was not published until 1957. Several commentators have interpreted this study of intermarriage and attempted assimilation as Arendt’s search for her own Jewish identity, reaffirming her concept of the Jew as quintessential outsider.41 Bertha Badt-Strauss, who received her doctorate in German literature in 1908, was also fascinated by Rahel Varnhagen and edited several volumes of her letters and writings. Varnhagen and other salon women figured prominently in Badt-Strauss’s most important work, a collection of twelve biographies entitled Jüdinnen, published in Berlin in 1937.42 When Jewish university women wrote for a popular Jewish audience, they sometimes chose to explore the lives of Jewish women in the past. Such works might well have reflected their own personal experiences as well.
146
| , ,
Jewishness played a very important role in both the private and public life of physician Rahel Goitein Straus. She did not rebel against the role of Jewish wife and mother, but ran a fairly traditional, kosher Jewish household, graciously welcoming into her home many visiting Zionist dignitaries, as well as numerous Jewish students for Friday night dinners and Passover seders. She was well known as a matchmaker. Her family’s summer residence outside Munich accommodated a private synagogue for the High Holy Days and a sukkah (or booth) to celebrate the festival of Tabernacles.43 Straus was both a quintessential “Jewish Jew” and an active feminist, involved in a wide range of women’s organizations. Successfully combining career, family, and volunteer work, she serves as an ideal role model for the “New Jewish Woman” of today. She organized and led various women’s Zionist groups in Munich, including the Association of Jewish Women to Support Cultural Work in Palestine before World War I and WIZO, the Women’s International Zionist Organization, thereafter. Despite her Zionist credentials, she served on the national executive of the non-Zionist Jüdischer Frauenbund (JFB, Jewish Women’s League) and was under consideration to become its president in 1932. She also belonged to several radical feminist organizations, joining the German Association for Woman Suffrage in 1905 and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom after the war. In addition, she gave lectures to women on proper nutrition and birth control, supported abortion rights, and wrote a pamphlet for mothers explaining how to discuss sex with their daughters. While her lawyer husband served as vice president of the Munich Gemeinde in charge of welfare, Straus limited her volunteer activities largely to the women’s sphere, focusing on women’s organizations and women’s issues.44 UNIVERSITY WOMEN AND JEWISH WOMEN’S ORGANIZATIONS Rahel Goitein Straus was not the only university woman to become involved in Jewish women’s organizations in Germany. Others also were active in the Jüdischer Frauenbund (JFB), B’nai B’rith Women, WIZO, and Misrachi Women, the religious Zionist women’s organization. Nevertheless, professional women who participated in voluntary women’s associations seem to have been more the exception than the general rule. There is little evidence that Jewish university women who were born or educated in Austria ever joined such groups. Perhaps Central European university women belonged to various Jewish women’s clubs at some point in their lives, but never mentioned these activities in their memoirs or (auto)biographical sketches. Most of the active volunteers, like Dora Meyer Edinger, Frieda
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 147
Goldberg Hirsch, and Frieda Gotthelft Sichel, tended to be women from fairly traditional backgrounds who married soon after leaving university and did not pursue full-time careers in Germany. In their Jewish lifestyles and organizational involvement, they more closely resembled their mothers and less educated sisters than other university women who never married, married later in life, or had no children. University women who volunteered contributed editorial, speaking, and administrative skills gained in part during their student years, but most leadership positions within Jewish women’s organizations were held by married women who were homemakers with little or no higher education.45 Single university women had a particularly difficult time finding a Jewish niche for themselves, although some “Jewish Jews” found employment within the communal educational and social welfare network, and several became active in the Jüdischer Frauenbund (JFB). Belonging to the JFB was one of the few ways a single woman could openly affirm her Jewishness and work on behalf of other Jewish women. This moderate feminist organization, established in 1904 and affiliated with the mainstream Bund deutscher Frauenvereine (BDF, the Federation of German Women’s Associations), was the largest Jewish women’s association in Germany, with 50,000 members during the interwar years. The JFB supported woman’s suffrage both in general elections and within the Jewish community. Its founder, Bertha Pappenheim, who was born in Vienna in 1859, belonged to the older generation of Jewish feminists who were unable to receive a university education themselves, but encouraged it among their younger colleagues. Pappenheim, an unmarried, observant Jew, devoted her life to voluntary social work activities, leading the fight against the traffic in women (white slavery or prostitution) within the Jewish community, directing a home for Jewish unwed mothers, and struggling to improve the status of women in the Kultusgemeinde. Whereas most of the members of the JFB were married, many of the activists, including Pappenheim’s protégée, the social worker Hannah Karminski, were not.46 Among the single university women who were prominently involved in the JFB were Margarete Berent, Käthe Mende, and Cora Berliner. Berent, a feminist lawyer, did much of the JFB’s legal work and wrote articles advocating electoral rights for women within the Gemeinde, while Mende, a sociologist, conducted studies on its behalf. Cora Berliner, an economist and civil servant who wrote her dissertation on the Jewish youth movement in Germany and remained actively involved in promoting activities for Jewish youth, particularly girls, served as administrative vice president of the JFB in the 1930s. Like the educators and social workers working within the Jewish community, most of whom did not have doctorates or other advanced degrees, these Jewish university women utilized their professional abilities to help other Jews, especially Jewish women.47
148
| , ,
UNIVERSITY WOMEN AS FEMINISTS Although some university women engaged in Jewish feminist activities within the framework of the JFB, most did not seek out feminist organizations of any kind. All university women benefited from the achievements of the nineteenth-century woman’s movement that enabled them to attend university and gain access to previously all-male professions. Nevertheless, relatively few of the women within this study identified themselves as feminists or affiliated with women’s organizations that were not explicitly professional. Less than 5 percent of the university women in this study were actively involved in mainstream German feminist activities, about the same proportion as belonged to Jewish women’s groups. In the nineteenth century, Jewish women had been active participants in both the German and the Austrian woman’s movements. According to historian Maya Fassmann, one-third of the most prominent leaders of the early feminist movement in Germany—twenty out of sixty activists—were of Jewish origin.48 First-wave feminists in Central Europe focused their activities on educational reform, admission of women to universities, improved working conditions for women, and protection of motherhood. Jewish women were particularly active in the Fröbel kindergarten movement for reform of early childhood education and the modernization of social work. In 1894, the mainstream German feminist organizations coalesced around the Bund deutscher Frauenverein (BDF, Federation of German Women’s Associations), an umbrella organization that included denominational as well as nondenominational women’s groups. Most of the constituent bodies within the BDF were made up of moderate feminists, who mainly advocated enhancing the rights of women as mothers; the organizations supporting woman’s suffrage and sexual reform were considered radical.49 By World War I, many of these mainstream feminist organizations were becoming increasingly conservative, nationalist, and antisemitic. Such tendencies intensified during the interwar years, marginalizing Jewish feminists individually and collectively. In the aftermath of World War I, even though women gained the right to vote in both Germany and Austria, the woman’s movement lost momentum in Central Europe, as it did elsewhere. It is therefore not surprising that by the interwar years, few Jewish university women, particularly among the younger cohort, labeled themselves feminists. In the early twentieth century, the most prominent feminist of Jewish origin within the BDF was the internationally acclaimed social work educator Alice Salomon, a social feminist and progressive reformer who is sometimes referred to as “the German Jane Addams.” As we have already seen, Salomon’s life was devoted to attaining social justice and improving the lives of women and children. She was among the first women to receive a doc-
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 149
torate in the field of political economy from the University of Berlin in 1906, and used her academic training to help implement her goals for professionalizing social work. Already in 1899, she was put in charge of the Girls’ and Women’s Groups for Social Assistance Work and established model training programs for women as social workers. In 1908, she founded the Soziale Frauenschule (Women’s School for Social Work), a prototype nonsectarian institution for preparing girls for careers in social work and preschool education, which was later renamed in her honor. In 1920, she created the Deutsche Akademie für soziale und pädagogische Frauenarbeit (German Academy for Women’s Social and Educational Work), a continuing education program for professional social workers. Salomon wrote several books and many articles on social work education in Germany and abroad, some of which were published in English. She received an honorary doctorate in medicine in 1932 from her alma mater, the University of Berlin, in recognition of the importance of her contributions.50 In 1900, at twenty-eight, Alice Salomon had been elected to the executive board of the BDF as its youngest member; she subsequently served as secretary and then as vice president. She was also actively involved in the International Council of Women (ICW), becoming corresponding secretary after 1909 and traveling widely on its behalf, including several visits to the United States.51 After World War I, Alice Salomon’s bid to become president of the Federation of German Women’s Associations (BDF) was rejected primarily due to antisemitism. Despite the fact that she had been baptized, the leaders of the BDF still viewed Salomon as a Jew and considered her a detriment to the German woman’s movement because she had a Jewish name and Jewish ancestors. She resigned from the BDF in 1920 in protest, after the board, accusing her of supporting internationalism and pacifism, refused to authorize her trip to an ICW conference. Her racist colleagues within the BDF also sabotaged her efforts to chair the ICW.52 Salomon’s experiences within the German woman’s movement in the early twentieth century foreshadowed the dilemmas that confronted American Jewish feminist leaders fifty years later. Trying to play down their Jewishness while fighting for women’s rights both at home and abroad, feminists of Jewish origin nevertheless encountered antisemitism within both the national and international women’s movements.53 Like Salomon, the other Jewish university women who identified with mainstream German feminism belonged to the older generation. Most disaffiliated themselves from the Jewish community, but not all were baptized. This group encompassed social reformers, educators, lawyers, and physicians who worked on behalf of women and did research on women’s issues. The social scientists active in the BDF included the professor of social policy Elisabeth Altmann-Gottheiner, who advocated protective legislation for women and supported woman’s suffrage; Hildegard Lion, Salomon’s
150
| , ,
successor as director of the Deutsche Akademie für soziale und pädagogische Frauenarbeit, who wrote a doctoral dissertation entitled “Toward a Sociology of the Woman’s Movement”; and Lion’s life partner, the educator Emmy Wolff.54 Two feminist lawyers, Marie Munk and Margarete Berent, worked together to prepare a brochure on behalf of the BDF, advocating legislative reform of divorce law and equal parental rights for mothers. Munk also wrote a textbook on marriage and divorce law and procedure, published in 1929, which was used as a reference book for lawyers, as well as a resource for the general public. Berent published her thesis on joint earnings of married couples, as well as numerous articles on women’s rights in legal and professional journals.55 The organizations with which Jewish university women were most likely to become involved were women’s professional associations. Munk and Berent, together with Margarete Meseritz (Edelheim-Muehsam), were among the founders and leaders of the Deutscher Juristinnenverein (German Women Lawyers’ Association), established in 1917. They later became active in other women’s organizations as well, including the Federation of Business and Professional Women, the Soroptimist Club, and the Association of University Women.56 Jewish physicians, like Hertha Einstein Nathorff, Käte Frankenthal, Martha Wygodzinski, and Laura Turnau, played prominent roles in the Bund deutscher Ärztinnen (BDÄ, Federation of German Women Physicians); many of these women were also actively involved in the Verein Sozialistischer Ärzten (VSÄ, Association of Socialist Physicians).57 Although women scientists rarely became active in feminist causes, the bacteriologist Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner, the first woman to hold an academic research appointment at the University of Berlin, founded the Society for Granting Interest-free Loans to Women Students in 1899, which she chaired until 1930. A radical feminist who advocated woman’s suffrage and sexual reform, she became an honorary member of the BDÄ when it was established in 1924. According to her oldest son, Robert Kempner: My mother belonged to the small circle of women who one today calls emancipated; the first women doctors, the first professors and school directors appeared [in our home] on Sundays for coffee. My mother was very often touted by feminists who put great value not only on her being a suffragette and bluestocking but also being able to prove herself as a researcher who had children. Out of our house in Lichterfelde [a suburb of Berlin] came appeals and resolutions; the sharpest attacks were prepared against professors who would not admit women to their classes. . . . The feminists were already somewhat vocal and energetic and often greatly irritated by their male colleagues.58
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 151
Central European university women often provided an informal, as well as formal, support system for one another. Many, especially those living in major cities like Vienna and Berlin, had overlapping professional and friendship circles composed of other university women, as well as men, in related fields. The faculty of Alice Salomon’s Soziale Frauenschule in Berlin was largely made up of Jewish feminists, including economist Frieda Wunderlich, lawyer Margarete Berent, and sociologist and educator Hilde Lion. Women physicians also maintained warm friendships, as well as professional relationships, with one another over the years.59 Although tensions and rivalries existed among the women within the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, strong professional ties and social contacts were also forged among a core group, which included Helene Rosenbach Deutsch, Grete Lehner Bibring, Marianne Rie Kris, Jenny Pollak Wälder-Hall, and Anny AngelKatan.60 Among the women physicists in Central Europe, both Jews and non-Jews, a network of scientific and personal links developed; women conducting research on radioactivity often collaborated on research projects. Lise Meitner corresponded regularly with Marietta Blau, Elizabeth Rona, and Berta Karlik in Vienna and kept in touch with other female colleagues in France, Scandinavia, and elsewhere. Women with shared scientific or professional interests saw one another at conferences and sometimes visited one another or vacationed together. Such ties seem to have been particularly important for single women.61 Although they often relied on one another for social contacts and at least moral support, many academic women, especially scientists and humanists, were reluctant to identify themselves as feminists. As Elise Richter, the first woman professor in Central Europe, explicitly stated in her unpublished memoir: I avoided the “woman’s movement.” . . . As a feminist I could not make my way in the university; I had not only to direct my entire strength to my work, but also to shun the appearance of feminism.62
She did not want to engage in feminist struggles and felt it was “not worth all the effort to be first all the time.”63 Nevertheless, despite her personal reticence, she chaired the Association of University Women of Austria, which she helped establish in 1922. This organization, a branch of the International Association of University Women, aimed to help women break into previously inaccessible fields within academia. Despite considerable internal factionalism, it offered research fellowships and support for young women researchers, and provided them with professional contacts for trips abroad.64 Richter, the reluctant feminist, welcomed the right of women to vote and participated in Austrian political life during the interwar years as a member of the Bourgeois-Democratic Workers’ Party. Like most university
152
| , ,
women of the older generation involved with professional women’s organizations or mainstream feminist associations, including the JFB, Elise Richter was a political liberal.65 SOCIALISTS AND FEMINIST CAUSES Other university women could be classified as socialist feminists, even though they themselves might have rejected the feminist label. The social reformer and feminist writer Helene Simon, born in 1862 in Düsseldorf, became a Fabian socialist and later affiliated with the German Social Democratic Party. An economist who studied at the London School of Economics and the University of Berlin, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Heidelberg in 1922. Although she never married, before World War I she wrote a book on “Motherhood and Creative Intellectual Work,” which discussed the difficulties of combining motherhood with a professional or artistic career. In another study, “The Participation of Women in German Industry,” Simon demanded improved factory legislation to protect women and to increase the hiring of female factory inspectors. She continued to engage in social reform activities, especially on behalf of working women and children.66 The foremost socialist feminist in “Red Vienna” during the interwar years was Käthe Pick Leichter, a Social Democrat with a doctorate in political economy from Heidelberg, who was the director of women’s affairs for the Arbeiterkammer (or Chamber of Workers). Leichter expressed considerable hostility toward bourgeois feminism, which she characterized as follows: I have never had a comfortable relationship to the women’s movement. . . . The struggle of the women’s movement consisted of wearing new styles of clothing, of smiling condescendingly at the mention of the word men, of petitioning the parties in parliament, of organizing women’s club evenings as the center of the lives, it seemed to me, of frustrated old-maidish types of creatures. Furthermore, these women always sought to give assurances that they were in no way provocative or radical, that they hoped to achieve their rights peacefully without touching the existing social order. They were overjoyed if, somewhere in the world, a woman became a professor or government minister or achieved some sort of leading role. These women did not realize that the issue was not opportunity for a few privileged women, but the raising of the miserable conditions of working women.67
As an official of the Social Democratic–controlled municipal government, Leichter systematically gathered material on women’s work in Austria, compiled statistical data, and published articles and reports. She worked
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 153
on behalf of legislation to protect working women, including household servants, home workers, and agricultural workers, who were often excluded from health and unemployment insurance and other benefits. She was also concerned about the exclusion of university-educated women from professional opportunities and tried to get more women hired at all levels of social administration, demanding equal pay for equal work. Leichter spread her ideas not only through her publications, but also through lectures, courses in schools and trade unions, and radio broadcasts. She participated actively in Social Democratic Party conferences and interacted with other Austrian socialist women. The overall significance of her contribution is difficult to evaluate, however, since her work was interrupted by the Austrian Civil War of February 1934 before it could reach fruition.68 After the Social Democratic Party was outlawed by the new Christian Social dictatorship, Leichter played an active role in the socialist underground, and in 1938 was arrested and incarcerated. Even in the women’s concentration camp, however, she continued to exercise her leadership skills. In her memory, Austria awards an annual state prize to an outstanding Austrian woman historian. The recipient of this award in 1988, the distinguished American women’s historian Gerda Lerner, paid the following tribute to Leichter: Käthe Leichter personifies the highest ideals of feminism—lifelong activity on behalf of all women, but especially working-class women; conviction that social reforms are only just if they serve the interests of women as well as men; uncompromising struggle against fascism and National Socialism, which cost her her life. In Käthe Leichter’s life there was no divide between theory and praxis; she combined her work as a journalist and organizer with her duties as mother and wife, her political leadership role with her research work as a social scientist. Käthe Leichter was heroic in her achievements, for she dared in a time of terror and oppression to organize resistance and to oppose the horrors of Nazi state power with the brave words of humanism on thin leaflets. It was for this she was jailed and finally gassed in the concentration camp Ravensbruck. In honoring other women we remember her and in a way continue her work and her ideals.69
University women who wrote on feminist issues but who, like Leichter, did not affiliate with mainstream feminist organizations were more likely to classify themselves as socialists than as feminists. Alice Rühle-Gerstel’s Das Frauenproblem der Gegenwart (The Contemporary Women’s Problem), published in 1932, provided a theoretical, Marxist interpretation of women’s roles.70 The psychoanalyst Helene Deutsch wrote numerous studies on women, sexuality, and motherhood, beginning with On the Psychology of
154
| , ,
Sexual Functions in Women in 1925 and culminating in the two-volume The Psychology of Women published in New York twenty years later.71 THE “NEW WOMAN”: SEX REFORM, ABORTION, AND BIRTH CONTROL Most Jewish women physicians in the early twentieth century did not view themselves as feminists; few wrote books on women’s issues or affiliated with feminist organizations,72 yet many became active in the German sex reform movement that sought to disseminate birth control information and to legalize abortion. Women physicians frequently expressed their solidarity with other women through their private medical practices and their involvement with public health, especially in family planning. On a daily basis, women patients approached their female doctors for assistance with birth control, seeking contraceptives that male physicians were often unwilling to provide, or abortions, which were illegal. Jewish women physicians generally did whatever they could to help. Although they never admitted to performing abortions, some, like Hertha Nathorff, referred patients to “Communist doctors who do such things.”73 In interwar Germany, where medical doctors were subject to arrest and prosecution for performing illegal abortions, Jewish women physicians played a very prominent role in the campaign to legalize abortion.74 Käte Frankenthal and other Jewish women active in the Federation of Women Physicians (BDÄ) and the Association of Socialist Physicians (VSÄ) put pressure on their non-Jewish and male medical colleagues to support the abolition of the anti-abortion clause, Paragraph 218, of the German Constitution.75 Rahel Straus publicly adopted a pro-abortion stance within the Jüdischer Frauenbund (JFB), much to the dismay of more moderate Jewish feminists like Bertha Pappenheim.76 Jewish women physicians were disproportionately involved in the sex reform movement that promoted more widespread availability of birth control. They were very visible in the dissemination of contraceptive devices and the running of recently established marriage counseling centers in major metropolitan areas. In Berlin in 1928, Hertha Nathorff shifted from directing a maternity hospital to managing a counseling center, which was actually a birth control clinic. Lydia Ehrenfried also opted to be in charge of one of the first marriage and sexual counseling centers, in addition to maintaining her own private medical practice. Charlotte Wolff worked as a physician in a prenatal clinic, but distributed free contraceptives among working-class women at night. She expressed amusement at the apparent contradiction of looking after pregnancy during the daytime but preventing it during the evening hours.77 These women were following
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 155
in the footsteps of Aletta Jacobs, the pioneering Dutch physician and feminist, who opened the world’s first birth control clinic in Amsterdam in 1882, where she distributed “Dutch caps” to married women who wanted to control the size of their families.78 In both appearance and behavior, Jewish university women often symbolized the “New Woman” of the early twentieth century. Among their ranks were many emancipated individuals who enjoyed much greater personal independence and sexual freedom than most middle-class women of their day.79 Premarital sexual relationships, as well as affairs with married men and with other women, occurred on occasion, although they are often difficult to document.80 Some women, especially those on the left, including Rosa Luxemburg, Käte Frankenthal, and Toni Sender, deliberately flouted all societal conventions; others were somewhat more discreet in conducting ongoing relationships while not married. Examples of relatively long-term extramarital affairs involved Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, Helene Rosenbach (Deutsch) and Hermann Lieberman, Gertrud Kantorowicz and Georg Simmel, and Gertrud Bing and Aby Warburg. Helene Rosenbach is reputed to have had an abortion, while Gertrud Kantorowicz raised a child born out of wedlock. Undoubtedly other such cases existed but were never made public.81 Central European Jewish university women can thus be seen as “New Women,” with respect to both their professional and their personal lives. They were all products of the nineteenth-century woman’s movement, but few identified themselves as feminists. In particular, the members of the younger generation, born after the turn of the century and educated during the interwar years, took for granted the gains in women’s rights accomplished by the feminists of their mothers’ and grandmothers’ generations and rarely became involved in feminist or women’s organizations. Although this phenomenon resembles the aftermath of second-wave feminism in the United States in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, it was undoubtedly the result of the political climate after World War I, when mainstream feminist organizations, increasingly nationalistic, antisemitic, and conservative, suffered a severe decline and socialism appeared to be the wave of the future. LIBERAL, SOCIALIST, AND COMMUNIST POLITICAL ACTIVISTS Before 1908, women had been completely barred from participation in German or Austrian political organizations; they did not obtain the right to vote or to be elected to legislative bodies until after World War I. Once they became eligible to run for public office, a small core of women, including
156
| , ,
some of Jewish origin and several with university degrees, competed successfully for positions on municipal councils, provincial diets, or in the national assembly, generally running on socialist or liberal party tickets.82 Few Jewish university women held elected office in Central Europe, however. Women with higher education were more likely to be party members and activists, or else married to leftist politicians, than to be elected to political office themselves. Many educated Jewish women, especially among the older generation, supported the left-of-center liberal German Democratic Party, but only two Jewish women with university degrees held elective office on a DDP slate. The first was Gertrud Klausner, the sister of the physician Irma Klausner-Cronheim and the labor judge Edith Klausner; she served as a member of the Prussian Diet (or Landtag) from 1919 to 1923. Born in 1877, she received her doctorate in Romance languages from the University of Berlin in 1907 and taught for many years in the Kleist Lyzeum, a public girls’ school in Berlin. Klausner actively supported feminist, as well as liberal political causes.83 The second elected DDP representative was the economist Frieda Wunderlich, who in addition to working as a civil servant, researcher, and adjunct professor, served on the Berlin City Council from 1925 to 1933 and in the Prussian Landtag from 1930 to 1932. During her political career, Wunderlich emphasized her expertise as an economist specializing in social policy, rather than her feminist concerns. Although she wrote several articles on women and work, she by no means focused primarily on women’s issues in her research and publications on German labor and insurance. In a campaign speech to the Association of German Citizen Women, she argued forcefully that women politicians should not limit themselves to specialized municipal affairs fields, like welfare, youth, education, health, or housing, but should also exert their influence in other spheres, including finance, transportation, and public utilities. She fully realized that without involving themselves in financial affairs, women politicians would exercise no clout whatsoever.84 Wunderlich’s views on women’s role in German politics closely echoed the sentiments of her more radical socialist counterpart, Toni Sender. Sender was elected to the Frankfurt City Council in 1919 at the age of 31, and served in the Reichstag from 1920 to 1933, initially as its youngest member. At first, she represented the Frankfurt district within the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) faction, but then switched to the Social Democratic Party (SPD), representing the Dresden district. Her main interests were foreign policy and economic affairs, rather than specifically women’s issues. In her memoir, entitled The Autobiography of a German Rebel, she assessed her contributions as a woman legislator as follows:
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 157
Indeed we women were supposed to deal, in the first instance, with women’s problems and those concerning the family, child care, and social legislation. There can be no doubt that in these fields the German republic had the most progressive and most elaborate legislation. That accomplishment must be attributed to the intelligent and assiduous work of women Reichstag members. I, however, cannot take too much credit for it. Although I realized that it was my duty to participate in the solution of these problems, my special interest was in the economic field and in foreign affairs. Here it proved to be much harder for a woman to attain recognition. Nevertheless, I was appointed a member of the economics committee and also of the committee on foreign affairs and remained at those posts until the end of the republic. I had sufficient opportunity to collaborate in interesting and important legislative work because I was not afraid of intense work and never came to a committee meeting unprepared. Here oratorical gifts were a nuisance— knowledge and ability counted. Although I have no special cause for complaint, I nevertheless sum up thus my experience as a woman member of a parliament: A woman must make a greater effort, must show more efficiency than a man in order to be recognized as an equal. Once, however, her ability is recognized and acknowledged, one can forget about difference of sex.85
Like Käte Frankenthal, who served as an SPD deputy on the Berlin municipal council, Toni Sender’s personal identity rested primarily on being a socialist, rather than a woman or a Jew, although she commented in passing, “I have not changed my race.” As a pacifist during World War I, she helped organize groups of working women, especially soldiers’ wives, who were opposed to the war. She also participated in the socialist women’s international anti-war conference in Bern in 1915. After the war, Sender continued her revolutionary activities, supporting the establishment of a socialist republic headed by Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils and serving as secretary of the Council of People’s Representatives. She gained expertise as a trade union organizer, as editor-in-chief of a socialist daily newspaper, and also as managing editor of a socialist women’s magazine called Frauenwelt (Women’s World). She frequently wrote articles on economic issues, including a pamphlet on “Wage, Price, and Currency.” She had always wanted to study economics, but did not begin her university career until after she had begun serving in the Reichstag. She never completed her doctorate.86 When asked why she never married, she once replied: I think . . . that we have to make up our minds as to the main task to which we want to devote our lives. Very early I felt the urge to try to give my full service to the cause of freedom and social justice, to help bring about a better existence, materially and culturally, for the underprivileged. We live in a revolutionary period. Family ties could eventually prevent one from showing
158
| , ,
all the courage and unselfishness that a great cause requires—especially in the case of a young woman. . . . Once you have entered a movement tied up with the plight of your people, you have given up at least part of your right to personal satisfaction.87
More a politician than an academic, Toni Sender dedicated herself to the cause of socialism, rather than her own personal needs. Jewish university women also became very actively involved in socialist politics in Vienna. Helene Gumplowicz Bauer, the wife of Otto Bauer, the leader of the Austrian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SDAP), held a doctorate in political science. Born in Galicia in 1871, she had been active in the Polish Socialist Party before the war and worked alongside her husband in the SDAP thereafter, mainly as a journalist and as a member of the Vienna municipal school board.88 The most prominent socialist women of Jewish origin on the Viennese political scene were Käthe Leichter, the head of the women’s affairs department of the Chamber of Workers, and Aline Fürtmuller, the teacher and later director of the Schwarzwaldschule, who served as a deputy on the municipal council. The majority of Austrian, as well as German, Jewish socialist women intellectuals toiled behind the scenes as party activists rather than filling visible leadership roles. Other university women shared a passion for radical left-wing causes. Rosa Luxemburg, born in 1871, undoubtedly belongs in a class all by herself. With her doctorate in economics from the University of Zurich, she utilized her brilliant intellectual skills and acute organizational abilities to become the foremost theoretician of social democracy and, later, communism, first in Russian Poland, then in Germany, until her assassination after the Sparticist uprising in 1919.89 Ruth Fischer, born Elfriede Eisler in 1895, was a founding member of the small Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ) and temporarily became leader of the much larger German Communist Party (KPD) in the mid-1920s, before being expelled from its ranks. After studying philosophy and economics for several years at the University of Vienna, she did not complete her doctorate, instead becoming involved in radical politics. Like Luxemburg, she contracted several fake marriages, first to obtain German citizenship, then French citizenship.90 No other Jewish women figured as prominently in Central European politics in the early twentieth century, and none ever held elective office as communists in either Germany or Austria. Most Jewish university women who were attracted to communism became party activists and fellow-travelers; some were married to communist activists. Several memoir writers from Germany, including Recha Rothschild, Dodo Badt Liebmann, Lotte Eisner, and Karola Piotrkowski Bloch, identified themselves as strong Communist Party supporters.91 The German communist physician Martha Ruben-Wolf and at least two Austrian
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 159
communists, Hilde Oppenheim Koplenig, who was married to the head of the Austrian Communist Party (the KPÖ), and Genia Lande Quittner followed their husbands to Moscow.92 LEFTIST INTELLECTUAL CIRCLES IN WEIMAR GERMANY AND “RED VIENNA” Although some women within this study, including Rahel Straus, considered themselves to be apolitical and a few baptized Jews leaned toward the right,93 university women generally situated themselves to the left of center on the political spectrum, as did most Central European Jews. Whereas members of the older generation often tended toward liberalism, some gravitated toward socialism, as did many, if not most, of the younger cohort. By the interwar years, virtually all political parties in the center and on the right in both Germany and Austria had adopted antisemitic policy statements within their electoral platforms. As a result, most Jewish university women voted for either the German or Austrian Social Democratic Party (SPD or SDAP), while others became Communist Party supporters (KPD or KPÖ).94 Roughly one in four university women in this study can be classified as a political leftist. Three-quarters of this group affiliated as Social Democrats and one-quarter as Communists. The majority of these women, especially the communists, were born in the twentieth century; most married other left-wingers. Relatively few socialists, and no communists, underwent baptism, but at least one out of three communists and one out of five socialist sympathizers formally opted out of the Jewish community for political reasons. As Hilde Koplenig explained her situation, “As for the religion, I didn’t want to belong. But my resignation was rather childish. That’s just the way we all were—we believed we were going to bring about a revolution and introduce Socialism.”95 The majority, however, remained nominally within the Jewish fold, even though socialism had more meaning for them than Judaism. Vienna, much more than Berlin, served as an incubator and training ground for these left-leaning university women, since its university was a hotbed of socialist student activity.96 During the Weimar Republic, many German Jews, including a significant proportion of university-educated men and women, shifted their political allegiance from the liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) to the Social Democratic Party (SPD). In “Red Vienna,” however, with its municipal council controlled by Social Democrats from 1919 to 1934, the overwhelming majority of Jews supported the Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SDAP), and many Jewish intellectuals, especially men, reached high levels within the party hierarchy.97 According to Joseph Buttinger, an Austrian Jewish socialist,
160
| , ,
Eighty percent of the intellectuals who joined the labor movement in Vienna were Jews. They made up the bulk of the Socialist students’ organization, formerly 3,000 strong. The 200 lawyers who were organized Social Democrats, the 400 members of the Socialist Jurists’ Association, and the 1,000 members of the Social Democratic physicians’ organization in Vienna were almost exclusively Jews.98
It is impossible to ascertain exactly how many women were among these socialist intellectuals. Nevertheless, it is clear that quite a few Jewish university women were actively involved in the SDAP and the KPÖ, even though none achieved the same status as their male counterparts. During the interwar years, particularly in Vienna, but also in other major German cities, young Jewish left-wing intellectuals, both women and men, belonged to professional and social circles that were predominantly Jewish and composed of other like-minded individuals. To some extent, they lived in their own world. As Marie Jahoda explained, In my Austrian days, there was no one in my close circle of acquaintances who was not at least a socialist sympathizer. The social and cultural oasis, which the Social Democratic Party had created in Vienna, was a unique achievement. But it also made one blind to the world outside. I recall that I felt sorry for the generation of my parents, who might no longer be alive to experience the victory of democratic socialism with me as education minister [Jahoda’s personal dream before 1934]. I thought we had the answers to all the economic misery of the time and would soon also have the power to prove their correctness. What an illusion! For me, to be sure, a productive illusion, an ethical belief system, that was for me comparable to a true religiosity for many others: Belief in a better future and solace in personal difficulties.99
For left-wing Jewish intellectuals like Jahoda, one’s primary identity derived from one’s political convictions. Before the Nazi era, at least, Jahoda saw herself as a socialist rather than a feminist or a Jew. She certainly did not emphasize being German or Austrian. PERSONAL IDENTITY AS GERMANS AND AUSTRIANS Like Marie Jahoda, most Central European Jewish university women lacked a strong sense of German or Austrian national identity. Yet nearly all viewed themselves as culturally German, and the majority considered themselves Germans, rather than Jews, by nationality, as well as by citizenship, even though they recognized that they were not considered German according to a Nazi racial definition. As Rose-Marie Papanek-Akselrad asserted without qualification at the outset of her memoir, “I am an Austrian.”100 Although
Jews, Feminists, and Socialists
| 161
some of the more radical left-wingers were staunch pacifists or internationalists, many Jewish university women recalled patriotic feelings toward Germany or Austria, especially during World War I. When the war broke out, Hertha Einstein (Nathorff ) declared, “I was German, German and nothing else, no matter what religion I belonged to, so I thought and felt at the time.” Like many others, she volunteered as a nurse to help support the war effort.101 During the interwar years, when German nationalism became increasingly identified with its right-wing, völkisch, and Nazi elements, educated Jewish women, who were predominantly liberals or leftists, or else apolitical, tended to distance themselves from ardent expressions of nationalism of any kind. After the advent of Nazi rule, however, some of these women, especially nonsocialist “Former Jews,” articulated a desperate need to be accepted as Germans. For example, Melitta Gerhard, a Privatdozentin in German literature at the University of Kiel who had been baptized as a child, protested vociferously when she was dismissed from her position because she was not able to prove “Aryan” descent. In a lengthy petition, she claimed that although she legally belonged to the “Jewish race,” she had nevertheless always “passionately fought against” and “sharply opposed all Marxist, Jewish, and international outlooks” and asserted her “unconditional identification with Germanness.”102 This phenomenon is particularly conspicuous in the submission written by Paula Tobias for the Harvard essay competition on the eve of World War II. Born in Hamburg in 1886, Tobias was a rural physician who was religiously unaffiliated but whose son was baptized as a Lutheran. In 1933, she wrote a lengthy letter in response to an accusation in the Deutsches Ärzteblatt that physicians were knowingly denying their Jewish origins. She stated: That I am “non-Aryan” and a physician I admit in advance. That I am German, I can prove is true. . . . Our tragedy does not lie in self-deception as you imply. A life like ours with all its results and achievements is not built upon self-deception. That we, with all our convictions, were never anything other than German and for us then to be ejected from the midst of our own Volk and made without honor, that is our tragedy.
In closing, she reiterated her loyalty to Germany and her love and devotion to all things German.103 Tobias’s highly patriotic assertions, which could only have been made before the Holocaust, present somewhat of an anomaly for Central European Jewish university women, most of whose memoirs were written after the war and hence influenced by personal or family experiences of the Shoah. The advent of the Nazi regime in Germany in 1933 and the 1934 Civil War in Austria, followed by the Anschluss in 1938, altered and, in many
162
| , ,
cases, completely transformed the lives and personal identities of Central European Jewish university women—as Jews, as professional women, and as left-wing intellectuals. “Former Jews” could no longer escape their Jewish origins; “Just Jews” became more aware of their Jewishness; “Jewish Jews” became more intensely involved in Jewish, and often Zionist, activities. As women and as Jews, academics, physicians, lawyers, teachers, and other university graduates found it difficult, if not impossible, to continue to work in their professional fields. Socialists and communists were the first to feel threatened and many went underground to pursue their political endeavors. Flight from continental Europe became a necessity if one wanted to save one’s very life. Jewish university women could no longer take pride in being German. As the lawyer Lilli Cohen Kretzmer confessed, I felt so ashamed, for I had always considered myself 100 percent German, and had always given willingly and enthusiastically of my time, ability and means, for the glory of the country. I had always been so proud of German culture and nobility and of the cleverness and honesty of my people, that a whole world had broken down within me.104
SEVEN
Interrupted Lives: Persecution and Emigration
J
ewish university women began encountering severe discrimination and escalating harassment directed against them both as Jews and as women almost immediately after Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933. Nazis targeted this group for multiple reasons, classifying them as “nonAryan” academics and professionals, “double earners,” and, in certain cases, socialists or communists. Many could not complete their doctorates or professional training; nearly all found their livelihoods in jeopardy. Alone or with their families, some began fleeing the country for political or economic reasons, but, despite steadily increasing restrictions, most continued to live and work in Germany or Austria for several more years at least. Some established or taught in Jewish schools, while others found employment as social workers within the Jewish community or continued their medical or law practices with primarily Jewish clients or patients. Most of the women in this study eventually managed to emigrate, having come to the realization that as Jewish women intellectuals, they were persona non grata in Nazi Germany and had no future there. But reaching a safe haven was often difficult. Those who fled did so in several waves, with the earliest leaving in 1933 or 1934 and others making arrangements to depart after the issuing of the Nuremberg Laws in 1935. Another large exodus took place in the aftermath of the critical events of 1938: the Anschluss, or annexation of Austria, in March, and Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” in November, when synagogues were burnt, Jewish businesses looted, and thousands of Jews arrested and tortured. Smaller numbers managed to escape after the outbreak of World War II, just in the nick of time before emigration was cut off completely in 1941.1 Few “non-Aryan” university women who remained in Nazi Europe survived the Shoah.
164
| , ,
Much more is known about those women who survived than about the incalculable numbers who perished in the Holocaust, since it is much easier to gather information about émigrés than about victims. Thus, the Central European Jewish university women who died as a result of Hitler’s “Final Solution” are underrepresented among the women in this study and their stories remain largely untold.2 The main focus here will perforce be on the survivors. ANTISEMITISM AND ANTI-JEWISH LEGISLATION In Germany and Austria in the early twentieth century, antisemitism had existed in a variety of political, economic, and social, as well as racial, forms, but it had not prevented Jews from living comfortable lives in Central Europe. Jewish university women had, of course, been aware of antisemitism from their childhood on, even if many claimed that they were not adversely affected by it personally before 1933. Bertha Katz, who was born in 1908 into an Orthodox family in Frankfurt am Main and never completed her university studies due to the advent of Nazism, described her state of mind as follows: Antisemitism was always present and acknowledged and taken into account. . . . [T]he wishful thinking of certain intellectuals that living in harmony and freedom would overcome this problem was an illusion far from reality. But until the blow fell and orientation had painfully to change, this life of illusions was full of events and I enjoyed it all immensely and the future promised real happiness. I was delighted to be a woman at such a time of emancipation, which offered every possibility for development.3
The antisemitism that Jewish women had experienced before the Nazi era had been social or verbal rather than physical in nature, although at times it had limited their job opportunities. Many had encountered discrimination and antisemitic incidents in school, at university—especially the University of Vienna—and in the job market. It had never been easy for women, especially Jewish women, to get desirable jobs in Central Europe during the interwar era. They faced intense competition from returning veterans after World War I, a campaign to get married women out of the workplace, and then the escalating unemployment due to the Depression. As Salome Gluecksohn(-Waelsch), who received her doctorate in genetics in 1932, explained to an interviewer: Don’t forget, I’m not only a woman. I’m also a Jew. It’s very difficult to separate these two targets of discrimination. . . . [I]n 1932 I went to see a famous
Interrupted Lives
| 165
geneticist to inquire about a job and got the answer, “You—a woman and a Jew—forget it.”4
Nevertheless, until the Nazi takeover in Germany in 1933 and the Austrian Civil War the following year, it was generally possible for a Jewish university woman to complete her training, obtain professional certification, and obtain suitable, if not always paid or full-time, employment in her field. Before 1933, Jewish university women had been even more likely to encounter obstacles and hostility due to their gender than because of their Jewish origins, but with the Nazi takeover, their situation changed dramatically almost overnight. Being Jewish now became the decisive factor in their lives, whether they wished to acknowledge this fact or not. Because they were Jewish, they would no longer be able to earn a living, and soon their lives would be endangered if they remained in their homeland. Nazi legislation reversed the emancipation process for both women and Jews in Central Europe. Women, especially married women and leftist political activists, quickly lost political and personal rights. All women who were politically suspect or classified as “double earners” were subject to immediate dismissal from civil service jobs within the public health, university, and court systems. Although they were not penalized as severely as Jews, nearly all university women in Nazi Germany encountered quotas and special restrictions in higher education and the professions, especially law.5 Jews faced a much more dire situation. By the time the Nuremberg Laws defining Jews by strictly racial criteria were promulgated in 1935, German Jews had lost their citizenship rights and virtually all political, civil, economic, and personal freedoms. Jewish university women suffered the same hardships as other Jewish women in Nazi Germany, but since they were more likely than their less educated sisters to be employed as professionals outside the home, they were also subject to the restrictions imposed upon professional Jewish men.6 Based on the April 1933 Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service and subsequent legislation, “non-Aryans” were dismissed from all public service jobs, including teaching, academia, and research, and their licenses for practicing law and medicine were gradually revoked. A Jewish woman was extremely fortunate if she was able to complete her university studies, but her chances for pursuing a professional career in Central Europe had now disappeared. Some women were denied the degrees they had earned and others had their previously received doctorates formally annulled.7 Jewish university women thus faced extremely bleak personal and professional prospects. On the whole, they tended to lose their gainful employment sooner than their male counterparts, including their husbands,
166
| , ,
since they were not protected by temporary loopholes, such as having established themselves professionally before World War I or being war veterans. They could no longer expect jobs in their fields of expertise outside the Jewish community. As women, they were discriminated against, but as Jews they were persecuted. Their lives and careers were abruptly interrupted and, in many cases, permanently shattered. COPING WITH ISOLATION AND OSTRACISM During the Nazi era, Jewish university women experienced increasing isolation and depression due to the constant stresses of daily living, coupled with loss of jobs and professional status and other personal dislocations. Sometimes they were able to turn to other Jewish women and to form support networks. As early as the summer of 1933, members of various occupational groups in Berlin, including physicians, lawyers, and teachers, articulated a desire to organize professional sections of former working women under the auspices of the JFB (Jewish Women’s League). Several hundred women participated in these sections, which met on a monthly basis for lectures and discussions, enabling women to exchange ideas and plans and to maintain links with their colleagues.8 During the Nazi era, some university women who had previously had only limited contact with the Jewish community became more involved in its activities. They joined the Jüdischer Kulturbund (Jewish Cultural Association), as well as the JFB, gave lectures on a variety of Jewish and professional topics, and contributed articles to Jewish publications.9 Jews were forced to rely almost completely on their fellow Jews for social, economic, and cultural support, since nearly all of their German friends and colleagues had abandoned them. With rare exceptions, German women did not demonstrate solidarity and loyalty toward their Jewish sisters. Prior to 1933, tensions and misunderstandings had been developing between German and Jewish feminists; as we have already seen, antisemitic tendencies were apparent within the mainstream German woman’s movement even before Hitler’s rise to power. Rahel Goitein Straus, who as vice president of the JFB attempted unsuccessfully to mediate between Jewish and Christian women’s groups, expressed frustration with her German colleagues whom she had considered possible allies: I experienced the same [phenomenon] repeatedly: we lived among one another, sat with them on the same school bench, went through university with them, met together in societies—and were complete strangers to one another. Was it their [or] was it our fault? Hard to say, but also meaningless. It was a fact which had its ominous consequences at this time that those who [might have] wanted to side with us knew nothing about us.10
Interrupted Lives
| 167
The president of the JFB, Paula Ollendorff, observed that “[i]mmediately after Hitler’s takeover colleagues with whom we had worked together for many years found ‘dumb excuses’ not to be mixed up with Jews.”11 Both individually and collectively, Jewish women were rapidly excluded from German feminist and professional women’s organizations. On April 16, 1933, Hertha Nathorff recorded in her diary how she had attended a meeting of the Bund deutscher Ärztinnen (BDÄ, League of German Women Physicians) that day as usual, but found herself segregated from the “German” physicians and excluded from the gathering, along with all the other Jewish and “half-Jewish” physicians present.12 Several “German” physicians left the room as well, in protest. As a result of this process of Gleichschaltung (Nazification), four of the eight members of the organization’s executive board were forced to resign on racial grounds, as was at least one of its founders. By the end of June, the BDÄ was completely judenrein (free of Jews).13 A similar phenomenon occurred in other professional and women’s organizations. In May 1933, the Jewish Women’s League (JFB) withdrew from membership in the Federation of German Women’s Associations (BDF); its resignation was accepted “with deepest regret” and, soon thereafter, the BDF itself dissolved.14 DISMISSAL OF “NON-ARYANS” As early as February and March of 1933, Jewish university women, especially socialists like the municipal health official Käte Frankenthal and the librarian Helene Nathan,15 began to be dismissed from their public service positions. By April 1933 or soon thereafter, nearly all academics and teachers of Jewish origin had received notice of the termination of their jobs. Many of these women had been baptized or had formally left the Jewish community; nevertheless, no recourse was possible if one was designated a “non-Aryan.” Some women protested and tried to deny their Jewish identity, but to no avail. Margarete Bieber, the assistant professor of archeology at the University of Giessen who had converted to Catholicism in 1920, declared after leaving the country: I am not a Jew and do not consider myself as a Jew. Until now I have considered myself German. I believe, however, that in the sense of the citizenship law, I am a Jew. I will in any case soon no longer be a German, but after 1940 a proud citizen of the free land of America.16
In the unusual case of the Etruscan specialist Eva Lehmann Fiesel, both colleagues and students petitioned on her behalf, claiming that she was irreplaceable as a visiting lecturer at the University of Munich and that she looked and acted “like an Aryan.” One statement argued that “Dr. Fiesel
168
| , ,
was raised Protestant, her external appearance has nothing Jewish about it. She is blond and blue-eyed and therefore in Italy was always considered by everyone as German.” Another testimonial on her behalf requested a veteran’s exemption on the basis of her service as nurse during World War I. Nevertheless, Fiesel’s dismissal, like that of virtually all other academic women of Jewish origin, was upheld by the Nazi authorities and she too left Germany in 1933.17 At least two out of five women with academic positions in Germany in 1933 were dismissed from their jobs on racial grounds; perhaps another 10 percent were let go due to their left-wing political affiliations or because they were closely associated with Jews.18 At the University of Berlin, for example, eight out of fourteen women with academic appointments lost their positions for racial or political reasons. Seven of these were classified as “non-Aryans”: physicist Lise Meitner, political scientist Charlotte Leubuscher, zoologist Mathilde Hertz, chemist Gertrud Kornfeld, applied mathematician Hilda Geiringer-Pollaczek, medical researcher Anneliese Wittgenstein, and historian Hedwig Guggenheimer Hintze.19 Although Lise Meitner lost her right to teach at the university, she was able to continue her research in nuclear fission at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry until after the Anschluss in 1938, due to the technicality that, as an Austrian citizen, she was not fully subject to the Nuremberg Laws and other racial legislation.20 The other women in academia had been denied all employment at least three, if not five, years earlier. Dismissal from their jobs signaled an abrupt ending of academic careers in Central Europe, careers achieved after years of difficult struggle. Assistant professors, lecturers, and researchers alike quickly realized that their prospects for alternative employment in Germany were nonexistent. Early warning enabled them to seek personal and professional opportunities elsewhere, especially since most were unmarried and many had professional contacts abroad. Nearly all of the academic women in Germany succeeded in emigrating; about half of them had already left by the end of 1933.21 Most went to Britain first, although several sought temporary shelter in Turkey or elsewhere. In many cases, they eventually made their way to the United States. Nevertheless, not everyone was able to reestablish herself in a position comparable to the one she had left, and some never reached a permanent safe haven. TEACHING AND WORKING WITHIN THE JEWISH COMMUNITY Jewish teachers, both women and men, lost their jobs in public as well as private schools, and could no longer become fully accredited. Some turned
Interrupted Lives
| 169
to part-time teaching and private tutoring in order to earn needed income, but others, including Johanna Philippson, Stella Herzig Klein(-Löw), and Käte Levi (Freyhan), were able to find jobs in Jewish private or communal schools. Such institutions, many of which were run by women educators, were only temporary expedients that provided education and an ephemeral refuge for Jewish children before the more fortunate among the faculty, as well as their pupils, were able to emigrate. Several university women who could not find teaching positions in the 1930s due to high unemployment and then Nazi anti-Jewish regulations established their own schools.22 Lotte Kaliski, who had passed her middle school teaching examination in 1931 but never completed her doctorate, founded a coed country dayschool in Berlin. Kaliski, who had suffered from polio as a child, initially intended to create a nondenominational institution primarily for handicapped pupils, but soon her school was transformed to serve the needs of Jewish children who were being ostracized and expelled from public schools.23 Vera Lachmann, who received her doctorate in Old Germanic philology and classics from the University of Berlin in 1931, had hoped for an academic appointment at the University of Bonn, but for practical reasons decided to take her state examination to become a secondary school teacher. In April 1933, in response to the difficulties facing Jewish pupils in public institutions, she set up a small private school, together with her teacher and role model, Helene Herrmann. As she described the situation, In order to do something and also because it was urgently necessary, we collected lost children from the street and began a school. A cousin gave me a chauffeur’s house in the garden and everyone including the most distant aunt brought a chair and a table. And at last we had a little school with about sixty pupils, boys and girls. It lasted roughly six years and was my salvation and my life’s substance during the Nazi period. . . . But finally, on January 1, 1939 it was forbidden.24
Vera Lachmann emigrated to the United States soon thereafter, but Helene Herrmann remained in Germany and perished in Auschwitz in 1944.25 During these difficult years, other university women also played a prominent role in educating Jewish children and preparing them for emigration. From 1938 to 1941, Tilly Epstein directed the Frankfurt Philanthropin, the oldest Jewish communal school in Germany, after most of her male colleagues had been arrested or left the country.26 Even after emigrating, several Jewish women educators, including Hilde Lion and Emmy Wolff, continued working with refugee Jewish children by establishing or teaching in special schools for those who arrived in England with the Kindertransport (children’s transport).27
170
| , ,
The Jewish community and its institutions provided limited employment opportunities for Jewish social workers, social scientists, and lawyers, as well as teachers. Cora Berliner, the economist and former civil servant, headed the economic and social department of the Reichsvertretung, the Jewish umbrella organization established under the Nazis. Other university women held lower-ranking positions, providing social welfare services to the increasingly impoverished Jewish population and helping to coordinate emigration. In retrospect, one can see that being able to work within the Jewish community, whether as a teacher, a social worker, or an administrator, was a double-edged sword for some Jewish university women. On the one hand, these professionals had gainful and worthwhile employment and the chance to help other Jews; on the other hand, such jobs caused a delay in making arrangements for their own emigration and often resulted in the loss of their lives. Tilly Epstein was fortunate enough to be able to emigrate just in the nick of time; Cora Berliner turned down various opportunities to leave the country and was deported to Theresienstadt with the other leaders of the Berlin Jewish community in 1942, one year after Epstein’s departure. Like most of the inmates of this “model concentration camp,” Berliner did not survive.28 THE PLIGHT OF WOMEN LAWYERS AND PHYSICIANS Law had never been a promising field for women in Central Europe, but under the Nazi regime, employment prospects for women lawyers were particularly bleak. “Non-Aryan” women were ineligible to complete their certification as lawyers, and in 1933 all women of Jewish origin were dismissed from the jobs they held within the court system. “Aryan” women lawyers did not fare significantly better professionally than their Jewish counterparts; many lost their jobs either temporarily or permanently. Thus, by and large, women were excluded from practicing law in Nazi Europe. Staying in Germany thus offered no professional prospects for women with legal training, but emigration did not necessarily improve one’s chances for finding work as a lawyer either.29 Although Jewish women physicians were excluded from positions in public health, schools, and hospitals soon after the Nazi takeover, they could generally continue in private practice for a while longer, if only on a limited basis. Physicians began to experience the perils that lay ahead on Boycott Day, April 1, 1933. Henrietta Magnus Necheles recounted in her unpublished memoir how two brown-shirted Storm Troopers (or SA) were blocking the entrance to her practice when she arrived for her office hours that morning. Over her door, they had hung a large placard with a black background and a yellow patch in the middle, indicating that hers was a Jewish establishment that was not to be patronized by “Aryans.” Some of
Interrupted Lives
| 171
her patients showed up, however, and demanded to see their doctor. Several even brought flowers and small gifts to show her that “we don’t support such politics.” One visitor told her, “I am not sick, Doctor, I just came to see how things were going for you.” Another patient crocheted a “boycott blanket” for her as a gesture of goodwill. Nevertheless, new restrictions soon forced her to give up her patients covered by workers’ health insurance and prompted her to abandon her solo practice. She continued to hold office hours for a dwindling number of private patients, sharing space with her physician husband who, as a war veteran, was allowed to continue his practice for somewhat longer. The doctor who rented her former premises removed her sign, telling people she had committed suicide, but some patients remained loyal to her, at least for a short while. Both she and her husband soon found themselves treating primarily Jewish patients. As the tensions grew, Necheles spent many sleepless nights, worrying that her husband might face arrest and be accused of performing illegal abortions.30 Henrietta Necheles’s experiences mirrored those of other Jewish women physicians in Central Europe in the 1930s. First, they lost their public health positions, then their insurance practices, and by 1938 were no longer allowed to treat “Aryan” patients. Some, especially older physicians, continued to practice medicine in Germany as long as they could; others, like Necheles, made the crucial decision to emigrate. In 1933, 587 Jewish women were recorded by the census as practicing medicine in Germany, at least 270 of them in Berlin. By the end of that year, 300 “non-Aryan” women, including 126 from Berlin, had lost their right to treat insurance patients.31 By 1936, only eight women physicians were still listed as Jewish insurance doctors in Greater Berlin. Among them were four of the earliest women physicians with German medical licenses, Irma KlausnerCronheim, Martha Wygodzinski, Johanna Maas, and Käthe Hirsch Schiepan. Klausner-Cronheim succeeded in emigrating, joining her two sons in the United States in 1939; the remaining three women perished in the Holocaust.32 Single women who had recently earned their medical degrees but were unable to complete their accreditation in either Germany or Austria because they could not obtain hospital internships or residencies had little incentive to remain in Europe. They desperately sought professional opportunities elsewhere.33 Those women physicians, including public health officials and medical researchers, who lost their jobs soon after the Nazi takeover also tended to make arrangements to leave the country sooner than women with private practices or those who were married to physicians who were war veterans. By the outbreak of World War II, the majority of Jewish women physicians had succeeded in leaving the Third Reich; the less fortunate, however, remained trapped in Nazi Europe.
172
| , ,
AGONIZING DECISIONS: TO STAY OR TO LEAVE? University women were, of course, subject to the same daily hassles, mounting harassments, and unspeakable humiliations as other Jewish women in Nazi Germany. They also suffered many of the same indignities as professional Jewish men, although women were less likely to be arrested or tortured unless they were actively involved in socialist or communist activities. Married women, like Henrietta Necheles and Hertha Nathorff, however, constantly feared the arrest of their physician husbands on trumped-up charges. Life was becoming ever more difficult, with each passing day bringing greater degradation and further restrictions. Mothers were concerned for the well-being of their children. Already by May 1933, Hertha Nathorff had placed her nine-year-old son in a Jewish school, even though she was troubled by the fact that he would not learn Latin there. She considered it more important “to protect her child’s soul from persecution,” because in other schools Jewish children were being discriminated against and targeted for ridicule.34 While expecting a child in 1935, Henrietta Necheles made up her mind that her family should emigrate. She described her state of mind as follows: “If I until then had lived in a certain condition of lethargy and secretly had held the hope that this was only a temporary state, so the idea awoke in me concerning my second child: Never again a German-Jewish child, no new human being with second-class status.” She could scarcely believe how much paperwork was necessary and how many bribes and special taxes had to be paid in order to leave the country. Even after receiving an affidavit from her brother-in-law in the United States, it still took several more months to take care of all the formalities. Her daughter was born in 1935, three weeks after their arrival in the United States, but Henrietta Necheles left her parents behind with a very heavy heart.35 In many cases, married women made the decision that the family should emigrate, not only out of concern for themselves, but frequently because they worried about the well-being of their husbands and children. Likely to be unemployed or underemployed, most married university women remained in Germany or Austria until their husbands also found themselves unable to work in their professional fields. Wives were frequently responsible for making the arrangements for emigration and procuring all the necessary documents. Often, as in the case of Hertha Nathorff, the final impetus for leaving the country was the arrest and imprisonment of the husband, especially in the aftermath of Kristallnacht.36 For many women, one of the major deterrents to emigration was a reluctance to abandon elderly parents, especially widowed mothers. Käthe Pick Leichter, who was active in the Austrian socialist underground resis-
Interrupted Lives
| 173
tance movement after 1934, delayed her emigration so that she could spend more time with her mother. She was arrested at her mother’s home in May of 1938, while preparing to leave for Czechoslovakia on a false passport. Leichter was first incarcerated in a prison in Vienna and then sent to Ravensbruck, a camp for women political prisoners, in 1940; she was murdered two years later. Her husband and her two sons managed to reach Switzerland and then the United States; her mother committed suicide in Vienna.37 The lawyer Ella Kessler-Reis, who held an executive position in the Jewish Relief Organization in Stuttgart after 1933, had her fate sealed when emigration became prohibited in the second half of 1941. The following year, in order to be together with her mother, she voluntarily joined a transport to Theresienstadt. In 1945, her mother was liberated and went to live in Switzerland, but Ella Kessler-Reis had been deported to Auschwitz, where she was gassed.38 Lucie Adelsberger, an immunologist and, after 1938, Judenbehändler (physician permitted to treat only Jews), recounted a heart-wrenching story of her decision to remain at her mother’s side. She had turned down a research position at Harvard and returned to Berlin after Kristallnacht because she was unable to obtain a visa for her mother. As she wrote in her memoir, I loved my mother very much and returned to Germany again and again on her account. When she fell sick, I let my last chance for emigration pass by unheeded. She had had a stroke and lay paralyzed in bed, unable to sit up or even to turn over by herself. . . . She had a devoted nurse who cared for her during the day; I came in the evening after office hours were over and I had finished my house calls. In her quiet room we were able to keep my mother ignorant of any news about the deportation of the Jews, but . . . I tensed at every sound at the door, every step in the stairwell, and every car that stopped in front of the house. When would they come and take us away, together or separately? . . . Was I, who had spent my whole life struggling to save each and every human life, was I supposed to kill my mother, the person most dear to me in all the world? May a person who trusts in a higher power ever deliberately end a life, be it her own or that of another? I couldn’t do it. But I did get on my knees and beseech God to let my mother die before the thugs could drag her away with their murderous hands. And I wasn’t the only one—many sons and daughters did the same. We all knew but one prayer: the death of our parents.39
Adelsberger was greatly relieved when her mother died of natural causes in Berlin in 1943, but by that time, it was too late for her to escape. Several months later, she was deported to Auschwitz, where she worked as a physician in a camp for Roma (or Gypsies) and later cared for children in a
174
| , ,
women’s camp. After surviving a death march to Ravensbruck, she emigrated to the United States.40 Women who succeeded in emigrating often felt anguish about the fate of parents and other family members left behind, and made every effort to save them before it was too late. Some managed to rescue their mothers, siblings, nieces, or nephews, but in most cases, it proved impossible to procure visas for elderly parents, especially fathers.41 The paleontologist Tilly Edinger mourned the fact that her older brother Fritz had intended to come to the United States, but did not leave in time. In a letter written in 1951, she compared his situation with her own, as follows: His too-long hesitation to leave Germany was the same as mine (I stayed till May ’39) insofar as we were accustomed to live in wealth and didn’t know whether we could earn our living ever, as neither of us had ever done [so], but beyond that, my brother dreaded to go to a strange country with a strange language. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942 [and] . . . killed in a gas chamber. I worked for twenty years at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt [without pay] and, while my mother regarded fossil vertebrates as my hobby, because they were and still are my greatest fun, thanks to my publications I had a letter of invitation from Dr. Romer here at Harvard when I was thrown out of the Museum in November 1938. I had to wait for my American visa in London, where, fortunately, I could support myself by translating German medical papers into English, but for almost eleven years now I am again playing with fossil vertebrates, mostly but not exclusively their endocranial casts; and although my salary is small and Germany hasn’t indemnified me with one cent, I am happier than I ever was in Frankfurt.42
Because she held an unpaid job as a museum curator, rather than an official university position, Tilly Edinger was allowed to continue working considerably longer than other Jewish scientific researchers, even though she was not permitted to enter her workplace through the front door after 1933. Unlike most other unmarried scientists who emigrated during the first wave of emigration in the mid-thirties, she left Germany only after Kristallnacht, when she finally realized that she had no future there. Like both her sister and her sister-in-law, she was able to get out before the war, but other women and men who delayed applying to leave, including her brother, were less fortunate.43 AGE, MARRIAGE, AND EMIGRATION Age, along with occupation and marital status, became significant factors in determining if, when, and where a woman would emigrate. Women born after the turn of the century were more likely to leave Germany or
Interrupted Lives
| 175
Austria than members of the older generation, especially those born before 1880. Whereas roughly 90 percent of the university women in this study succeeded in emigrating from Central Europe, more than 95 percent of the younger women did so, but only 80 percent of the older women managed to make the necessary arrangements to leave their homelands. Among the most senior cohort, those over fifty-five when the Nazis came to power in Germany, more than half never left the Third Reich. As a result, relatively few members of the oldest group of Jewish university women survived the Holocaust.44 Along with many others, Elise Richter, the first female professor in Central Europe, was deported from Vienna to Theresienstadt, together with her sister Helene, and both died there. On the whole, single women tended to emigrate slightly earlier than their married counterparts, once they had completed their degrees or lost their jobs and realized that they could no longer hope to have professional careers in Europe. Nearly all the single women of the younger generation succeeded in emigrating, but unmarried women of the oldest cohort make up more than half of the Holocaust victims in this study because they never left Central Europe.45 Anticipation of emigration seems to have precipitated a considerable number of engagements and marriages among younger Central European university women. A remarkably high proportion of women who married in the 1930s did so shortly before, or just after, they emigrated. For many of these women, the thought of emigrating alone to a foreign land where they would face uncertain employment prospects must have seemed extremely daunting. Marriage provided at least some degree of personal, if not economic, security when one embarked on such a hazardous voyage. Rose-Marie Papanek-Akselrad described the long series of harassments and complications she and her fiancé had to overcome in order to get married in Vienna in the spring of 1938 so that they could emigrate under the same name and on the same visa.46 The physician Anna Jagendorf Igel, who married another newly fledged Viennese medical graduate around the same time, recounted that they were compelled to be part of “a mass ceremony [for] two hundred couples and the SS [Gestapo] made every bride lie down on the street and they had to scrub off the political slogans from the [preNazi] Austrian past.”47 Despite such tribulations, they persisted in getting married, and left the country as soon as possible thereafter to avoid further sadistic humiliations. Women who had intermarried confronted particularly complex situations. In some cases, “Aryan” husbands opted to divorce their wives in order to protect themselves. The socialist physician Katharina Weiner Löffler emigrated by herself to Brazil in 1933, leaving behind her former husband and her daughter, who did not rejoin her until after the war.48 The public health physician Marta Fraenkel (Schulze) went to Belgium on her
176
| , ,
own in 1935, and later emigrated to the United States. Having received a divorce on the basis of the Nuremberg racial laws, she had resolved to leave Germany because “she could no longer as a Jewess live [in Germany] without endangering her Aryan husband’s career.”49 A less fortunate divorced physician, Käte Hirsch Schiepan, who remained in Germany, was deported to her death in Theresienstadt in 1943, having lost the partial protection of having a non-Jewish spouse.50 The marriage of the historians Hedwig and Otto Hintze did not dissolve, but Hedwig Hintze, a socialist of Jewish descent, quickly left for France in 1933, while her “Aryan” husband, who was elderly and ailing, remained in Berlin. Their former colleagues at the University of Berlin criticized her for abandoning her husband, even though her own life was in danger. In his final letter to his wife before his death in 1940, Otto Hintze wrote, “The war has ruined all of your prospects, unfortunately that’s the way it is. But hold your head high and show people that also a Jew can have honor. I acknowledge you and love you.” Two years later, deeply depressed and unable to make the necessary arrangements to emigrate to New York to assume a position she had been offered at the New School for Social Research, Hedwig Hintze committed suicide in Holland.51 In other instances, intermarried couples emigrated together, sometimes at the insistence of the non-Jewish husband who had to convince his reluctant wife that it was necessary to go abroad. The psychoanalyst Therese Friedmann Benedek did not want to leave Germany, insisting that “I am not a Jew, I am a Hungarian! . . . [and] I will not go uninvited to another country.” However, her Protestant physician husband finally persuaded her to accept an invitation to become a training analyst at the Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis.52 Psychology professors Charlotte and Karl Bühler turned down job offers from Radcliffe and Harvard, and later from Fordham as well, because she loved Vienna and did not wish to leave her circle of colleagues; she regarded America in the 1930s as culturally very unattractive. She came to regret this decision when her husband was arrested after the Anschluss due to her Jewish origins. Fortunately, she was able to arrange for her husband and children to join her in Norway in 1938 and subsequently the couple emigrated to the United States. After a difficult period of adjustment, Charlotte Bühler managed to reestablish her career in California, but Karl Bühler, broken by his brief prison experience, was never again able to find a job commensurate with his status in Europe.53 HOLOCAUST VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS What factors distinguish the few who lived through the Holocaust from the many others who died? Survival depended mainly on luck and circumstances, but also age and, occasionally, occupation before the war. Three
Interrupted Lives
| 177
out of five university women in this study who became victims of the Shoah were over fifty when they died; only one out of five survivors had been born before 1890. On the whole, members of the younger generation of university women who remained in Europe, especially those born after 1910, stood a better chance of hiding successfully or being able to survive deportations and concentration camps.54 It is difficult to generalize about survivors, however, since such cases are exceptional and each woman has her own story to tell. Physicians have been more extensively researched than any other group of Central European Jewish university women. In a study published in 1993, the German historian of medicine Johanna Bleker estimated that some 600 “non-Aryan” women physicians faced persecution in Nazi Germany. She provided a partially annotated list of names of 133 physicians, of whom 51 emigrated, 12 were Holocaust victims, and 6 survived in Germany. Five women physicians were known to have died before 1941, but the fate of the 59 other women, nearly all of whom belonged to the older generation, is unknown.55 A relatively high proportion of physicians are found among both the victims and survivors whom I have researched. The victims, most of whom were deported to Theresienstadt or other concentration camps, included older physicians who had been unable to secure emigration visas or who feared the difficulties they would encounter as refugees reestablishing their medical careers at a relatively advanced age. The survivors were mainly younger women, like Lucie Adelsberger, who were able to work as physicians in various labor and even death camps. Several credit being a medical doctor with saving their own lives, as well as the lives of others.56 Only in a very few exceptional cases were women physicians able to remain in Germany throughout the war, either in hiding or as the baptized spouse in a “privileged marriage” with a non-Jew.57 Many other ill-fated university women trapped within the German Reich after the outbreak of World War II perished during the Holocaust. In most cases, little is known about their lives and their fates. Gerte Jacoby Cohn, the daughter of social worker Edith Oske Jacoby, whose parents both died in Theresienstadt in 1944, had considerable difficulty completing a questionnaire about her mother’s life and career, since she herself went to England in 1939 without her parents. As she commented sadly in a note to the author, “Unfortunately there is very little I know about my parents, as, both of them having been academics [university graduates] and always having been very busy, they spent very little time with me during my youth and then I left Germany at the age of 17 never to see them again.”58 Tragically, this lament could be reiterated by countless other daughters, sons, nieces, and nephews who lost even the memories of parents and relatives who died leaving very little trace.
178
| , ,
SEARCHING FOR A SAFE HAVEN In retrospect, it is abundantly clear that only emigration abroad could save the lives of European Jewry. German and Austrian Jews had a significant advantage over Eastern European Jews in getting an advanced warning about the need to flee while there was still time to escape, but finding a place to go was no easy task. Processing the requisite paperwork and making arrangements to leave were often costly, highly bureaucratic, and timeconsuming undertakings. Due to Nazi regulations, one had to leave nearly all of one’s wealth and possessions behind. It was extremely difficult to obtain visas and the necessary affidavits for admission to the United States, but many university women were fortunate enough to get visas for Palestine or Great Britain, while others found temporary refuge in France, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, or other destinations in continental Europe. Some sought sanctuary as far away as the Soviet Union, Turkey, Egypt, and Latin America.59 A wide variety of university women, single and married, with or without children, attempted to escape from Nazi-controlled Central Europe. Certain patterns can be discerned as to when they left, where they went first, and whether or not they ever landed in a safe haven. The largest cohort emigrated in the mid-thirties during the early years of the Nazi rule; indeed, about one in four of the intellectual émigrés in this study had left Germany already in 1933. Among this group were many socialists and communists and also quite a few Zionists, as well as a high proportion of academic women who had already lost their university jobs. The massive exodus from Austria began soon after the Anschluss in 1938, whereas the second major wave of departures from Germany followed Kristallnacht in November of the same year. After the outbreak of the war, emigration dwindled and then halted almost completely by mid-1941.60 Left-wing activists began leaving Germany for neighboring countries soon after the Nazi takeover, realizing that they faced imminent danger. Socialist politicians, including Käte Frankenthal and Toni Sender, and communists, like Ruth Fischer, who feared for their lives, went into hiding, and then fled illegally over the border to Czechoslovakia or France. Some of those who remained in Central Europe went underground and participated in anti-fascist resistance efforts. Several leftist university women, among them the social worker Recha Rothschild, were arrested and temporarily imprisoned in Germany before leaving the country.61 In Austria, after the 1934 Civil War, Marie Glas (Langer), Marie Jahoda, Aline Fürtmuller, and Käthe Leichter were all involved in illegal socialist activities. Glas managed to escape unscathed in 1936, soon after completing her medical degree; she continued her fight against fascism as a
Interrupted Lives
| 179
volunteer physician during the Spanish Civil War. Jahoda, Fürtmuller, and Leichter all suffered arrest and imprisonment. Jahoda left Austria for England soon after her release in 1937 and Fürtmuller managed to emigrate to the United States, via Spain, in 1939, seriously ill with lung cancer. Leichter, however, as we have seen, remained incarcerated after being rounded up by the Gestapo in 1938 and was killed four years later.62 Several women continued to participate in the anti-Nazi resistance movement in France or Holland during the war, while some of the communists sought refuge in the Soviet Union.63 Although some socialists remained entrapped in continental Europe, others eventually succeeded in emigrating to the United States or Britain, often making several detours along the way. About half of the Central European émigrés made one or more temporary stopovers in Europe, Asia, or Latin America before reaching their final destination, which for the majority was the United States, Great Britain, or Palestine.64 While spending months or years in transit or on temporary residency permits, whether in France, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, or Italy, most were unable to find gainful employment in their professional fields. Physicians found it virtually impossible to practice medicine; lawyers did not even attempt to find legal jobs; educators could not get teaching positions. A few mathematicians and scientists were able to find temporary teaching or research positions in Turkey or Scandinavia, but such opportunities were rare.65 Some women turned to journalism, writing, translating, and freelance research in order to eke out a living for themselves and their families.66 A few, including Hannah Arendt, worked on behalf of Jewish institutions in France and elsewhere.67 Others had no other option but to work as laundresses, domestic servants, governesses, or nurses. Remaining in Europe provided neither jobs nor safety for Jewish university women. Although many were fortunate enough to have left the continent before the outbreak of World War II, the lives of those who stayed behind were in great jeopardy. Several university women, including Hannah Arendt, were interned in the Gurs camp in southern France, but managed to escape.68 Others went into hiding or joined the resistance. The historian Lucie Varga died while trying to evade capture in Vichycontrolled southern France in 1941; Natalie Zemon Davis has described her as “a woman intellectual, struggling to maintain herself as a scholar” and “a Jewish refugee, snuffed out before her time.”69 While some Central European university women managed to survive the Holocaust in France or, more rarely, Belgium or Holland, many others about whom little or nothing is yet known were deported and killed.70 By far the most wellknown of the deportees from Holland is the philosopher and nun Edith Stein, who died in Auschwitz and was recently beatified and made a Catholic saint.
180
| , ,
For those who lived through the Nazi era, the wrenching dislocation from their native countries, separation from friends and family, and the loss of many loved ones left permanent scars that never fully healed. As in the case of Holocaust survivors in general, nearly all university women who survived were obliged to reconstruct their lives and careers as strangers in foreign lands.
EIGHT
Reconstructing Lives and Careers
J
ewish university women were forced to rebuild their lives and their careers as emigrants to a foreign clime, while struggling to recover from their personal losses. They had to learn the hard way whether or not their university education was portable. A very difficult period of adjustment followed emigration in nearly all cases, especially for members of the older generation. Individuals or families who had to relocate repeatedly met particularly acute and prolonged stresses and problems. In each instance, they had to overcome language and cultural barriers and address professional accreditation issues. As refugees, they frequently had to surmount significant obstacles before acquiring suitable jobs and reestablishing their careers. Many now encountered threefold discrimination: as foreigners, as Jews, and as women. ADJUSTING TO LIFE IN EMIGRATION The overwhelming majority of Jewish university women in this study left Central Europe, whether before, during, or after World War II. About one in six settled in Palestine and roughly one in eight émigrés became permanent residents of Great Britain, but the final destination for more than half of these women was the United States.1 Less frequently, university women made their new homes in Latin America, the British Commonwealth, or Western Europe. A relatively small group of women later returned to live in Germany or Austria. Palestine provided a refuge for many Central European Jews in the mid1930s. A majority of the women in this study who made aliya to Palestine arrived at their destination before 1936, when it was still relatively easy for Central European Jews to procure the necessary British immigration certificates. A smaller group came later, after World War II and the creation of the State of Israel. Most but by no means all of these émigrés identified as Zionists. Some, like physician Rahel Goitein Straus, economist Paula
182
| , ,
Weiner-Odenheimer, and journalist Margarethe Turnowsky-Pinner, had been actively involved in Zionist organizations in Germany. Others, such as lawyer Erna Aronsohn Proskauer, came to Palestine not out of idealism but out of desperation due to the lack of viable alternatives. Unlike European countries, Palestine offered a permanent sanctuary, but it proved a daunting task for university women to reconstruct their lives and careers there, first under the British Mandate and later in the Jewish State. The decision to settle in the Middle East was not an easy choice. Life was difficult in this relatively undeveloped locale, where few job opportunities existed for professional women other than as social workers, physicians, or perhaps educators. Due to their lack of knowledge of Hebrew, teachers and lawyers in particular encountered serious obstacles in adapting to a new language, as well as to a very different legal system. Rahel Straus, who arrived in Palestine in 1932 at the age of fifty-one, encountered many problems reestablishing her medical practice in Jerusalem, and eventually turned to volunteer social work instead. Although some women, like non-Zionist Erna Proskauer, left after relatively brief exploratory stays, most eventually succeeded in adjusting to the local conditions and climate.2 Whether they settled in Palestine, the United States, or elsewhere, one of the most bitter pills for the refugees to swallow was loss of social status. In Europe, these upper middle-class professional women had enjoyed great comfort, and had been free from the drudgery of housework. Even during the Nazi era, they had generally employed domestic servants. After emigration, however, they lived in extremely modest circumstances, doing their own cooking and cleaning, so that their roles as wives, mothers, and daughters often superseded their personal and professional needs and desires. In the initial stages of their adaptation, many university women accepted menial jobs far beneath their professional qualifications, at least on a temporary basis. The physician Käte Frankenthal, for example, found herself selling ice-cream bars on the streets of New York in the summer of 1938 and peddling stockings door to door the next winter.3 These highly educated women sometimes worked as cooks, housekeepers, or baby nurses in the homes of others in order to earn much needed income to support themselves, their husbands and children, or their elderly relatives. For several years after her arrival in 1940, the physician Hertha Einstein Nathorff worked as a kitchen maid, baby nurse, and nurse on hospital night shifts and at summer camp to provide for her family, while her husband studied for his New York State medical examinations. She also became a radio announcer and even played the piano and sang in a small restaurant in Harlem in order to earn a bit of extra money, although she kept this a secret from her family.4 Nathorff was not the only Central European university woman forced to do domestic work in other people’s homes, even though she had never
Reconstructing Lives and Careers
| 183
done such work in her life and was not very well suited for such tasks. The confidential case files of the American Friends Service Committee contain numerous examples of highly qualified academic women who were unable to find professional jobs in their field of expertise and were assigned housekeeping work instead. One unmarried woman, who had earned a doctorate in classics and had taught Latin and English in a Gymnasium in Vienna before 1938, was desperately seeking a job other than housework in order to support her aging parents and relatives. Her placement counselor provided the following very gloomy evaluation of her situation: Her teaching field is Classics which as you know is being cut down in most of our schools and colleges. She has tried to get factory work, is being advised to do housework and has looked into almost every possibility for retraining. . . . She is a professional woman and should not have to do housework. She has never done it and would have to work three or four times as hard at it as a person who had been brought up to do it. So many avenues are closed to her. . . . She does not feel that the world owes her a living or that she is singled out for persecution. She does feel that she is too old for consideration in most lines of work—that at 34 is a little tragic in itself.5
This initial adjustment phase could be very traumatic and prolonged, but after a few years most women managed to regain at least some of their former personal and professional status. Many of the older women, however, like the social work educator Alice Salomon who arrived in New York in 1937 at the age of sixty-five, or the medical researcher Rahel Hirsch who reached London in 1938 at the age of sixty-eight, never succeeded in reestablishing their lives or their careers in emigration and died very lonely deaths.6 Most of the younger generation and some of the older cohort weathered the storms of transition with fewer long-term adverse effects. OVERCOMING DISCRIMINATION AND LANGUAGE BARRIERS In these early years in emigration, nearly all Central European refugee women intellectuals, even those who had not been employed previously, had to work in order to support themselves and their families, but not all were able to find jobs immediately within their professional fields. After a period of initial adjustment lasting several months or years, many women, especially those under forty, succeeded in reestablishing themselves on a career trajectory that sometimes progressed further than it might have, had they been able to remain in Germany or Austria. In other cases, professional lives got sidetracked. Some of the married university women abandoned their careers to run boarding houses, work in a family business, care
184
| , ,
for their grandchildren, or become volunteers working on behalf of fellow refugees.7 Situations varied considerably, depending on the individual, her field of expertise, her age and marital status, and where and when she emigrated. In the long run, scientists and social scientists seem to have had less difficulty adapting their professional careers to their new circumstances than women with doctorates in the humanities or in law, especially if they were married. Although professors’ wives were often discouraged from working for pay outside the home, married women scientists usually managed to continue doing scientific research and some were able to find academic teaching positions.8 Psychoanalysts, psychologists, and social workers were generally able to pursue their careers with relatively little interruption, whether in the United States, Britain, Palestine, or elsewhere. In most cases, mental health professionals were in private clinical practice, but some were involved in research and teaching as well.9 By contrast, relatively few Central European–trained women lawyers were readmitted to the bar after emigration. Among the exceptions was Margarete Berent, who passed her New York State bar examination in 1949 at the age of 62 and then worked for the state’s legal department. Several women who received some of their legal training in the United States eventually became professors of law at universities scattered around the country: Helen Silving-Ryu taught in Puerto Rico, Brigitte Levy Bodenheimer in Utah, and Kate Wallach in Louisiana. More typically, women lawyers worked as librarians, journalists, or social workers.10 In Israel, émigré lawyers could be found working as secretaries and legal advisors in government offices.11 Teachers often had a difficult time finding full-time positions, especially in public schools. Initially, educators who emigrated to Britain tended to find jobs working with refugee children, as part-time tutors, or temporary instructors in private schools or adult-education programs. In both England and the United States, educators often drifted away from teaching unless they succeeded in getting college positions, since they were unable to secure appropriate permanent employment. Considerable linguistic versatility was essential for adaptation to whichever new culture one confronted, but for educators, as well as writers and journalists, language barriers often created greater professional obstacles than for other professionals. In both North and South America, German was generally not a very marketable teaching language. Women who had earned doctorates in languages were more likely to be qualified to teach German, Latin, or French than English, Hebrew, Spanish, or Portuguese, but there was little demand for teachers of foreign languages at either the high school or college level, particularly during and immediately after World War II. In Palestine and later in Israel, teaching in Hebrew cre-
Reconstructing Lives and Careers
| 185
ated insuperable difficulties for some, but not all, Central European educators.12 For many professional writers, emigration posed an almost insurmountable language problem. Journalists had a particularly difficult time adapting to a foreign language. Some, like Margaret Muehsam-Edelheim in the United States and Margarethe Turnowsky-Pinner in Israel, continued to write primarily for German-language publications. Vera Lachmann, a school director in Germany and a professor of classics and camp director in the United States, always wrote her poetry in German, even though her audience was limited. Several university-educated writers, including Anna Seghers, Hilde Spiel, and Elisabeth Freundlich, returned to Central Europe to continue their careers.13 Some younger writers, poets, and educators proved more successful in making a language transition and developing notable careers after emigration.14 Hebrew, which few of these university women had learned during their childhood, presented a much greater barrier as both a written and a spoken language than did English, French, or Spanish; nevertheless, at least two university women, Lea Goldberg and Nehama Leibowitz, managed to carve out special niches for themselves in Israel. Both women had been born in Russia and educated in Germany, but emigrated to Palestine immediately after receiving their doctorates. Goldberg, a very versatile writer, made her mark as an editor, translator, literary critic, playwright, and author of children’s books, and also became one of the best-loved Hebrew poets in Israel.15 Bible scholar Nehama Leibowitz, a universally beloved teacher, became the first Israeli woman to be accepted as an expert authority on the Hebrew Scriptures. Her popular weekly Bible commentaries, broadcast on Israeli radio and widely distributed in written form both in Hebrew and in translation, are still acknowledged as outstanding contributions to the understanding of these texts. As a woman, Nehama Leibowitz could not climb a conventional career ladder within the overwhelmingly masculine world of academia and Biblical scholarship in Israel. Nevertheless, until into her nineties, she taught teachers, rabbis, and lay people— men and women—and wrote for a general audience, as well as for other experts in the field. As a leading Israeli educator, she gained a wide following and an international reputation, and in 1957 received the prestigious Israel Prize for Education.16 Most other émigré intellectuals spoke with definite foreign accents and, when writing in languages other than German, needed considerable editing. Still, quite a few of these women showed remarkable linguistic adaptability and some thought, taught, and wrote in different languages. Klara Blum of Vienna, later known as Dshu Bai-Lan, translated from Russian into German while in the Soviet Union, lectured in Chinese in China, and continued to publish articles in German in East Germany.17 Helen Silving-
186
| , ,
Ryu taught in Spanish in Puerto Rico but wrote articles, law textbooks, and her memoirs in English. Several women, including art historian Hilde Zaloscer, biologist Rosi Kuerti, and mathematician Hilda Geiringer, taught in French, even though they never lived in French-speaking countries.18 More commonly, émigrés wrote professional articles and books in the language of the land in which they were living, usually in English but occasionally in French or, more rarely, in Hebrew or Spanish. Relatively few women continued to publish scholarly works in German after they left Central Europe. ACHIEVING PROFESSIONAL REACCREDITATION AND ACADEMIC CAREERS One of the greatest hurdles that professional women had to overcome was regaining accreditation in their fields of expertise. This was a particularly difficult problem for physicians, who were often not able to qualify for a medical license for many years, especially in Great Britain and Latin America. In the United States and elsewhere, married women physicians who were over forty when they emigrated sometimes abandoned the idea of requalifying as medical doctors, even when their spouses, who were the same age or older, succeeded in doing so. As Hertha Nathorff confessed in her diary, she longed to return to her profession, but found the task of retaking her examinations too daunting, especially since her husband discouraged her from following his example. Nathorff, like several other members of the older generation, opted to become a registered nurse and worked with her physician husband. After his death she became a psychotherapist and then a social worker, volunteering on behalf of the Central European émigré organization known as Selbsthilf (or self-help).19 Younger women and single women, like Charlotte Wolff, had greater incentive to surmount reaccreditation barriers. Wolff spent several years in France, where she worked as a chirologist, interpreting hands for a living because she was not allowed to practice medicine. She became a permanent British resident in 1937 at the age of forty. In Britain she was permitted to work as a researcher and psychotherapist, but not as a medical doctor until 1952, when she was finally granted the status of registered physician by special application. In her memoir, entitled Hindsight, Wolff commented that “Re-instatement as a physician changed not only my professional, but also my social position in this country. It strengthened my self-esteem, and relieved me of an ambiguous professional situation which had been a nagging worry ever since I had left Germany in May 1933.”20 Reaccreditation as a physician thus depended on when and where a woman emigrated, her age, and her ability to overcome bureaucratic obstacles, as well as her facility with language acquisition. Although émigré
Reconstructing Lives and Careers
| 187
physicians, both male and female, faced major hurdles with state board examinations in the United States and the medical registry process in Great Britain,21 they seem to have encountered even more serious problems in Latin America. In Brazil, for example, they had to start their training all over again, once they had learned the Portuguese language and Brazilian geography. As Katharina Weiner Löffler, a divorcée who emigrated to Brazil in 1933, wrote to her relatives ten years later, “At age fifty-two I am professionally at the exact point I was at twenty-six in Germany: a newly starting doctor.”22 Dentists appear to have had an even harder time than medical doctors reestablishing themselves professionally after emigration. Trude Lebermann Keins, who received her doctorate in dentistry and had been employed for several years as a school dentist in Germany, emigrated first to France, where she worked as a dental assistant, and then to Argentina, where she helped her husband in his antiquarian book business. When queried as to the benefit she derived from her education in Germany, she responded, “I learned several languages, French and Spanish!”23 Eva Cohn Skript (Campos) was able to work as a dentist to help avert starvation during her sojourn in Egypt, but, like several other medical professionals, she retrained as a social worker after emigrating to the United States in 1942.24 Female émigré physicians complained that the situation in the United States in the thirties and forties was much less favorable for women doctors than it had been in Central Europe in the early decades of the twentieth century. Nevertheless, even though it proved harder to balance a medical practice with family responsibilities in their new home, many of the older generation and nearly all of the younger women physicians managed to do so. Selma Lewin Wehl, a pediatrician from a strongly Orthodox background, born in 1898, had maintained a private medical practice in Hamburg for about ten years before emigrating with her husband and their infant son in 1939. With considerable help from her spouse, who stayed home to raise their child while she prepared for her medical board examinations, she requalified in New York and practiced medicine as a popular pediatrician who made countless house calls for forty-five more years in Boro Park, Brooklyn, until her death in 1987. Although Selma Wehl encountered many difficulties in her adopted home as a foreigner, a woman, and an observant Jew, she nevertheless persevered and earned the loving respect of her patients, her family, and her community.25 Among the roughly five hundred Central European women émigré physicians who settled in the United States, four out of five had qualified for American medical licenses by 1950. At least half practiced medicine in New York City, having passed the New York State board examinations; the rest were certified to practice in Massachusetts, Illinois, Pennsylvania, California, and elsewhere. Although the majority lived in large metropolitan
188
| , ,
areas, some set up their medical practices in smaller towns. While most were in private general practice, sometimes together with their husbands, some worked in hospitals or in public health and others eventually obtained academic research or teaching positions. By far the most common medical specializations for refugee women physicians were pediatrics and psychiatry or psychoanalysis, but some also specialized in anesthesiology, gynecology, ophthalmology, dermatology, or pathology. Although in most cases refugee women physicians in the United States continued in the same medical field for which they had trained in Europe, physicians who were over forty and had difficulty regaining their medical licenses gravitated toward careers as psychotherapists and psychologists, as well as social workers.26 Without a doubt, women psychoanalysts constituted the most conspicuously successful group among the Central European physicians in the United States. Women émigrés, such as Helene Rosenbach Deutsch in Boston, Margaret Schoenberger Mahler in New York, Frieda FrommReichmann in Washington, D.C., and Therese Friedman Benedek in Chicago, provided leadership for psychoanalytic societies across the country and also made important research contributions to both psychoanalysis and psychiatry. Mahler, a pioneering child analyst associated with Albert Einstein College of Medicine, became a leading authority on the mother–child relationship and the separation–individuation process. Hilde Bruch, a specialist in eating disorders in children, especially anorexia nervosa, became a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons and then at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.27 Other Central European university women also found success in careers as medical and scientific researchers. Out of fifty-nine women medical researchers who completed their education in Europe, fifty-one managed to obtain academic positions only after emigration and twenty-eight eventually achieved the status of full professor, a rank that had been denied to women of Jewish origin in Central Europe.28 One of these women, Gerty Radnitz Cori, a baptized Jew with a medical degree from the German University in Prague, received a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1947 together with her husband, Carl.29 Gaining entry into the American academic world was no easy task for women, however, especially if they were married. Similar to restrictions against “double earners” in Europe, rules against nepotism at various American universities prevented a husband and wife from being employed in the same department or institution, unless the wife was working as an unpaid “volunteer” in her husband’s lab. The Coris arrived in the United States in 1922 and worked together as a team; Carl Cori became a tenured full professor in 1931 at the age of thirty-five, but Gerty Cori remained a research associate at Washington University in St. Louis until 1944, when she was
Reconstructing Lives and Careers
| 189
promoted to the rank of associate professor and given tenure at the age of forty-eight.30 Salome Gluecksohn-Waelsch, a geneticist who eventually became a professor at Albert Einstein Medical School in New York, shared a similar experience. After receiving her doctorate in 1932 in Germany, she emigrated to the United States together with her biochemist husband the following year. Whereas her husband received an appointment at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, she remained unemployed for three years. In 1937, she became a research associate in the laboratory of one of her husband’s colleagues and continued to hold that position for eighteen years at very low pay. No better option was available to her, since at that time no major research institution would offer a regular faculty post to a woman in the biological sciences and Gluecksohn-Waelsch wanted to remain in New York, rather than teach in a women’s college elsewhere, because she had two young children. As she later admitted to an interviewer, Columbia for years deprived me of any chance of a career. It was Heini, my [second] husband, who said, what are you doing there? Why don’t you get out and do something on your own? I was totally repressed there.
Finally, in 1955, she received a professorship at Einstein, an institution that had only recently been established. She was still working in her mouse lab there forty years later.31 The psychologist Else Frenkel-Brunswik also faced nepotism restrictions at Berkeley. From the time of her arrival in the United States in 1938 until her husband’s death in 1955, she was designated a research associate in the Institute of Child Welfare, even though she regularly taught seminars in the psychology department. After Egon Brunswik died, their colleagues in the psychology department voted unanimously for her appointment to full professor, but this gesture in recognition of her achievements came too late to be of comfort. Suffering from severe depression, Else Frenkel-Brunswik committed suicide in 1958.32 While married women encountered obstacles in academia due to their marital status and often had to play second fiddle to their husbands, unmarried women faced difficulties in attaining tenured positions too. Some women managed to find temporary jobs at women’s colleges or small private colleges, but they were likely to meet hostility and discrimination directed against them as foreigners, as Jews, and as women.33 Job interviewers tended to critique Central European applicants on their dress, their appearance, and their manner, expressing concern that they were not “American” enough or looked “too Jewish.”34 One sociologist was offered a position at a small Christian college in Iowa, but was advised not to bring her elderly mother with her, since she would not fit in socially.35 Although sexism
190
| , ,
seems to have been their most serious problem, xenophobia and barely concealed antisemitism also played a role in making it difficult for university women from Germany and Austria to break into American academia, whether before, during, or immediately after World War II. Nonetheless, many of the younger talented women who persisted succeeded in establishing academic careers for themselves, sometimes even in large urban universities, whether on an adjunct or tenured basis. COMING TO TERMS WITH ANTISEMITISM AND RACISM Because of their personal experiences in Germany and Austria, many Jewish university women were extremely concerned about antisemitism, prejudice, and racism. They tried to gain a greater understanding of such phenomena, not only in Europe but also in the United States. Upon their arrival in their new home, some women expressed surprise and dismay at the level of overt discrimination against both Jews and African Americans, especially during World War II,36 while others became involved in research projects dealing with antisemitism and racism. After World War II, Marie Jahoda and Else Frenkel-Brunswik, both social psychologists who had been research associates in Vienna, coauthored pioneering and controversial studies on prejudice in the United States. Jahoda helped write Anti-Semitism and Emotional Disorder: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation, while Frenkel-Brunswick was a major contributor toward The Authoritarian Personality; both works formed part of a larger research project sponsored by the American Jewish Committee. Antisemitism did not continue to be the focus of research for either of these women, although Frenkel-Brunswick conducted further investigations on prejudice in children, while Jahoda, in addition to her many publications on employment and unemployment and topics related to psychoanalysis, later wrote a book entitled Race Relations and Mental Health.37 Two of the most important, classic studies on European antisemitism were written by women émigré intellectuals: Eva Reichmann’s Hostages of Civilisation: The Social Sources of National Socialist Anti-Semitism, which was written as a second doctoral dissertation at the University of London and published in 1950,38 and Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, which appeared in 1951. Arendt received much less encouragement and support in her early research on antisemitism than Reichmann. In light of Arendt’s brilliant, if controversial, analysis of this topic and the significant impact of her book, the following evaluation of her research-inprogress, written by an employment counselor soon after Arendt’s arrival in the United States in 1941, appears to be highly patronizing and condescending:
Reconstructing Lives and Careers
| 191
She sounds quite scholarly and may profit most from a year at a good graduate school. Do you think that she would fit into Yale? Is her study on AntiSemitism really worth completing? My hunch is that she may waste her time in concentration on this subject and that it will not lead her anywhere.39
Hannah Arendt certainly had the courage of her convictions, and many of her political writings grew out of her own personal experiences as a Jew and a refugee. Although she worked for Youth Aliya and for the Jewish Agency in France in the thirties and supported the idea of a Jewish army during World War II, she was not a Zionist, but promoted the idea of a bi-national state in Palestine instead. Two of her most important works, The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem, focus on the politics of antisemitism, but seemingly implicate the victims as well as the perpetrators of the Holocaust. Arendt found a broad audience for her many distinguished publications, but was also subjected to severe critiques for her unorthodox views. As an iconoclastic intellectual émigré, Hannah Arendt made many enemies because she did not fit the mold. Despite a series of appointments at prestigious institutions, including Princeton and the University of Chicago, she remained on the periphery of academia.40 After arriving in the United States in 1941, German-Jewish historian Selma Stern never found her niche in the American academic world, although she worked for a number of years as director of archives at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, where her husband, Eugen Täubler, held a professorship. During the war she wrote a fictional work entitled The Spirit Returneth about a Jewish family’s suffering during a medieval plague; published in 1946, it served as a metaphor for Auschwitz. Thereafter, she returned to writing history; in 1950, her landmark study on the early modern era, The Court Jew, appeared in print. Selma Stern’s major work on the history of Prussian Jewry had almost disappeared in draft form in a Nazi bonfire, but was miraculously saved by an unknown benefactor; nevertheless, it took many decades before this multi-volume opus, entitled Der preussische Staat und die Juden (The Prussian State and the Jews), could finally be published. Stern continued publishing even after she retired and moved to Switzerland.41 SEARCHING FOR HOME In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the vast majority of Central European Jewish university women had little desire to return to Germany or Austria to live, or, in many cases, even to visit. Most had found safe havens in emigration and built new lives and careers for themselves. Not all felt completely at home in their new surroundings, which some continued to view as “exile,” but most understood that they no longer had another “home” to
192
| , ,
which they could return. By and large, these intellectual émigrés expressed gratitude and loyalty to their host countries, although some, like Charlotte Wolff, considered themselves to be homeless citizens of the world.42 Although many refused to set foot on the soil that they had left under such terrible circumstances and where they had lost so many beloved relatives and friends, some émigrés went back periodically to Germany or Austria for visits. One in ten women in this study returned to live in Central Europe; this small minority of university women who decided to go back after the war included socialists and communists who had difficulty adjusting to their new life elsewhere and wanted to help rebuild a better world in Austria or the German Democratic Republic.43 Academics such as Gerta von Übisch and Käte Hamburger, educators like Minna Schiffman Lachs and Stella Herzig Klein-Löw, lawyers like Erna Aronsohn Proskauer and Käte Loewy Manasse, as well as several writers, returned for professional reasons, having concluded that they would be unable to pursue their careers in emigration.44 In their later years, some older women decided to spend their retirement in Central Europe, mainly for economic reasons.45 Re-creating one’s life in a foreign country took a considerable psychic toll on these women, both personally and professionally. Although some became patriotic Americans, Britishers, or Israelis, others felt nowhere at home; against their will, they had become international, wandering Jews. Living their lives with foreign accents, they felt conflicted about their native lands. PERSONAL ODYSSEYS AND FINAL RESTING PLACES Each woman undertook her own physical and spiritual journey after leaving Germany or Austria. Being forced to leave the lands of their childhood or education transformed these women’s lives in ways they could not have anticipated, even though they generally tried to remain true to their personal and ideological convictions. Some landed in rather unexpected places, while others sought to return to their Jewish roots. Klara Blum, who was born in Czernowitz, Bukovina in 1904 and studied German literature at the University of Vienna, was among the communist sympathizers who sought refuge in Moscow, where she worked as a translator. She fell in love with a Chinese communist who disappeared after his return to his homeland after the war. Searching unsuccessfully for her lost lover, she went to China and changed her name to Bai-Lan Dshu. First she settled in Shanghai, where she lived in the Jewish émigré colony and worked as a librarian and a professor. In the mid-fifties, she was a professor in the German department at the University of Nanjing, but then moved to Canton, where she was accepted as a member of the Chinese Writers’ Union. Her poems and articles appeared in Chinese periodicals and her
Reconstructing Lives and Careers
| 193
books were published in East Germany, until she ran into political difficulties during the Cultural Revolution. She remained in China until her death in 1971, all alone and fearful of persecution.46 Marie Glas Langer, born in Vienna in 1910, was also a left-wing activist. As soon as she had completed her medical and psychoanalytic training, she left Austria for Spain, where she worked as a medic during the Spanish Civil War. After emigrating first to Uruguay and then to Argentina with her physician husband, she was instrumental in establishing the Argentine Psychoanalytic Association and served as president of the Argentine Federation of Psychiatrists. In 1951, she published Motherhood and Sexuality, a landmark psychoanalytic study of psychosomatic disorders of female reproductive life. She later developed a Marxist critique of Freudian psychoanalysis and became active in Marxist feminism. Due to her continued leftist political involvement, in 1974 she felt compelled to flee to Mexico with several members of her family, which by then included five grown children. She went to Nicaragua to help provide medical assistance during the revolution and chose to entitle her memoir, written in Spanish in 1981, From Vienna to Managua. Marie Langer died of cancer in Buenos Aires in 1987.47 Art historian Hilde Zaloscer, who was born in Bosnia, educated in Vienna, but lived in Egypt from 1936 to 1968, entitled her autobiography Ein Heimkehr gibt es nicht (There is no returning home). During World War II, she contracted a fake marriage and officially converted to Islam in order to remain in Egypt, rather than risk being sent back to Austria as an enemy alien. After twenty years as a professor of art history at the University of Alexandria, where she specialized in Coptic art, Zaloscer was expelled from Egypt as a Jew in the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War. Instead of moving to Israel, she decided to return to Vienna; however, at the age of 66, she was unable to secure an academic appointment there. She taught for several more years as a visiting professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, but then went back to the Austrian capital once again. After her exciting adventures in emigration, faced with both antisemitism and age discrimination, she lived a lonely and unhappy existence in Vienna. She concluded her memoir, written at age 85, as follows: My life was marked, again and again, by anxieties and flight. I had victories and defeats; I knew joy and suffering and struggle. Always, however, it was an intensively lived, authentic life, never was it boring, and, in the final analysis, it enriched me so. It would not however have turned out so well, if I had not found friends at each of my many stops, magnanimous, ready-tohelp friends, who were always there when I needed them—till today. No, I regret nothing [and] would probably do everything again as I did [and] make the same decisions. Only one thing do I regret, one thing I
194
| , ,
should not have done; only once did my instinct deceive me, and that embitters the short time that remains for me: I should not have come back to Vienna.48
After her life journey, medical researcher Dr. Professor Rahel Hirsch, daughter of Rabbi Menahem Hirsch, lies buried in a Jewish cemetery in London, with the word shalom engraved in Hebrew on her tombstone. The grave of Lise Meitner is to be found not far away in a Protestant cemetery in Cambridge, England, with an epitaph that reads, “A physicist who never lost her humanity.”49 Law professor Helen Silving-Ryu (formerly Hinda Silberpfennig), who had been born in Galicia and educated in Vienna and New York but taught at the University of Puerto Rico, chose to be buried next to her husband in a Protestant cemetery in Korea, with a Star of David on her tomb, even though she was not baptized and had never lived in Asia. Her sister, the New York psychoanalyst Judith Kestenberg (formerly Ida Silberpfennig), opted for a more traditional Jewish burial on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.50 Margaret Schoenberger Mahler’s last wish before her death was that her ashes, together with those of her husband, be interred in the Jewish cemetery in Sopron, Hungary, alongside her father’s grave and the special memorial she had erected for her mother, a Holocaust victim.51 Toni Sender, the socialist politician who had rebelled against her Orthodox upbringing, became actively involved in a Conservative synagogue during the later years of her life and is buried in a Jewish cemetery in New York.52 By the end of their lives, some university women had returned to their Jewish religious roots, but many others did not. Charlotte Wolff explained her sense of who she was: The German language and culture was the ground on which I stood—I would have found myself on quicksands if it had been otherwise. . . . [Yet t]he shock of Nazi persecution established my Jewish identity, and with one stroke wiped away the belief that I was German. From then on I felt I belonged to a persecuted people, without abiding in their religion.53
It is by no means clear how many Central European university women had a rabbi officiate at their funerals, wherever they might have found their final resting places around the world. After their deaths, many of these women have been forgotten, but some have received the recognition for the most part denied to them during their lifetimes. The 109th element in the periodic table has been named meitnerium in honor of Lise Meitner’s contributions to physics. The school of social work which Alice Salomon founded in Berlin is once again named after her and a commemorative stamp was issued in her mem-
Reconstructing Lives and Careers
| 195
ory. Philosopher Edith Stein has become a Catholic saint. Emmy Noether continues to be recognized as one of the foremost mathematicians of the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt is still considered an extremely important political theorist, and Selma Stern is regarded as one of the most eminent German-Jewish historians. The contributions of many other Central European university women are also now being appreciated in a wide range of fields. Both individually and collectively, they have left behind a very precious legacy, which is being acknowledged mainly posthumously.
Epilogue: The Legacy
S
ince at least the 1960s, educated Jewish women around the globe have been following in the footsteps of their Central European predecessors. Like middle-class women everywhere, they have attended universities and graduate schools in ever growing numbers while attempting to combine family and professional careers. They have struggled against “glass ceilings” and other forms of discrimination against women, although generally to a much lesser degree than the pioneers who preceded them. Antisemitism became far less of a deterrent to their personal advancement because racism in the post–World War II era has been directed primarily against persons of color, whereas Jews, for the most part, have been accepted as “white.” In the past several decades, many Jewish university women have also imitated the example of their Central European forebears by migrating from one part of the world to another, especially from the former Soviet Union and Latin America to the United States and Israel, and from English-speaking countries to Israel or vice versa. Regrettably, as was true when I was growing up, career-minded young women still often lack professional role models and are unaware of the historical precedents established by their foremothers. As the beneficiaries of second-wave feminism, they have been largely uninformed about the achievements of the pioneering women who were the products of the nineteenth-century woman’s movement. Today they often take for granted the significant gains that women made in the twentieth century and are unfamiliar with the lives of the women who helped to pave their way. The Jewish women who studied at universities in Germany and Austria before the Nazi era and then established careers in Central Europe or as émigrés have left a valuable, complex legacy. Individually and collectively they have made important contributions as pioneering professional women in a wide variety of fields, including nuclear physics, biological sciences, mathematics, psychoanalysis, medicine, law, social sciences, and the humanities, as well as women’s studies and Jewish studies. Much can be learned from an examination of their lives, their careers, and their many publications.1
Epilogue
| 197
Collectively, Central European Jewish university women serve as excellent role models for other professional women of the twenty-first century. They defied the societal conventions of their day that stereotyped women as being incapable of higher learning, especially in fields such as medicine, science, and law. They broke out of the confines of the so-called “women’s sphere” of the home and began to compete in the “man’s world” of the university and traditionally male professions. As the earliest generations of university women in Central Europe, they gained access into academia, medicine, science, and law for themselves and for other women and raised the status of women as educators, social workers, journalists, and writers. Many, especially among the older generation, chose to devote their lives to their careers, but others managed to combine careers, marriage, and family, even though they often had to make compromises in order to do so. These women represent the phenomenon of the “New Woman.” Despite the many social changes that have occurred, these European university women of the early twentieth century foreshadow their American counterparts of the 1960s and thereafter. Most wore their hair short, and some dressed in man-tailored suits, although others preferred to emphasize their femininity. They asserted their independence from their families, even if they often lived at home during their student days. Most single career women lived on their own and kept their personal lives private, but a few lived openly as lesbians. Others challenged the social mores of their day by fraternizing freely with men and having long-standing relationships outside of marriage. When they married, they generally sought to create egalitarian marriages with men of similar age and educational background, but they did not always achieve this goal. Some were actively involved in the feminist causes of their day and in left-wing politics; others were the forerunners of the late twentieth-century Jewish feminist movement. These women faced the same types of challenges that women today still confront, and had to make similar choices. Although many professional women among the older generation of European university women consciously chose career over marriage, most of the younger age cohort decided to marry. They often married late and had no children, or else very few. Although some sacrificed their careers, at least temporarily, in order to raise their children, others had housekeepers or “surrogate mothers” who helped them take care of their families while they continued working in their professional fields. In those days, live-in domestic help was readily available in Central Europe; hence childcare proved less of a problem for working mothers during the interwar years than today. While single women forged ahead, married women had a more difficult time advancing their careers before World War II, but many eventually succeeded in making their mark within their chosen specialties after emigration, if not in Germany or Austria.
198
| , ,
Unfortunately, whether single or married, in Europe and elsewhere, university women were often unpaid, underemployed, and exploited; they frequently encountered job discrimination, nepotism restrictions, and “glass ceilings.” Nevertheless, a remarkable number of talented educated women who persevered managed to surmount many, if not all, barriers impeding their professional advancement. Both their collective and their individual accomplishments attest to their determination to overcome the obstacles that stood in their way. Before the Nazi era, most of the discrimination that these women encountered was due to their gender, although antisemitism also played a role in limiting their job opportunities. Thereafter, being categorized as Jews in a Nazi-controlled country determined their destiny, forcing them to leave continental Europe in order to survive. Both before and after 1933, however, being born Jewish shaped these women’s lives. These university women had virtually all been raised in middle-class Jewish households that emphasized the values of the German-Jewish bourgeoisie, i.e., Bildung, which meant education and high culture for both males and females. As highly acculturated Jews, they took advantage of their largely urban milieu to further their educational opportunities and strive for upward social mobility through professional training. It was scarcely a coincidence that such a disproportionately large number of Jewish women attended Central European universities and then entered the professional job market, not only as physicians, scientists, and social scientists, but also as academics, educators, and lawyers. Unlike their university-educated non-Jewish female contemporaries, most of whom became teachers, many followed the paths previously demarcated by Jewish men, coping with both gender discrimination and antisemitism along the way. Within academia, medicine, or law, however, the career profiles of Jewish university women frequently differed from those of Jewish men with the same levels of education. Despite discrimination against them both as women and as Jews, women of Jewish origin with doctorates from German or Austrian universities filled an astonishingly high proportion of the entrylevel academic positions held by women in Central Europe before the Nazi era and in the United States after World War II. Unfortunately, unlike many of their male colleagues, these women—whether scientists, medical researchers, social scientists, or humanists—only infrequently achieved tenure or the recognition they deserved, whether in Germany or Austria or after emigration. Instead of imitating their male colleagues, the women physicians, educators, social scientists, and lawyers often applied their professional skills to improving the lives of women and children. Economists, psychologists, and sociologists researched, taught, and wrote about the problems of working women. Jewish women physicians, many of whom specialized in gyne-
Epilogue
| 199
cology or pediatrics, sympathized with the plight of their working-class patients, often providing them with contraceptive devices and actively supporting the legalization of abortion. Although these women were the products of the nineteenth-century woman’s movement and thus were unfamiliar with the feminist ideas that would later develop during the sixties, they nevertheless supported equal rights for women in the workplace and the right of women to control their own bodies. Unlike most of their Christian counterparts, Jewish university women tended to be on the political left and often manifested their liberal or socialist convictions in their professional as well as their personal lives. Like many younger university women today, relatively few of these European professional women would have defined themselves as feminists. Only a small minority participated in women’s voluntary organizations, but many more were involved in democratic and left-wing political activities in Central Europe. The few university women who held public office in Germany or Austria not only worked on behalf of women’s issues, such as healthcare, education, and abortion reform, but also took part in debates on financial matters and foreign affairs. Even though their contributions were necessarily limited, given their small numbers and precarious positions, these educated Jewish political activists still can provide models for other women politicians. The Central European women in this study were Jewish “New Women,” but not necessarily “New Jewish Women,” even though a few of them, like Rahel Goitein Straus, can be considered excellent role models for later Jewish feminists. Many of the most successful university women, however, especially those in academia, were highly acculturated individuals who had become disaffected from the organized Jewish community. In the early twentieth century, Jewish university women in Germany and Austria had received only a very limited Jewish education. Whereas some Central European Jewish women during the interwar years expressed concern about their lack of rights within the Jewish community, they were not in a position in which they could improve the status of women within Judaism. Today, Jewish women are able to attain a much more advanced level of Jewish learning than ever before and some have become prominent Jewish educators and professors of Jewish studies, as well as rabbis and cantors. A small but growing number of Jewish feminists have succeeded in addressing many important issues concerning the role of women within Judaism and within the community. One challenge still facing the Jewish community today, however, is how to reach out to the ever increasing numbers of highly educated, assimilated and, in many cases, intermarried Jewish women who have relatively little Jewish knowledge and awareness. Central European Jewish university women paved the way for other women to follow. Regrettably, due to their persecution as Jews in Nazi
200
| , ,
Europe and their marginalization as foreign-born professional women in emigration, their lives and contributions have often been overlooked or forgotten. Due to a combination of forced departure and physical annihilation, one or more generations of professional women almost disappeared from the Central European scene. In Germany and Austria after the war, university women lost considerable ground, especially in academia, and have only gradually begun to recover their previous status since the seventies. Central Europe’s loss in many cases resulted in a significant gain in educated womanpower for the United States, Britain, Latin America, and Israel. The university women who survived the Holocaust, as well as those who perished, demonstrated incredible courage in times of affliction. Many of those who died remained in Central Europe of their own volition, despite opportunities to emigrate, because they chose to help others rather than look out for their own well-being. Those who managed to leave Germany and Austria had to reconstruct their lives and careers, often at a relatively advanced age and under highly adverse circumstances. The older generation, who had established themselves professionally in Europe, had a more difficult time adjusting to emigration than the younger age cohort who completed their education in Europe but developed their careers elsewhere. The perseverance of these women in rebuilding their professional lives, while they looked after the needs of their extended families, and the achievements they attained in many parts of the world should command our utmost respect. Many of these Central European university women might appear to us as truly exceptional individuals, giants whose shoes seem too big for us, their spiritual heirs, to fill. Their biological daughters often felt the same way. For a variety of reasons, the daughters of Central European university women had great difficulty following their mothers’ examples. Some felt that they were neither as bright nor as talented as their mothers and hence did not aspire to similar higher education or professional status.2 Others were prevented from attending university or completing their education due to the precarious personal and financial situations facing their families, whether in Central Europe or in emigration, in the thirties and the forties. Due to the Nazi takeover and then the Holocaust, many teenage girls born during the interwar and war years became part of a lost generation of Jewish university women. Some daughters of Central European university women, however, did manage to achieve successful professional careers in emigration, sometimes even in fields similar to those of their illustrious mothers.3 Unlike women of their mothers’ generation, these younger women at least had the option of adopting their mothers, instead of their fathers, as professional role models.
Epilogue
| 201
Since the 1960s, younger generations of German-Jewish women historians, some of whom, like Gerda Lerner and Susan Groag Bell, were born in Central Europe, but all of whom were educated in the United States, have become path breakers in the field of women’s history. Based on her experiences of racism and discrimination in Vienna, Gerda Lerner decided to focus her early research not on European or Jewish women’s history, but on the history of African-American women and their methods of coping with racism.4 Several historians born after World War II, however, including Marion Kaplan, Atina Grossmann, and Renate Bridenthal, daughters of German Jewish émigrés, have produced important histories of GermanJewish women and of German women in Weimar and Nazi Germany.5 It is quite remarkable how many Jewish women historians in the late twentieth century have helped break down barriers against women writing history, especially women’s history but also Jewish history, and have gained respectable positions within academia. Such positions were often denied to their predecessors like Selma Stern. Times have changed since the feminist movement of the sixties helped open up careers for women. Female university graduates and professional women are certainly no longer viewed as oddities or curiosities. Educated women are no longer confined primarily to “pink-collar” fields as teachers, social workers, librarians, or executive secretaries. Today there are many more women physicians, lawyers, and academics than there were in the mid-twentieth century. Sexual mores have also changed a great deal, even though the status of an unmarried woman, a divorcée, or a single parent is still sometimes problematic. Married women professionals often continue to have difficulties both in finding adequate childcare and in getting their husbands to share household and child-raising responsibilities. It is only when we look back on our female professional foremothers, the Jewish university women of Central Europe, that we realize how far we have come, and yet how far we still have to go. We are the descendants and beneficiaries of these remarkable women whose lives serve as beacons to help usher us into the world of the twenty-first century.
GLOSSARY AND ABBREVIATIONS
Abitur:
matriculation examination required for admission into German universities aliya: Jewish immigration to Palestine/Israel Anschluss: German annexation of Austria, March 1938 Assessor(in): probationary teacher or lawyer Austrittsgemeinde: Orthodox community that seceded from the local Kultusgemeinde Bildung: high culture, cultivation, education Bildungsbürgertum: educated bourgeoisie Blau Weiss: a Zionist scouting movement B’nai B’rith Women: women’s auxiliary of the international Jewish men’s fraternal organization, B’nai B’rith BDÄ: Bund deutscher Ärztinnen—Federation of German Women Physicians BDF: Bund deutscher Frauenvereine—League of German Women’s Associations Burschenschaften: male Germanic-Christian student dueling organizations CV: Centralverein—Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith Deutsche Akademie für German Academy for Women’s Social and Edusoziale und pädagogische cational Work, Berlin Frauenarbeit: DDP: Deutsche Demokratische Partei—German Democratic Party DVP: Deutsche Volkspartei—German People’s Party Deutscher German Women Lawyers’ Association Juristinnenverein: Doktorvater: an affectionate term for a doctoral dissertation advisor
Glossary and Abbreviations
double earner: Dozent(in): emanzipiertes Frauenzimmer: Freie Wissenschaftliche Vereinigung: Gemeinde (or Kultusgemeinde): Gleichschaltung: Gymnasium:
|
203
a married working woman unsalaried university lecturer a “bluestocking” (literally an emancipated wench) Independent Scholarly Association (nondenominational student organization) organized/official Jewish community
Nazification or elimination of opponents classical academic secondary school emphasizing Greek and Latin Habilitation: inauguration for academic career or university teaching credential Habilitationsschrift: post-doctoral inaugural dissertation for academic appointees Hashomer Hatzair: left-wing Zionist youth movement Haskalah: Jewish Enlightenment (18th-century Germany and 19th-century Eastern Europe) Höhere-Mädchenschule(n): secondary school(s) for girls höhere Tochter: “elevated daughter,” middle-class teenage girl Höhere-Töchterschule(n): secondary school(s) for girls ICW: International Council of Women JFB: Jüdischer Frauenbund—Jewish Women’s League Kameraden: Liberal Jewish youth movement kashrut/kosher: (conforming to) Jewish dietary laws Kindertransport: children’s transport (10,000 Jewish children sent to England in 1938 and 1939) KPD: Kommunistische Partei Deutschland—German Communist Party KPÖ: Kommunistische Partei Oesterreich—Austrian Communist Party konfessionslos: without religion, free-thinking or atheist Kristallnacht: Nazi pogrom or attacks on synagogues and Jewish businesses and homes, November 7–8, 1938; many Jewish men arrested Kultusgemeinde: organized local Jewish community to which all Jewish households belonged and paid taxes
204
| Glossary and Abbreviations
Landtag: LBI: LBIYB: Lyceum: Mädchen-Lyzeen: Mannweib: Matura: Misrachi Women: numerus clausus: Nuremberg Laws: Oberlehrerin(nen): Oberstudienrätin: olim: Ordinarius: Ostjuden: Pale of Settlement: Physikum: Privatdozent(in): Promotion: Realgymnasium: Referendar: Reform-Lyceum: Reichstag: Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden: Rigorosum: Simultanschulen:
provincial parliament or diet Leo Baeck Institute, New York Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook traditional girls’ secondary school girls’ secondary schools virago, or mannish woman matriculation examination for admission to university in Austria the women’s auxiliary of the religious Zionist party Misrachi quota system used against Jews in Russia, Poland, and Hungary Nazi racial legislation against Jews (1935) female secondary school teacher(s) senior teacher in girls’ secondary school Jewish immigrants to Palestine/Israel full professor Jews from Eastern Europe, including Galicia (sometimes used pejoratively) western and southern region of the Tsarist Empire where Jews were permitted to live preliminary preclinical medical examination unsalaried university lecturer university graduation academic secondary school focusing on modern languages junior lawyer modern girls’ secondary school German parliament National Representation/Central Association of German Jews doctoral oral examination or defense interdenominational schools offering parallel religious education classes for Protestants, Catholics and Jews
Glossary and Abbreviations
SDAP:
|
205
Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei—(Austrian) Social Democratic Workers’ Party SPD: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland—German Social Democratic Party Studienrätin(nen): female teacher(s) in Gymnasien or Realgymnasien Technische Hochschule: Polytechnical Institute Trotzjudentum: remaining Jewish to spite the antisemites USPD: Unabhängige Sozialdemokratische Partei—Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany unbeamteter assistant professor without tenure or official salary ausserordentlicher Professor: venia legendi: certification to teach at the university level Verband Sozialistischer Association of Socialist Middle-Schoolers Mittelschüler: VSÄ: Verein Sozialistischer Ärzten—Association of Socialist Physicians Wandervogel: German scouting movement emphasizing nature and hiking WIZO: Women’s International Zionist Organization
159
395
708
1479
1285
1723
2740
1902/03
1907/08
1913/14
1918/19
1923/24
1928/29
1933/34
539
369
341
866
304
160
56
8
Austrian Jews
All Faculties
19.7
21.4
26.5
58.6
42.9
40.5
35.2
25.0
Percent Jews
1761
1379
947
891
520
341
141
32
222
238
190
465
194
128
44
8
Austrian Jews
12.6
17.3
20.1
52.2
37.3
37.5
31.2
25.0
Percent Jews
Philosophy Faculty Austrian Women
690
130
225
528
188
54
18
Sources: Waltraud Heindl and Marina Tichy, eds., “Durch Erkenntniss zu Freiheit und Glück . . .” Dreissig Jahre Frauenstudium in Österreich (Vienna, 1927), 28–29.
261
70
108
370
110
32
12
Austrian Jews
37.8
53.8
48.0
70.1
58.5
59.3
66.7
Percent Jews
Medical Faculty Austrian Women
* The table does not include foreign students, many of whom were Jews, especially before 1914.
32
Austrian Women
1897/98
Semester
TABLE 1: Austrian Jewish Women Students at the University of Vienna, 1897–1934*
279
210
111
60
Austrian Women
56
61
43
31
Austrian Jews
Law Faculty
20.1
29.0
38.7
51.7
Percent Jews
22,229
26,140
27,641
45,548
48,207
1908/09
1911/12
1924/25
1928/29
1932/33
2,271
2,004
1,901
1,625
1,642
1,247
Jewish Students
All Students
4.7
4.4
6.9
6.2
7.4
8.3
Percent Jews
38,516
38,269
24,457
24,454
21,659
15,102
All Males
1,539
1,509
1,512
1,436
1,540
1,247
Jewish Males
Male Students
Source:
4.0
3.9
6.2
5.9
7.1
8.3
Percent Jews
Hartmut Titze, Das Hochschulstudium in Preussen und Deutschland, 1820–1944, Tab. 6, 42–3 & Tab. 114, 226.
* The table does not include foreign students, many of whom were Jews, especially before 1914.
15,102
German Students
1899/00
Semester
TABLE 2: German Jewish Students at Prussian Universities, 1899–1933*
9,691
7,279
3,184
1,686
570
All Females
732
495
389
189
102
Jewish Females
7.6
6.8
12.2
11.2
17.9
Percent Jews
Female Students
208
| Appendix
TABLE 3: Professional Fields of Jewish University Women as Compared with Their Fathers and Husbands Field
Jewish Women
Same as Father
Same as Husband
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
Medicine
120
26.1
18
15.0
47
39.2
Education
73
15.9
2
2.7
7
9.6
Writing/ Publishing
57
12.4
1
1.8
7
12.3
Social Science
48
10.4
2
4.2
6
12.5
Science/ Engineering
34
7.4
10
29.4
15
44.1
Academia
30
6.5
7
23.3
7
23.3
Law
24
5.2
12
50.0
15
62.5
Humanities
13
2.8
4
30.8
Library/ Museum
11
2.4
4
0.9
Other
14
3.0
4
28.6
None
32
7.0
460
100.0
112
24.3
Commerce
Total
3
55
75.0
12.0
Appendix
| 209
TABLE 4: Size and Composition of Families of Jewish University Women Number of Children 1 Child
Families
Daughters Only
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
29
10.1
29
10.1
Daughters and Sons Number
Percent
2 Children
105
36.6
50
17.4
55
19.2
3 Children
86
30.0
27
9.4
59
20.6
4 Children
41
14.3
10
3.5
31
10.8
5 Children
12
4.2
2
0.7
10
3.5
>5 Children
14
4.9
14
4.9
287
100.0
169
58.9
Total
118
41.1
TABLE 5: Birth Order among Jewish University Women (JUW) Order of Birth
Born Pre-1900 Number
Percent
Born Post-1900 Number
Percent
All JUW Number
Percent
First born Only child
7
7.4
21
16.5
28
12.6
Oldest
32
33.7
43
33.9
75
33.8
Twins
2
2.1
2
0.9
41
43.2
64
50.4
105
47.3
Middle child
17
17.9
15
11.8
32
14.4
Youngest child
11
11.6
26
20.5
37
16.7
Sub-total
28
29.5
41
32.3
69
31.1
11
11.6
7
5.5
18
8.1
Sub-Total Second born
Later born Middle child Youngest child
15
15.8
15
11.8
30
13.5
Sub-Total
26
27.4
22
17.3
48
21.6
95
100.0
127
100.0
222
100.0
Total
132 122 82 78 47 40 29 28 25 21 19 12 10 10 10 9 8 8 8 7 6 5 5 5 5 14 29 774
Number
28.7 26.5 17.8 17.0 10.2 8.7 6.3 6.1 5.4 4.6 4.1 2.6 2.2 2.2 2.2 2.0 1.7 1.7 1.7 1.5 1.3 1.1 1.1 1.1 1.1 3.0 6.3
% of JUW
Attendees for one or more semesters*
168
1
2
11 11 4
10 4
26 87 6 6
Number
19.7 71.3 7.3 7.7 0.0 25.0 13.8 0.0 44.0 52.4 21.1 0.0 20.0 0.0 10.0
% of attendees
Commuters for one or more semesters
36.5
5.7 18.9 1.3 1.3 0.0 2.2 0.9 0.0 2.4 2.4 0.9 0.0 0.4 0.0 0.2
% of JUW
* Transferring among universities was a common practice among Central European students.
Berlin Vienna Heidelberg Munich Freiburg Frankfurt Bonn Zürich Breslau Prague Hamburg Königsberg Erlangen Halle Leipzig Göttingen Jena Geneva Bern Würzberg Tübingen Kiel Marburg Rostock Cologne Other Elsewhere Total
University
TABLE 6: Central European Universities Attended by Jewish University Women including Transfer Students, Commuters, and Degree Recipients (N = 460)
46 95 36 21 12 26 17 16 16 14 11 9 8 6 4 5 3 4 6 1 1 1 3 3 2 8 14 388
Number
34.8 77.9 43.9 26.9 25.5 65.0 58.6 57.1 64.0 66.7 57.9 75.0 80.0 60.0 40.0 55.6 37.5 50.0 75.0 14.3 16.7 20.0 60.0 60.0 40.0 57.1 48.3
% of attendees
Received doctorate
10.0 20.7 7.8 4.6 2.6 5.7 3.7 3.5 3.5 3.0 2.4 2.0 1.7 1.3 0.9 1.1 0.7 0.9 1.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.7 0.7 0.4 1.7 3.0 84.3
% of JUW
Appendix
| 211
TABLE 7: Jewish University Women by Age Cohort and Age Born Pre-1900
Born Post-1900
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
225
48.9
235
51.1
460
100.0
130 57
69.5 30.5
182 125 13 10
55.2 37.9 3.9 3.0
187
100.0
330
100.0
Age upon receiving degree/certification (N = 390) 30 42 22.6 8
23.5 56.4 16.2 3.9
66 192 82 50
16.9 49.2 21.0 12.8
100.0
390
100.0
All JUW
Age beginning university (N = 330) 30 10 7.0 Total
Total
143
186
100.0
100.0
204
All JUW
212
| Appendix
TABLE 8: Jewish Students at German Universities by Field of Study (1928/29) Faculty/Field
Male Students
Jewish Male Students Number
Female Students
% Jews
Jewish Female Students Number
% Jews
Philosophy Faculty Humanities German Modern Classics History Art History Philosophy* Musicology Journalism Math/Science Mathematics Chemistry Physics Biology Pharmacy Other** Sub-Total
2,832 3,164 1,175 1,723 395 2,273 505 108
50 44 39 83 31 87 16 3
1.8 1.4 3.3 4.8 7.8 3.8 3.2 2.8
1,590 2,095 141 549 209 547 92 25
60 79 7 23 38 36 15 7
3.8 3.8 5.0 4.2 18.2 6.6 16.3 28.0
3,611 2,371 1,458 1,278 551 2,464 23,908
63 103 32 18 24 23 616
1.7 4.3 2.2 1.4 4.4 0.9 2.6
823 330 162 674 192 443 7,872
20 31 14 9 3 3 345
2.4 9.4 8.6 1.3 1.6 0.7 4.4
Medical Faculty Medicine Dentistry Sub-Total
10,367 3,030 13,397
680 143 823
6.6 4.7 6.1
2,081 458 2,539
266 63 329
12.8 13.8 13.0
Law Faculty Law/Politics Social Sciences Economics Sub-Total
21,224 3,132 2,310 26,666
1,030 145 74 1,249
4.9 4.6 3.2 4.7
826 468 255 1,549
131 62 15 208
15.9 13.2 5.9 13.4
Other Faculties***
5,983
11
0.2
343
2
0.6
69,954
2,699
3.9
12,303
884
7.2
Total Students
* Includes Pedagogy/Education ** Includes Geography, Mineralogy, Agriculture, and Forestry *** Includes Theology, Religious Education, Veterinary Medicine, and Other Fields Source: Deutsche Hochschulstatistik, Winter 1928/29, 4–7.
Appendix
| 213
TABLE 9: Medical Specialization among Central European Physicians in the 1930s Specialty
Jewish Women (N=121)
German Women (N=2,925)
All German Physicians (N=46,700)
Émigré Physicians (N=2,024)
General Practice
31.4%
75.6%
69.3%
48.3%
Mental Health
23.1%
2.2%
1.9%
10.0%
Pediatrics
18.2%
11.1%
2.5%
5.0%
Gynecology
6.6%
3.5%
3.3%
3.6%
Dentistry
5.0%
N/A*
N/A*
6.3%
Dermatology
3.3%
1.9%
4.2%
4.9%
Ophthalmology
3.3%
2.1%
2.7%
2.9%
Internal Medicine
1.7%
1.8%
7.5%
10.8%
0.5%
5.1%
5.4%
1.4%
3.5%
2.8%
Surgery Other
7.4%
*The Reichsmedizinalkalender (RMK, German Medical Registry) does not include dentists. Sources: Eva Brinkschulte, Weibliche Arzte, 154 and Hans-Peter Kroner, “Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner im Nationalsozialismus,” 43.
97 31 52 14 18
124
Married No children 1–2 children >2 children Divorced
Total
100.0
78.2 32.0 53.6 14.4 18.6
21.8
198
122 55 56 13 16
76
100.0
61.6 45.1 45.9 10.7 13.1
38.4
53
41 19 20 2 2
12
Number
100.0
77.4 46.3 48.8 4.9 4.9
22.6
Percent
Dr. of Law/Politics
126 67 47 12
460
Former Jews Unaffiliated Protestants Catholics
Total
*Includes Former Jews
334
100.0
27.4 53.2 37.3 9.5
72.6
Percent
All JUW
Number
Jews
Affiliation
128
46 22 20 4
82
Number
100.0
35.9 47.8 43.5 8.7
64.1
Percent
Single
332
80 45 27 8
252
Number
100.0
24.1 56.3 33.8 10.0
75.9
Percent
Married
TABLE 11: Religious Affiliation, Marital Status, and Intermarriage among Jewish University Women
27
Number
Percent
Dr. of Philosophy
Percent
Dr. of Medicine
Number
Single
Status
TABLE 10: Marital and Family Status of Jewish University Women No Doctorate
100.0
84.7 30.6 44.4 25.0 15.3
15.3
290
54 34 18 2
236
Number
87.3
67.5 75.6 66.7 25.0
93.7
Percent
Married to Jew*
85
72 22 32 18 11
13
Number Percent
100.0
72.2 38.3 48.2 14.2 14.2
27.8
42
26 11 9 6
16
Number
12.7
32.5 24.4 33.3 75.0
6.3
Percent
Married to Non-Jew
460
332 127 160 47 47
128
Percent
All JUW Number
55 56
61 50
82 18 11 24 20
108 2 1
Age Cohort Born before 1900 Born 1900 or later
Marital Status Single Married
Affiliation* Jewish Unaffiliated Baptized Left-Wing* Zionist*
Former Home Germany Austria Czechoslovakia
97.3 1.8 0.9
73.9 16.2 9.9 21.6 18.0
55.0 45.0
49.5 50.5
28.8
55 11
50 8 8 19 11
27 39
30 36
66
83.3 16.7
75.8 12.1 12.1 28.8 16.7
40.9 59.1
45.5 54.5
17.1
Percent
1934–35
Number
*Individuals may belong to more than one category.
111
Percent
1933
Number
All Émigrés
Émigrés
34 13 1
34 10 4 16 5
24 24
14 34
48
Number
70.8 27.1 2.1
70.8 20.8 8.3 33.3 10.4
50.0 50.0
29.2 70.8
12.4
Percent
1936–37
67 72 13
121 18 13 32 15
57 95
64 88
152
Number
44.1 47.4 8.6
79.6 11.8 8.6 21.1 9.9
37.5 62.5
42.1 57.9
39.4
Percent
1938–39
TABLE 12: Emigration of Jewish University Women from Central Europe during the Nazi Era
100.0
22.2
2
9
77.8 22.2
55.6 44.4
66.7 33.3
2.3
7 2
5 4
6 3
9
Percent
1940–41 Number
Total
273 98 15
294 56 36 93 51
174 212
169 217
386
70.7 25.4 3.9
76.2 14.5 9.3 24.1 13.2
45.1 54.9
43.8 56.2
100.0
Number Percent
216
| Appendix
TABLE 13: Jewish University Women in Nazi Europe during the Holocaust All JUW in Europe*
Victims*
Survivors
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
Number
All JUW
61
100.0
35
57.4
26
42.6
Age Cohort Born before 1900 Born 1900 or later
45 16
73.8 26.2
30 5
85.7 14.3
15 11
57.7 42.3
Marital Status Single Married Mothers
29 32 15
47.5 52.5 24.6
18 17 5
51.4 48.6 14.3
11 15 10
42.3 57.7 38.5
Location in 1941 Central Europe Western Europe Elsewhere
39 16 6
63.9 26.2 9.8
28 7
80.0 20.0
11 9 6
42.3 34.6 23.1
During World War II In Hiding In Resistance Deported In Camps Suicide
12 6 6 32 5
19.7 9.8 9.8 52.5 8.2
10 6
38.5 23.1
10
38.5
6 24 5
17.1 68.6 14.3
Percent
* Women who remained in Europe, especially Holocaust victims, are underrepresented in this study population.
Appendix
| 217
TABLE 14: Emigration Destinations of Jewish University Women before 1945 Countries
United States Great Britain Palestine France Switzerland Czechoslovakia Italy Holland Belgium Spain Sweden Denmark Norway Yugoslavia USSR Turkey Egypt China Brazil Other Latin America Canada Australasia South Africa Total Émigrés
Temporary Havens
Final Destinations
Number
Percent
Number
Percent
2 58 6 42 29 14 10 8 9 3 6 3 3 1 1 5 1 1 2 9 1 1
0.9 27.0 2.8 19.5 13.5 6.5 4.7 3.7 4.2 1.4 2.8 1.4 1.4 0.5 0.5 2.3 0.5 0.5 0.9 4.2 0.5 0.5
221 51 66 10 13
56.1 12.9 16.8 2.5 3.3
2 3
0.5 0.8
3
0.8
4
1.0
1 1 8 6 1 3 1
0.3 0.3 2.0 1.5 0.3 0.8 0.3
215
100.0
394
100.0
NOTES
INTRODUCTION 1. Moshe Hartman and Harriet Hartman, Gender Equality and American Jews (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 31–33; Sylvia Barack Fishman, A Breath of Life: Feminism in the American Jewish Community (New York: Free Press, 1993), 71. 2. New York Times, June 15, 1993; Joyce Antler, The Journey Home (New York: Free Press, 1997), 328–33. 3. This important group of Russian-born students has already been researched fairly extensively, however. See Daniela Neumann, Studentinnen aus dem Russischen Reich in der Schweiz, 1867–1914 (Zurich: Hans Rohr, 1987); Anja Burchardt, Blaustrumpf-ModestudentinAnarchistin? Deutsche und russische Medizinstudentinnen in Berlin 1896–1918 (Stuttgart/ Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1997); Waltraud Heindl, “Ausländische Studentinnen an der Universität Wien vor dem ersten Weltkrieg,” in Richard Georg Plaschka and Karlheinz Mack, eds., Wegenetz europäischen Geistes II: Universitäten und Studenten (Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1987), 317–43; and idem, “Die russischen Studentinnen an der Wiener Universität,” in Waltraud Heindl and Marina Tichy, eds., “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . .” Frauen an der Universität Wien (ab 1897) (Vienna: WUV-Universitätsverlag, 1990), 129–38. 4. Christian Fleck, “Marie Jahoda,” in Friedrich Stadler, ed., Vertriebene Vernunft: Emigration und Exil österreichischer Wissenschaft 1930–1940 (Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1987), vol. 2, 345. 5. The works that discuss Jewish university women at least briefly include Claudia Huerkamp, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen in Deutschland, 1900–1938,” in Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 1993, 19: 311–31; idem, Bildungsbürgerinnen: Frauen im Studium und in akademischen Berufen, 1900–1945 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996); Heindl and Tichy, eds., “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . .”; and Burchardt, BlaustrumpfModestudentin-Anarchistin? 6. Deborah Hertz, Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988). 7. Marion A. Kaplan, “Tradition and Transition: The Acculturation, Assimilation and Integration of Jews in Imperial Germany—A Gender Analysis,” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook ( hereafter LBIYB ), 27 (1982), 3–36; idem, “Priestess and Hausfrau: Women and Tradition in the German-Jewish Family,” in Steven M. Cohen and Paula E. Hyman, eds., The Jewish Family: Myths and Reality (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986), 62–81; idem, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). 8. It is impossible to ascertain exactly how many Jewish women attended universities in Germany and Austria before the Nazi era. Although students were required to provide their religion on their registration forms, not all women with two Jewish parents were registered as Jews and statistics of students by gender and religion were compiled by semester only, not by year or for recipients of degrees. As a result, it is possible to find out how many women students studied at a given university in a given semester, but not how many
Notes to pages xviii–xix
| 219
women, let alone Jewish women, attended any university altogether. I estimate, however, that the 460 women who make up the study population for this book comprise roughly 10 percent of all Jewish women who studied at Central European universities. 9. The Leo Baeck Institute (or LBI), with headquarters in New York and branches in London and Jerusalem, is the main repository for archival materials relating to Germanspeaking Jewry. 10. Seventy-six women, including at least ten who attended university, were among the 250 individuals who submitted their autobiographies for this competition, which was sponsored by the psychology department of Harvard University in 1939–40 “for the purely scientific purpose of collecting materials which will be used to study the social and psychological effects of National Socialism on German society and on the German people.” Competition Announcement in German and English, 57M-203, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. The prize-winning entries of two women physicians, Käte Frankenthal and Hertha Nathorff, were later published. See Käte Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch: Jüdin, Intellektuelle, Sozialistin, ed. Kathleen M. Pearle and Stephan Leibfried (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1981); Hertha Nathorff, Das Tagebuch der Hertha Nathorff: Berlin–New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945, ed. Wolfgang Benz (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1987). 11. Among the most worthwhile biographies of some of the better-known women, published in English, are Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996): Paul Roazen, Helene Deutsch: A Psychoanalyst’s Life (Garden City: Anchor/Doubleday, 1989); and Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982). For a complete list of autobiographies and biographies that were helpful in my research, please consult the bibliography. 12. The questionnaire included thirty-five open-ended questions dealing with family background, education and career, Jewish and political involvement, and experiences in emigration. Using a “snowball technique,” it asked respondents for the names and addresses of others who might be able to complete the questionnaire. Many respondents answered the questions in considerable depth and appended additional information. 13. Andreas Lixl-Purcell has identified more than four hundred memoirs of Central European Jewish women, of which over seventy were written by women who attended university. See Andreas Lixl-Purcell, ed., Erinnerungen deutsch-jüdischer Frauen, 1900–1990 (Leipzig: Reclam Verlag, 1992); Andreas Lixl-Purcell, “Memoirs as History,” LBIYB, 29 (1994), 222–38. The largest collection of unpublished Central European memoirs written before World War II is the result of the 1940 Harvard essay competition and is housed at the Houghton Library, Harvard, 57M-203, bMS Ger91. The most extensive collection of unpublished post-war memoirs is located in the archives of the Leo Baeck Institute (hereafter LBI) in New York. For a fuller description of memoirs written by Central European Jewish university women, see Harriet Freidenreich, “1908: Prussian Universities Allow Women to Matriculate for the First Time,” in Yale Companion to Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture, ed. Sandor L. Gilman and Jack Zipes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 281–83. 14. In this study, I have divided Jewish university women into only two broad generational groups, those born in the late nineteenth century and those born in the twentieth century. Some scholars, however, have categorized Central European university women into four generations by decade of birth as follows: the pioneering generation, often auditors or special students, born between 1860 and 1880; the second generation born in the 1880s, who were able to become “regular” students; the third generation, born in the 1890s, who already had some female professional role models; and the fourth generation, born after 1900, who had less opportunity to develop their professional lives before the Nazi takeover. See Annette Kuhn, Brigitte Mühlenbruch, and Valentine Rothe, eds., 100 Jahre Frauenstudium: Frauen der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (Bonn: Edition Ebersbach, ca. 1996), 11.
220
| Notes to pages xix–5
15. Women who were born in Russia are underrepresented in this book, because I only included in my study population those Eastern European women who attended university in Germany and Austria and remained in Central Europe thereafter. Eastern European women made up a large proportion of the first generation of women at German and Austrian universities, particularly as auditors, but most returned to Russia after completing their education and their subsequent lives and careers are difficult to trace. See Burchardt, Blaustrumpf-Modestudentin-Anarchistin?; Heindl, “Ausländlische Studentinnen,” 317–43; and idem, “Die russischen Studentinnen,” 129–38.
1. EMANCIPATION THROUGH HIGHER EDUCATION 1. See Kaplan, Making of the Jewish Middle Class. 2. Rahel Goitein, “Abiturrede” (address delivered in Karlsruhe in 1899), as quoted in Michael A. Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 3, Integration in Dispute 1871–1918 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 86. 3. See Jacob Katz, Out of the Ghetto: The Social Background of Jewish Emancipation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971); David Sorkin, The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780–1840 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); and Michael A. Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 2, Emancipation and Acculturation 1780–1871 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998). 4. For statistics and demographic trends, see Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 3; Monika Richarz, ed., Jewish Life in Germany: Memoirs from Three Centuries (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 1–16; and Marsha L. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna, 1867–1914: Assimilation and Identity (Albany: SUNY Press, 1983). 5. See Kaplan, Making of the Jewish Middle Class, and Gary B. Cohen, Education and Middle-Class Society in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1996). 6. See Ute Frevert, Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation (Oxford: Berg, 1989), and Barbara Greven-Aschoff, Die bürgerliche Frauenbewegung in Deutschland 1894–1933 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981). 7. Thomas Neville Bonner, To the Ends of the Earth: Women’s Search for Education in Medicine (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 6. 8. Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Alma Mater: Design and Experiences in the Women’s Colleges from the Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s (New York: Knopf, 1982); Regina Markell Morantz-Sanchez, Sympathy and Science: Women Physicians in American Medicine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). 9. See Elizabeth Seymour Eschbach, The Higher Education of Women in England and America, 1865–1920 (New York: Garland, 1993); Carol Dyhouse, No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities, 1870–1939 (London: UCL Press, 1995); Catriona Blake, The Charge of the Parasols: Women’s Entry to the Medical Profession (London: Women’s Press, 1990). 10. For a discussion of the importance of Bildung to German Jews, especially GermanJewish women, see Kaplan, Making of the Jewish Middle Class, esp. 7–10, 54–55. 11. See Michael Meyer, The Origin of the Modern Jew (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1967) and Hertz, Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin. 12. Inge Schlotzhauer, Das Philanthropin 1804–1942: Die Schule der israelitischen Gemeinde in Frankfurt am Main (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Waldemar Kramer, 1990), 24–26; James C. Albisetti, Schooling German Girls and Women: Secondary and Higher Education in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 35, 43, 47. 13. Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 3, 74–76; Albisetti, Schooling German Girls and Women, 55–57. 14. Class differences account for at least some of this discrepancy. Children of workingclass and peasant backgrounds, especially girls, rarely received more than an elementary
Notes to pages 5–8
|
221
school education. Even accounting for class, however, middle-class Jewish families were considerably more likely to provide secondary and higher education for their daughters than their Christian counterparts, at least until the interwar years, when the gap begins to close. 15. Luise Hirsch, “Juden an Schulen und Universitäten in Deutschland 1848–1918” (unpublished master’s thesis, Freie Universität Berlin, 1994), 62–69. According to Marion Kaplan, 42 percent of Jewish girls in Prussia in 1901, as compared to 3.7 percent of Gentile girls, attended the Höherer-Töchterschule, whereas in Berlin, the capital, in 1897, 60 percent of Jewish girls did so, as compared to 9.6 percent of Gentiles. Kaplan, “Tradition and Transition,” LBIYB, 27 (1982), 26. 16. Jacob Segall, “Schulbesuch christlicher und jüdischer Kinder in Berlin von 1897 bis 1906,” Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden, 5, no. 8 (August 1909), 115–21; Kaplan, Making of the Jewish Middle Class, 138. 17. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna, 99–125. See also Cohen, Education and Middle-Class Society, 134–47. 18. Albisetti, Schooling German Girls and Women; idem, “Could Separate Be Equal? Helene Lange and Women’s Education in Imperial Germany,” History of Education Quarterly, 22 (1982), 301–302. 19. See Monika Richarz, Der Eintritt der Juden in die akademischen Berufe: Jüdische Studenten und Akademiker in Deutschland 1678–1848 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1974); David L. Preston, “The German Jews in Secular Education, University Teaching, and Science: A Preliminary Inquiry,” Jewish Social Studies, 38, no. 2 (Spring 1976), 99–116; Gary B. Cohen, “Die Studenten der Wiener Universität von 1860 bis 1900,” in Plaschka and Mack, eds., Wegenetz europäischen Geistes II, 296–98; idem, Education and Middle-Class Society. 20. See Katz, Out of the Ghetto; Monika Richarz, ed., Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland, vol. 3, Selbstzeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte 1918–1945 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1982), 14–25; idem, Jewish Life in Germany, 10–15; Peter Pulzer, The Jews and the German State: The Political History of a Minority, 1848–1933 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992). 21. For a discussion of quotas at American universities, see Marcia Graham Synnott, “Anti-Semitism and American Universities: Did Quotas Follow the Jews?” in David A. Gerber, ed., Anti-Semitism in American History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 233–72; idem, The Half-Open Door: Discrimination and Admissions at Harvard, Yale and Princeton, 1900–1970 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979); Dan A. Oren, Joining the Club: A History of Jews and Yale (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985). 22. Aletta Jacobs, Memories: My Life as an International Leader in Health, Suffrage, and Peace, ed. Harriet Feinberg (New York: Feminist Press, 1996). 23. Jeanette E. Tuve, The First Russian Women Physicians (Newtonville, Mass.: Oriental Research Partners, 1984), 46–56; Toby W. Clyman, ed., Russia through Women’s Eyes: Autobiographies from Tsarist Russia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 158–85. 24. In the 1870s in St. Petersburg, Jewish women made up 18 percent of the students in the Bestuzhev Higher Courses and 21 percent in the Women’s Medical Courses, while they comprised a total of 16 percent in Women’s Higher Courses in Moscow and Kiev. In Russia on the eve of World War I, 13 percent of all women students, but only 6 percent of the male student population, were Jews. Neumann, Studentinnen aus dem Russischen Reich, 50; Ruth A. Dudgeon, “The Forgotten Minority: Women Students in Imperial Russia, 1872–1917,” Russian History, 9 (1982), 16. 25. Robert M. W. Kempner, Ankläger einer Epoche: Lebenserinnerungen (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1983), 18. 26. Neumann, Studentinnen aus dem Russischen Reich, 51. 27. Ibid., 43; Dudgeon, “The Forgotten Minority,” 10. 28. Karl Emil Franzos, “Lateinische Mädchen” in Aus der grossen Ebene: Neue Bilder aus Halb-Asien (Stuttgart: A. Bonz, 1888), vol. 2, 107, 125–26. I want to thank Luise Hirsch for providing me with this remarkable early source.
222
| Notes to pages 9–11
29. Heindl and Tichy, eds., “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . . ,” 218–19; Hanny Rohner, Die ersten 30 Jahre des medizinischen Frauenstudiums an der Universität Zürich 1867–97 (Zurich: Juris Druck, 1972); James C. Albisetti, “Female Education in German-speaking Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, 1866–1914,” in David F. Good et al., eds., Austrian Women in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives (Providence: Berghahn Books, 1996), 47–48. 30. Jewish women played a prominent role in the German woman’s movement in the nineteenth century. For information on this subject, see Irmgard Maya Fassmann, Jüdinnen in der deutschen Frauenbewegung, 1865–1919 (Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1996). 31. See Albisetti, Schooling German Girls and Women; Laetitia Boehm, “Von den Anfängen des akademischen Frauenstudiums in Deutschland,” Historisches Jahrbuch, 77 (1958), 298–327; Judith Herrmann, Die deutsche Frau in akademischen Berufen (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1915), 8–31; Bund österreichischen Frauenvereine, Frauenbewegung, Frauenbildung und Frauenarbeit in Österreich (Vienna: Bund österreichischer Frauenvereine, 1930); Martha Forkl and Elisabeth Koffmahn, eds., Frauenstudium und akademische Frauenarbeit in Österreich (Vienna: W. Braumüller, 1968); Heindl and Tichy, eds., “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück. . . .” 32. See Burchardt, Blaustrumpf-Modestudentin-Anarchistin?; Heindl, “Ausländische Studentinnen an der Universität Wien,” 317–43; Heindl and Tichy, eds., “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . .” 33. Lynn D. Gordon, Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Barbara Miller Solomon, In the Company of Educated Women (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985). Statistics on Jewish women attending American colleges and universities are somewhat sketchy and difficulty to come by; most of the available published literature deals with anti-Jewish quotas at Ivy League men’s colleges, rather than at the Seven Sisters. 34. Sydney Stahl Weinberg, The World of Our Mothers: The Lives of Jewish Immigrant Women (New York: Schocken Books, 1988), 169–83; Bureau of Jewish Social Research, “Professional Tendencies among Jewish Students in Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools,” American Jewish Yearbook, 22 (1920–21), 383–93; David O. Levine, The American College and the Culture of Aspiration, 1915–1940 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986), 48. 35. See Ruth Jacknow Markowitz, My Daughter, the Teacher: Jewish Teachers in the New York City Schools (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1993); Sherry Gorelick, City College and the Jewish Poor: Education in New York, 1880–1924 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1981); Diana B. Turk, “College Students” and Katherine Kroo Grunfeld, “Hunter College,” in Jewish Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia, vol. 1, 258–63, 660–62. 36. Lillian Bader, “One Life Is Not Enough: Autobiographical Vignettes,” AR-5455, Archives, LBI, New York, 59. See also Albert Lichtblau, Als hätten wir dazugehört: Österreichisch-jüdische Lebensgeschichte aus der Habsburgermonarchie (Vienna: Böhlau, 1999), 545–64. 37. Rohner, Die ersten 30 Jahre des medizinischen Frauenstudiums, 16; Gabi Einsele, “‘Kein Vaterland’: Deutsche Studentinnen in Züricher Exil (1870–1908),” in Anne Schlüter, ed., Pionierinnen, Feministinnen, Karrierefrauen? Zur Geschichte des Frauenstudiums in Deutschland (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1992), 23. 38. As quoted in Renate Göllner, “Mädchenbildung um Neunzehnhundert: Eugenie Schwarzwald und ihre Schulen” (dissertation, University of Vienna, 1986), 45. 39. Rahel Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1961), 83–85; Recha Rothschild, Memoirs of Recha Rothschild (German typescript), ME-243, Archives, LBI, New York, 19; Bader, “One Life Is Not Enough,” 59. Else Gerstel adopted as her role model her cousin, Else Liefmann, who earned doctorates in both medicine and
Notes to pages 11–14 |
223
philosophy. Else Gerstel, “Grandma, Times Have Changed!,” ME-184, Archives, LBI, New York, 27–28. 40. Helene Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself: An Epilogue (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1973), 98–99; Marie Langer, Von Wien bis Managua: Wege einer Psychoanalytiker (Frankfurt: Kore, 1986), 29. 41. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 83–85; Irma Klausner, “Dornenweg der Medizinerin,” Vossische Zeitung, December 25, 1929 (courtesy of Georg Cronheim). 42. Susie Lewinsky, “Memoires” (unpublished memoir, courtesy of Andreas LixlPurcell, with permission of author, San Francisco), 37–38; Charlotte Wolff, Hindsight (London: Quartet Books, 1980), 28. 43. Sources discussing this school, its director and its faculty include Hans Deichmann, Leben mit provisorischer Genehmigung: Leben, Werk und Exil von Dr. Eugenie Schwarzwald (1872–1940) (Berlin: Guthmann-Peterson, 1988); Renate Göllner, “Mädchenbildung um Neunzehnhundert: Eugenie Schwarzwald und ihre Schulen” (dissertation, University of Vienna, 1986); Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer, Genies sind im Lehrplan vorgesehen (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1979); Helga Embacher, “Aussenseiterinnen: bürgerlich, jüdisch, intellektuel—links,” L’Homme Zeitschrift für Feministische Geschichtswissenschaft, 2, no. 2 (1991), 57–76; Hilde Spiel, Die hellen und die finsteren Zeiten: Erinnerungen 1911–1946 (Munich: List Verlag, 1989); Peter Drucker, Adventures of a Bystander (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), 38–57. 44. Recha Rothschild, Verschlungene Wege: Identitätssuche einer deutschen Jüdin, ed. Karin Hartewig (Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994), 27–29. Also Rothschild, Memoirs, 19–30. 45. Brigitta Oestreich, “Hedwig und Otto Hintze: Eine biographische Skizze” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 11 (1985), 401; Marie Munk, “Reminiscences/Memoirs” (1961), ME-332, Archives, LBI, New York; Auguste Dick, Emmy Noether 1882–1935, trans. H. I. Blocher (Boston: Birkhäuser, 1981), 11; Charlotte Kerner, Lise, Atomphysiker: Die Lebensgeschichte der Lise Meitner (Weinheim/Basel: Beltz, 1986), 11–12; Gerit von Leitner, Der Fall Clara Immerwahr: Leben für eine humane Wissenschaft (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1993); Emmy Klieneberger-Nobel, Pionierleistungen für die Medizinische Mikrobiologie: Lebenserinnerungen (Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer, 1977). 46. See Albisetti, Schooling German Girls and Women, and Juliane Jacobi, ed., Frauen zwischen Familie und Schule: Professionalisierungsstrategien bürgerlicher Frauen im internationalen Vergleich (Frankfurt: Böhlau Verlag, 1994). 47. Lydia Ehrenfried, “Aus meinem Leben” (Kfar Saba, Israel, 1968), ME-820, Archives, LBI, New York, 30; Rothschild, “Memoirs,” 20–29; Edith Stein, Life in a Jewish Family, 1891–1916: The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Discalced Carmelite, ed. L. Gelber and Romaeus Leuven, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications, 1986), 89. 48. When German universities began opening their doors to women during the first decade of the twentieth century, certified women teachers in higher girls’ schools with several years of experience were allowed to enter university without passing the Abitur examination in order to obtain state accreditation as secondary school teachers. Jewish women rarely exercised this option, however, perhaps because they had difficulty getting the requisite teaching positions. Except for several special cases like Alice Salomon and Toni Sender, virtually all of the university women in this study passed the Abitur or Matura examinations before entering university. For information on the so-called “Fourth Way,” see Albisetti, Schooling German Girls and Women, 253–355; Edith Glaser, Hindernisse, Umwege, Sackgassen: Die Anfänge des Frauenstudiums in Tübingen 1904–1934 (Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag, 1992), 36–38; Lothar Mertens, Vernachlässigte Töchter der Alma Mater (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1991), 66–70. 49. Elise Richter, “Summe des Lebens: Lebensfreuden/Lebensleid” (Vienna, 1940), MA9, 336/47, III, 37/3, Box 3, Nachlass Elise und Helene Richter, Landes- und Stadts-
224
| Notes to pages 14–17
archiv, Vienna, Manuscript Collection; “Elise Richter,” in Elga Kern, ed., Führende Frauen Europas (Munich: E. Reinhardt, 1928), vol. 1, 72–89; Hans Helmut Christmann, Frau und “Jüdin” an der Universität: Die Romanistin Elise Richter (Wien 1865–Theresienstadt 1943) (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980), 9–13. 50. Ibid. 51. Albisetti, Schooling German Girls and Women, 208–209, 236, 241. 52. Bader, “One Life Is Not Enough,” 65. 53. For example, Julie (Braun-)Vogelstein began attending advanced courses for women in her hometown of Stettin but then had to complete her preparations for her Abitur in Breslau. Similarly, Helene Rosenbach (Deutsch), Margaret Schoenberger (Mahler), and Käte Frankenthal all had to leave home for several years to prepare for university. Julie Braun-Vogelstein, Was niemals stirbt: Gestalten und Erinnerungen (Stuttgart, 1966), 12–20; Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 81–83; Margaret Mahler, Memoirs, ed. Paul E. Stepansky (New York: Free Press, 1988), 10–12; Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 10–17. 54. Selma Stern, born in Kippenheim (Baden) in 1890, and Hertha Einstein (Nathorff ), born in Ulm (Württemberg) in 1895, both attended boys’ high schools. Marina Sassenberg, ed., Apropos Selma Stern (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Neue Kritik, 1998), 13–14; Nathorff, Tagebuch, 21–22. 55. Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt, 34–35; “Elise Richter,” in Kern, ed., Führende Frauen Europas, vol. 1, 80; Dick, Emmy Noether, 12; Sime, Lise Meitner, 8–9; von Leitner, Der Fall Clara Immerwahr, 34–37; Braun-Vogelstein, Was niemals stirbt, 220–21; Gerstel, “Grandma, Times Have Changed!” 34–36; Edith Oske Jacoby, questionnaire completed by her daughter, Gerte Cohn, Australia. 56. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 66–73, 83–84; Wolff, Hindsight, 50; Dodo Liebmann, “We Kept Our Heads: Personal Memories of Being Jewish in Nazi Germany and Making a New Home in England” (1976), ME-394, LBI, New York, 20; Nellie H. Friedrichs, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben in Braunschweig 1912–1937, 2nd ed. (Braunschweig: Stadtarchiv und Stadtbibliothek, 1988), 26–27. 57. Heindl and Tichy, “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . . ,” 133–49. 58. Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 24–31. See also Huerkamp, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen in Deutschland,” 311–14. 59. See Table 1, “Austrian Jewish Women Students at the University of Vienna,” and Table 2, “German Jewish Students at Prussian Universities,” in Appendix. See also Claudia Huerkamp, “Frauen, Universitäten und Bildungsbürgertum: Zur Lage studierender Frauen 1900–1930,” in Hannes Siegrist, ed., Bürgliche Berufe: Zur Sozialgeschichte der freien und akademischen Berufe im internationalen Vergleich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1988), 208–10; idem, Bildungsbürgerinnen; idem, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen in Deutschland”; Heindl and Tichy, “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . . ,” 139–49. 60. See Appendix, Table 2. See also Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen; Konrad H. Jarausch, Students, Society and Politics in Imperial Germany (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 96–97; Cohen, “Die Studenten der Wiener Universität,” 296–97; Peter Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1964), 12–13. 61. Huercamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 24–31; idem, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen,” 314–16; Heindl and Tichy, “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . . ,” 139–44; Hirsch, “Juden an Schulen und Universitäten in Deutschland,” 98–110; Kaplan, Making of the Jewish Middle Class, 137–46. 62. For a discussion of German-Jewish demographics related to marriage, see Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 3, 10–17. See also H. Silbergleit, Die Bevölkerungs- und Berufsverhältnisse der Juden im Deutschen Reich, vol. 1 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1930), 46–72; Uriel O. Schmelz, “Die demographische Entwicklung der Juden in Deutschland von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis 1933,” Bulletin des LBI, 83 (1989), 25–45.
Notes to pages 19–23
|
225
2. DUTIFUL DAUGHTERS, REBELS, AND DREAMERS 1. The memoirs which discuss this migration process include Minna Lachs, Warum schaust du zurück: Erinnerungen 1907–1941 (Vienna: Europaverlag, 1986); Stella KleinLöw, Erinnerungen: Erlebtes und Gedachtes (Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1980); Fanny Stang, Fräulein Doktor (Sussex: Book Guild, 1988); Erna Proskauer, Wege und Umwege: Erinnerungen einer Rechtsanwältin, ed. Sabine Berghahn and Christl Wickert (Berlin: D. Nishen, 1989); Hilde Zaloscer, Eine Heimkehr gibt es nicht (Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 1988). 2. Lotte H. Eisner, Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland: Memoiren, 2nd ed. (Heidelberg: Wunderhorn, 1984), 7–19. 3. Ruth Feitelberg Hope, “The Story of My Family,” ME-770, Archives, LBI, New York, 68–69. 4. Frieda H. Sichel, Challenge of the Past (Johannesburg, 1975), 50–51. See also Joanne Hatch Bruch, Unlocking the Golden Cage: An Intimate Biography of Hilde Bruch, M.D. (Carlsbad, Calif.: Gürze Books, 1996), 10. 5. Henrietta (Henny) Magnus Necheles, “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician,” My Life in Germany Before and After 1933 Collection, #163, bMS Ger 91, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston, 2–3. 6. The widowed mother of Edith and Erna Stein continued to run the family’s lumberyard after the death of her husband; Gisela Peiper Konopka’s mother worked as a seamstress to help support the family. Stein, Life in a Jewish Family; Gisela Konopka, Courage and Love (Edina, Minn.: Burgess Printing Co., 1988). 7. Among the daughters of widows were Rahel Goitein Straus, Edith Stein and Erna Stein Biberstein, Lillian Stern Bader, Bertha Badt-Strauss, Hannah Arendt, and Alice Salomon. The daughters whose parents divorced and for whom their mother was the dominant influence on their lives include Nellie Bruell Friedrichs, Erica Tietze-Conrat, and Lucie Stern Varga. 8. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, esp. 272. 9. Several mothers actually attended university lectures as auditors at the same time as their daughters were enrolled as matriculated students. See Bertha Badt-Strauss, Studententage in München, 1912–13 (Munich: Ner Tamid Verlag, 1959); Helen Silving, Helen Silving Memoirs (New York: Vantage Press, 1989); Judith S. Kestenberg, “Kindheit und Wissenschaft: Eine biographische Skizze,” in Ludger M. Hermanns, ed., Psychoanalyse in Selbstdarstellungen (Tübingen: Diskord, 1992). 10. Lydia Ehrenfried, “Aus meinem Leben” (Kfar Saba, Israel, 1968), ME-820, Archives, LBI, New York, 1, 24. Fanny Knesbach Stang also attributes her determination to attend university and become a physician to her mother, who bitterly regretted not having followed her girlhood ambition to train as a teacher. Fanny Stang, Fräulein Doktor, 37. 11. Klieneberger-Nobel, Pionierleistungen für die Medizinische Mikrobiologie, 7. 12. Alice Salomon, “Character Is Destiny: An Autobiography,” AR-3875, Archives, LBI, New York; Alice Salomon, “Jugend- und Arbeitserinnerungen” in Kern, Führende Frauen Europas, vol. 1, 3–34; Dora Peyser, “Alice Salomon: Ein Lebensbild” in Alice Salomon, Die Begründerin des sozialen Frauenberufs in Deutschland: Ihr Leben und ihr Werk (Cologne: Carl Heymanns Verlag, 1958). 13. Salomon, “Character Is Destiny,” 119. 14. Ibid., 120–24. 15. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 62–69; Mahler, Memoirs, 4–7; Langer, Von Wien bis Managua, 57. See also Eisner, Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland. 16. G. H. Beale, Charlotte Auerbach (Edinburgh: The Royal Society, 1995), 23; Eisner, Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland, 11. 17. Edith Weisskopf-Joelson, Father, Have I Kept My Promise? Madness as Seen from Within (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1988). 18. Wolff, Hindsight, 2–3.
226
| Notes to pages 24–27
19. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 35–38. 20. Ibid., 80–82. 21. Other university women who identified with their father, not their mother, include Beate Berwin, Emilie Melchior Braun, Käthe Pick Leichter, Dodo Badt Liebman, Marie Munk, Hertha Einstein Nathorff, Fanny Knesbach Stang, and Hilde Zaloscer. The art historian and critic Lotte Eisner articulated her idealization of her father as follows: “I know that I have an Elektra complex and therefore I have never had a satisfactory love relationship, since I have always compared my lover secretly with my father and no one could match up.” Eisner, Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland, 16. 22. Interview with Elisabeth Marum Lunau, Washington, D.C., November 25, 1991. Margarethe Turnowsky-Pinner decided to study economics due to her brother’s influence. Several women, including Rahel Goitein Straus, Hilde Bruch, and Julia Rahmer, chose medicine based on the advice of an uncle. 23. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 43, 93. Käthe Pick Leichter also wanted to become a lawyer like her father, but studied political science instead. Herbert Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter: Leben und Werk (Vienna: Europaverlag, 1973), 40–45. 24. Correspondence with Alice Halberstam Lieberg; Alice Lieberg, Remembrances of Things Past (Dedham, Mass.: Sylvester Press, 1993). 25. See Table 3, “Professional Fields of Jewish University Women as Compared with Their Fathers and Husbands,” in Appendix. 26. Braun-Vogelstein, Was niemals stirbt, esp. 202–18. 27. Examples of men with such attitudes include the fathers of Tilly Edinger, Ruth Feitelberg Hope, Marie Munk, Käthe Pick Leichter, Toni Sender, and Olga Taussky-Todd. 28. See Margarete Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden: Autobiographischer Rückblick (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Josef Knecht, 1977); Paula Tobias, “My Life in Germany” (1939), #235, bMS Ger 91, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston; Lieberg, Remembrances of Things Past; Stephanie Braun Orfali, A Jewish Girl in the Weimar Republic (Berkeley: Ronin Publishing, 1987). 29. See Rudolfine Menzel, “My Life in Germany” (1940), #155 and Lily S. Krug, “My Life in Germany” #124, bMS Ger91, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston, 43. 30. Spiel, Die hellen und die finsteren Zeiten, 58; Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 13; Mona Spiegel-Adolf in Elga Kern, ed., Führende Frauen Europas (Munich: E. Reinhardt, 1930), vol. 2, 53. 31. See Karola Bloch, Aus meinem Leben (Pfullingen: Neske, 1981); Hope, “The Story of My Family,” 34, 59; Proskauer, Wege und Umwege, 14–20; Langer, Von Wien bis Managua. 32. Langer, Von Wien bis Managua, 30. For more information on dowries, see Marion Kaplan, ed., The Marriage Bargain: Women and Dowries in European History (New York: Harrington Park Press, 1985), and Monika Richarz, “Jewish Women in the Family and Public Sphere,” in Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 3, 83–84. 33. Forty percent of the fathers of the women researched were ten or more years older than their wives; only 10 percent of the fathers were the same age as, or slightly younger than, their spouses. 34. Toni Sender, The Autobiography of a German Rebel (New York: Vanguard, 1939). 35. See Table 4, “Size and Composition of Families of Jewish University Women,” in Appendix. 36. Physician Rahel Goitein Straus, physicist Lise Meitner, social reformers Alice Salomon and Helene Simon, medical researchers Hilde Bruch and Rahel Hirsch, philosopher Edith Stein, and her physician sister Erna Stein Biberstein all came from large families with five or more children. Political theorist Hannah Arendt, geneticist Charlotte Auerbach, and sociologist Margarete David (Sallis-)Freudenthal were from single-child families. 37. Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 3, 10. 38. Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 24–31; idem, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen,” 314–16.
Notes to pages 27–29
|
227
39. Women who grew up in families that only had daughters include Käthe Pick Leichter, Margaret Schoenberger Mahler, Gerty Radnitz Cori, and Olga Taussky-Todd, as well as the Welt sisters and the Zaloscer sisters. 40. A frequently cited early study on women students in Germany, published in 1920, also pointed out that the families from which academic women stem tend to be especially rich in daughters. Max Hirsch, Über das Frauenstudium: Eine soziologische und biologische Untersuchung auf Grund einer Erhebung (Leipzig: Curt Kabitzsch, 1920), 34–35. 41. See Tables 4 and 5 in Appendix. 42. See Table 5, “Birth Order among Jewish University Women,” in Appendix. Among the women in this study who were the oldest child in their family were child analyst Margaret Schoenberger Mahler, medical researcher Gerty Radnitz Cori, psychoanalyst Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, psychologist Charlotte Malachowski Bühler, and mathematician Emmy Noether. For an interesting interpretation of the relationship between birth order and creativity, see Frank J. Sulloway, Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives (New York: Pantheon Books, 1996). 43. Physician Rahel Goitein Straus, psychiatrist Hilde Bruch, psychologist Else FrenkelBrunswik, economist Frieda Wunderlich, mathematicians Hilda Geiringer and Olga TausskyTodd, physicist Lise Meitner, and social worker educator Alice Salomon were all middle children. Psychoanalyst Helene Rosenbach Deutsch, economist Cora Berliner, sociologist Eva Reichmann, lawyer Marie Munk, political scientist Käthe Leichter, Romance philologist Elise Richter, and physicist Clara Immerwahr Haber were all youngest children. Indeed, bacteriologist Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner was the youngest of nine children. 44. After obtaining her medical degree from Halle in 1902, Helene Ziegelroth (Stoeltzner) opened up a private practice for women and children in Berlin and later in Halle, while her younger sister, Nathalie, became a police doctor in a women’s prison after completing her studies in Berlin. (Interview and correspondence with Gudrun Fett, daughter of Helene Ziegelroth Stoeltzner.) 45. Charlotte Landau-Muehsam, “Meine Erinnerungen,” Archives, LBI, New York, 40–41; correspondence with Georg Cronheim, son of Irma Klausner-Cronheim. Neither source mentions the education of the two brothers. 46. Sime, Lise Meitner, 6. 47. Hilde Zaloscer, Eine Heimkehr gibt es nicht (Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 1988); interviews with Hilde Zaloscer, Vienna, July 1992 and Ruth Gutmann, Philadelphia, August 1992. Cf. Ruth Pincus-Wieruszowski, “Erinnerungen an Alfred Wieruszowski,” ME-270, Archives, LBI, New York. 48. Stein, Life in a Jewish Family; Susanne M. Batzdorff, Aunt Edith: The Jewish Heritage of a Catholic Saint (Springfield, Ill.: Templegate Publishers, 1998). 49. Richter, “Summe des Lebens,” 93. Frieda Wunderlich, a professor of economics at the New School, lived with her sister, Eva Wunderlich, a professor of German at Upsala College, during their later years after emigration to the United States. 50. Eisner, Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland, 16–17. 51. Braun-Vogelstein, Was niemals stirbt; Salomon, “Character Is Destiny,” 19; Lachs, Warum schaust du zurück. 52. See M. Brewster Smith, “Else Frenkel-Brunswik (1908–1958),” in Women in Psychology: A Bio-Bibliographic Sourcebook, ed. Agnes N. O’Connell and Nancy Felipe Russo (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1990), 88; Edith Goldschmidt, Drei Leben: Autobiographie einer deutschen Jüdin (Steinfurt: Stadt Steinfurt, 1992), 15; Konopka, Courage and Love, 4; Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter, 20–21, 289–94; Reinhard Heitcamp, “Hilde Bruch (1904–1984), Leben und Werk” (unpublished dissertation, Medical Faculty, University of Cologne, 1987), 4; Mahler, Memoirs, 4–9. 53. Examples include Emmy Noether, Margaret Schoenberger Mahler, Alice Salomon, and Elise Richter.
228
| Notes to pages 29–34
54. Discussions of overcoming serious illnesses in childhood or as young adults can be found in the following memoirs or biographical sources: Richter, “Summe des Lebens”; “Lotte Kaliski,” in Hertha Busemann, Insel der Geborgenheit: die Private Waldschule Kaliski, Berlin 1932–39 (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1992), 90–93; Wolff, Hindsight; Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden; Kestenberg, “Kindheit und Wissenschaft”; Sichel, Challenge of the Past; Lachs, Warum schaust du zurück; Stang, Fräulein Doktor; Elfriede Hale, “Wien 1938,” ME-268, Archives, LBI, New York; “Mona Spiegel-Adolf ” in Kern, ed., Führende Frauen Europas, vol. 2; Lieberg, Remembrances of Things Past. 55. Richter, “Summe des Lebens”; “Lotte Kaliski” in Busemann, Insel der Geborgenheit; Sichel, Challenge of the Past. 56. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 36–40, 75. 57. Salomon, “Character Is Destiny,” 17. 58. Katia Mann, Unwritten Memories, ed. Elisabeth Plessen and Michael Mann (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975), 3. 59. Ibid., 10. 60. Later, she came to regret her lack of femininity in her youth and very much wanted to have a daughter in order to make up for her torturous experience as a girl. However, after she married a fellow socialist, she had two sons. Käthe Leichter, “Lebenserinnerungen” in Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter, 313–32. 61. Mahler, Memoirs, 7. 62. Ibid., 9. 63. When Margaret Schoenberger eventually married at the age of thirty-nine, her father arrived late for her nuptial dinner and requested that she reimburse him for wedding expenses. Ibid., 9–10. 64. Hilda Weiss, “My Life in Germany,” #240, bMS Ger91, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston, 15. 65. Mara Oppenheimer, “My Life in Germany Before and After January 30, 1933” (1940), #171, 57M-203, bMS Ger91, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston, 1; Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter, 38, 342–46. 66. Mordechai Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition: A Social History of Orthodoxy in Imperial Germany (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 280; Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland; Silving, Memoirs. 67. Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition, 280; Christian Pross and Rolf Winau, eds., Nicht misshandeln: Das Krankenhaus Moabit (Berlin: Hentrich, 1984), 158; Eva Brinkschulte, “Professor Dr. Rahel Hirsch (1870–1953)—der erste weibliche Professor der Medizin—vertrieben, verfolgt, vergessen,” in idem, ed., Weibliche Ärzte: Die Durchsetzung des Berufsbildes in Deutschland (Berlin: Hentrich, 1993), 103. 68. Because she had already passed her Matura examination upon completing her Gymnasium studies, Fanny Knesbach, unlike Rahel Hirsch but like the average male student, was able to enter university at the age of eighteen. Stang, Fräulein Doktor, 85–94. 69. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland; Bruch, Unlocking the Golden Cage, 1–7; Yaakov and Hadassah Wehl, House Calls to Eternity: The Story of Dr. Selma Wehl (Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1987); Lotte Popper, “My Life in Germany,” #179, bMS Ger91, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston; Braun-Vogelstein, Was niemals stirbt; Wolff, Hindsight, 21. 70. Marie Munk, “Reminiscences/Memoirs” (1961), ME-332, Archives, LBI, New York, II, 4; Margarete Susman, Ich habe viele Leben gelebt: Erinnerungen (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1964), 17; Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden; Alice Salomon, “Character Is Destiny”; Leichter, “Lebenserinnerungen,” 303; Wolff, Hindsight, 11; Spiel, Die hellen und die finsteren Zeiten; Orfali, Jewish Girl in the Weimar Republic. 71. Nostalgia for Jewish traditions associated with grandmothers is reflected in various memoirs, including Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden, 11–12; Friedrichs,
Notes to pages 34–38
|
229
Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben in Braunschweig, 14; Lieberg, Remembrance of Things Past, 29–31; Ingrid Warburg Spinelli, Die Dringliche des Mitleids und die Einsamkeit, nein zu sagen: Lebenserinnerungen (Hamburg: Dölling und Gelitz Verlag, 1990), 43; Eva Reichmann, “Tragt ihn mit Stolz, den gelben Fleck,” in Hajo Funke, ed., Die andere Erinnerung: Gespräche mit jüdischen Wissenschaftlern im Exil (Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag, 1990), 313–14. 72. Jahoda, “Es war nicht umsonst,” 336–37. Cf. Hope, “The Story of My Family”; Spinelli, Die Dringlichkeit des Mitleids; Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden. 73. Questionnaire completed by Lotte Gruenwald, Germany, 1994. 74. Nellie Friedrichs, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben in Braunschweig (Braunschweig: Staatsarhiv und Stadtbibliothek, 1983); Orfali, Jewish Girl in the Weimar Republic; Wolff, Hindsight; Spinelli, Die Dringliche des Mitleids. 75. Liebman, “We Kept Our Heads,” 4. 76. Hilde Bruch, born in 1904, attended a one-room Jewish elementary school in her tiny hometown of Dülken in the Rhineland, but such Jewish communal schools were fading away in Germany by the twentieth century. Bruch, Unlocking the Golden Cage, 13–18; Heitcamp, “Hilde Bruch,” 6. 77. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland; Silving, Memoirs; Kestenberg, “Kindheit und Wissenschaft.” 78. Questionnaire and letter from Elisheva Stern (née Elisabeth Dann), Israel, June 1992. 79. Kerner, Lise, Atomphysiker, 9. See also Richter, “Summe des Lebens”; Weiss, “My Life in Germany,” #240, 10; Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden, 3, 15, 18; Eisner, Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland, 26. 80. Langer, Von Wien bis Managua, 33–35; Weisskopf-Joelson, Father, Have I Kept My Promise?, 46–48; Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 63–65; Klein-Löw, Erinnerungen: Erlebtes und Gedachtes, 11–13; Eisner, Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland, 29; Wolff, Hindsight, 7. 81. For example, the historian Hedwig Guggenheimer (Hintze) and the psychologist Charlotte Malachowski (Bühler) were both baptized as children, whereas the philosopher Edith Stein, the physicist Lise Meitner, and the social work educator Alice Salomon were all baptized as adults. 82. The socialists who rejected Judaism as teenagers include Käthe Leichter, Stella Klein-Löw, Toni Sender, Recha Rothschild, and Marie Jahoda. 83. As quoted in Embacher, “Aussenseiterinnen: bürgerlich, jüdisch, intellektuel— links,” 60. 84. Ibid. 85. Hope, “The Story of My Family,” 86–87; cf. Susi Lewinsky, “Memoires.” 86. Konopka, Courage and Love, 20. 87. Wolff, Hindsight, 46–47. 88. Richarz, ed., Jewish Life in Germany, 266–67. To the extent that these women prayed, it is likely that they did so in the privacy of their homes, rather than in the synagogue on a regular basis. In only rare cases are prayer and God mentioned at all in the memoirs of Central European Jewish university women. One of the few exceptions is Henda Silberpfennig (later Helen Silving), who grew up in a modern Orthodox family in Galicia. See Silving, Memoirs. 89. The only memoir of which I am aware that mentions confirmation is Stephanie Braun Orfali, A Jewish Girl in the Weimar Republic. Several questionnaire responses indicate this rite of passage, including those submitted on behalf of Nellie Friedrichs and Doris Elisabeth Baum. Nellie Friedrichs, however, does not mention her confirmation ceremony in her brief published memoir, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben in Braunschweig 1912– 1937. This would seem to indicate that confirmations for Jewish girls might have taken place more frequently than the written records indicate, but were not considered to be as noteworthy an event as a Bar Mitzvah for a boy.
230
| Notes to pages 38–44
90. An exception to this generalization is Hilda Weiss, who claims to have encountered no antisemitism or gender discrimination as a member of this group. Weiss, “My Life in Germany,” 15. 91. Menzel, “My Life in Germany,” 39–47; Orfali, Jewish Girl in Weimar Germany. 92. Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, “Frankfurt am Main,” The Jewish Spectator, Fall 1976, 3–6 (as quoted in Barbara Straus Reed, Trude Weiss-Rosmarin: Rebel with a Cause, Paper presented to Annual National Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism, Boston, 1991). 93. Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 2–3; Munk, “Reminiscences,” V, 18–20; Klieneberger-Nobel, Pionierleistungen für die Medizinische Mikrobiologie, 19–20. 94. Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt, 11; Peter Baehr, ed., The Portable Hannah Arendt (New York: Penguin, 2000), 7–9. 95. This seems particularly true of women who were to have successful academic careers in Central Europe (e.g., Hedwig Hintze, Charlotte Bühler, Margarete Bieber, Elise Richter, and Lise Meitner), but would also characterize other “Former Jews,” such as writer Hilde Spiel and art historian Erica Tietze-Conrat. 96. Jahoda, “Es war nicht umsonst,” 338. 97. Ibid.; Lewinsky, “Memoires”; Hilda Weiss, “My Life in Germany,” #240; RoseMarie Papanek-Akselrad, “My Life in Germany,” #175; Beate Clara Berwin (pseud. Elisabeth Moore), “My Own Development,” #26, bMS Ger91, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston. 98. Weisskopf, Father, Have I Kept My Promise?, 25. For a fuller discussion of “nose jobs” and “looking Jewish,” see Sander L. Gilman, Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). 99. Wolff, Hindsight, 6, 58. Helene Deutsch, the psychoanalyst from Galicia, was an ardent Polish nationalist, rather than a German nationalist. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 30, 83, 196–97. 100. Proskauer, Wege und Umwege, 17. 101. Berwin, “My Own Development,” 1. 102. Ibid., 4–5. 103. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland. 104. Menzel, “My Life in Germany,” 22.
3. UNIVERSITY YEARS 1. Stang, Fräulein Doktor, 95. 2. Dorothee Wierling, “Studentinnen in der Weimarer Republik,” in Bürgerliche Gesellschaft in Deutschland (Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag, 1990), 370. See also Keith H. Pickus, Constructing Modern Identities: Jewish University Students in Germany 1815–1914 (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999); Norbert Giovannini, Zwischen Kaiserreich und Faschismus: Heidelberger Studentinnen und Studenten, 1918–45 (Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag, 1990). 3. For a description of university life during World War I, see Necheles, “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician,” 5–6. 4. Hartmut Titze, Das Hochschulstudium in Preussen und Deutschland 1820–1944. Datenbuch zur deutschen Bildungsgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987), vol. 1, part 1, Table 6, 42–43; idem, Wachstum und Differenzierung der deutschen Universitäten, 1830–1945. Datenbuch zur deutschen Bildungsgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995), vol. 1, part 2, Table 1.2, 90; Heindl and Tichy, “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . . ,” 80–85. 5. Kerner, Lise, Atomphysiker, 12. 6. Cited in Burchardt, Blaustrumpf-Modestudentin-Anarchistin?, 164.
Notes to pages 44–46
| 231
7. Gerta Stücklen, Untersuching über die soziale und wirtschaftliche Lage der Studentinnen (Göttingen: Dietrich, 1916), 93–95; Burchardt, Blaustrumpf-ModestudentinAnarchistin?; Dagmar Jank, “Studierende, lehrende und forschende Frauen an der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin 1908–1945,” in Ulla Bock and Dagmar Jank, Studierende, lehrende und forschende Frauen in Berlin (Berlin: Universitätsbibliothek der Freie Universität Berlin, 1990), 9. 8. Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 15, 257. Short haircuts often symbolized the desire of young women for emancipation. Whereas several Jewish university women, including Marie Munk, Hilde Spiel, and Else Gerstel, described their mothers as having hairdressers who came to their homes daily to arrange their long hair, women students, such as Käte Frankenthal and Selma Stern, frequently wore their hair short, even before “bobbed hair” became fashionable in the twenties. The mathematician Emmy Noether was sometimes referred to as a “Mannweib” (or mannish woman) and known for her unfeminine, disheveled appearance. See Dick, Emmy Noether 1882–1935, 40, 48. 9. Jank, “Studierende, lehrende und forschende Frauen,” 9. 10. Kerner, Lise, Atomphysiker, 12–14; Deborah Crawford, Lise Meitner, Atomic Pioneer (New York: Crown Publishers, 1969), 163. Similar depictions can be found for the physician Rahel Goitein Straus and the historian Hedwig Guggenheimer Hintze. See Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 98; Brigitta Oestreich, “Hedwig und Otto Hintze,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 11 (1985), 402. See also Stücklen, Untersuching über die soziale und wirtschaftliche Lage der Studentinnen, 95. 11. Hirsch, Über das Frauenstudium, 128. 12. Irma Klausner, “Dornenweg der Medizinerin,” Vossische Zeitung, December 25, 1929 (Beilage) (courtesy of Georg Cronheim). 13. In his study of women students in Germany published in 1920, Max Hirsch emphasized that most women went to university for personal fulfillment, not with the goal of a specific career in mind. Hirsch, Über das Frauenstudium, 129. 14. Hiltrud Häntzschel, “Aktenvermerk ‘abgelehnt’: Jüdische Studentinnen an der Universität München und was aus ihnen wurde,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 292 (December 18/19, 1993), v; idem, “Der Exodus von Wissenschaftlerinnen: Jüdische Studentinnen an der Münchner Universität und was aus ihnen wurde,” Exil: Forschung, Erkenntnisse, Ergebnisse, 2 (1992), 46. See also Marina Sassenberg, “Der andere Blick auf der Vergangenheit,” Apropos Selma Stern, 8–21. Her contemporary Helene Rosenbach (Deutsch), among others, considered an academic career out of the question for women. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 107–108. 15. Charlotte Bühler, “Charlotte Bühler,” in Ludwig J. Pongratz et al., eds., Psychologie in Selbstdarstellungen (Bern: Verlag Hans Huber, 1972), 14. 16. See Table 6, “Central European Universities Attended by Jewish University Women,” in Appendix. There are also examples of commuters in Bonn and Hamburg, as well as women from Mannheim who commuted to Heidelberg and women from Nuremberg who commuted to Erlangen. 17. One memoir writer from Berlin, who began university in 1910 at the age of nineteen, recounts how her parents provided her with a chaperone to accompany her home from her evening classes, so that she would not be alone with the male student whom she later married. Else Gerstel, “Grandma, Times Have Changed!” ME-184, Archives, LBI, New York, 40–41. 18. Wierling, “Studentinnen in der Weimarer Republik,” 377. 19. See Table 6 in Appendix. Although these observations are mainly based on an examination of the study population of 460 Jewish university women, they are corroborated by an analysis of a sample of women with Jewish surnames who received their doctorates from German universities before 1933, extrapolated from Elisabeth Boedeker, ed., 25 Jahre Frauenstudium in Deutschland (Hannover: C. Trute, 1935–39), 4 vols., as well as fragmentary
232
| Notes to pages 47–49
published statistics, e.g., Deutsche Hochschulstatistik, especially Winter 1928–29, and Titze, Wachstum, 44. 20. Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 156. 21. Wolff, Hindsight, 52. 22. Hope, “The Story of My Family,” 97–99. 23. Wolff, Hindsight, 53–66; Hope, “The Story of My Family,” 99–103; Bühler, “Charlotte Bühler,” 14–21. 24. In her memoir, Margarete Sallis-Freudenthal mentions living in a home for women in Berlin, while studying there during World War I, but student facilities for women, especially Jewish women, were rare. Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden, 44–45. For general information on housing and living conditions for women students, see Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 130–32; Glaser, Hindernisse,185–209; Petra Clephas-Möcker and Kristina Krallmann, “Studentinnenalltag in der Weimarer Republik und im Nationalsozialismus im Spiegel biographischer Interviews,” in Anne Schlüter, ed., Pionierinnen, Feministinnen, Karrierefrauen? Zur Geschichte des Frauenstudiums in Deutschland (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1992), 173–74. 25. For information on male Jewish student associations, see Pickus, Constructing Modern Identities, esp. 81–110; Harriet Z. Pass, “Kadimah: Jewish Nationalism in Vienna before Herzl,” Columbia Essays in International Affairs: The Dean’s Papers, 1969, vol. 5 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 119–36; Adolf Asch and Johanna Philippson, “Self-Defence at the Turn of the Century: The Emergence of the K.C.,” LBIYB, III (1958); Harald Seewann, ed., Zirkel und Zionsstern, Historia Academica Judaica, vol. 5 (Graz, 1995). 26. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 90–96. 27. Menzel, “My Life in Germany” (1940), #155, 56–58. Correspondence with Harald Seewann, Graz, 1998. See also Emily Melchior Braun, unpublished memoir (Binyamina, Israel, 1986), ME-231, Archives, LBI, New York, 19–23. 28. Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 144–47; Glaser, Hindernisse, 211–39; Giovannini, Zwischen Kaiserreich und Faschismus, 66–91. It is not clear whether women were allowed to become active members of the associations established for Eastern European Jewish students in Berlin before World War I. See Burchardt, Blaustrumpf-ModestudentinAnarchistin? 156–57. 29. Jüdischer Studentinnenverein an der Universität Berlin 1916/20, Rektorat/Senat Nr. 845, Humboldt University Archives, Berlin; “Akademischer Verein jüdischer Frauen,” Vienna (1913), and “Verband Zionistischer Hochschülerinnen,” Vienna (1929), statutes (courtesy of Harald Seewann, Graz). Beruria was the women’s offshoot of Bund Jüdischer Akademiker, the Orthodox men’s student organization; branches existed in Berlin, Breslau, Frankfurt, and Würzburg. Johanna S. Kritzler, Family Memories (Jerusalem, 1996), 35; Wehl, House Calls to Eternity, 22. It is interesting to note that no female counterpart of the Liberal Kartell-Convent or the Zionist student federation ever came into existence, although several women’s organizations affiliated with these male student bodies cropped up at least briefly after World War I, including the Liberal Hevellia in Berlin and Zionist women student organizations in Vienna, Berlin, Breslau, and Munich. Thomas Schindler, ed., Studentischer Antisemitismus und jüdische Studentenverbindungen 1880–1933 (Schriftenreihe der Studentengeschichtlichen Vereinigung des CC, 1988), 218, 229, 232. 30. See Table 7, “Jewish University Women by Age Cohort and Age,” in Appendix. Examples of older students among the first generation include Alice Salomon, Elise Richter, Lise Meitner, Julie Braun-Vogelstein, Helene Ziegelroth (Stoeltzner), Rahel Hirsch, Hedwig Guggenheimer (Hintze), and Frieda and Eva Wunderlich. 31. Wolff, Hindsight, 52. 32. For information on university expenses and the financial situation of university women in Germany, see Stücklen, Untersuching über die soziale und wirtschaftliche Lage der Studentinnen, 43–83; Glaser, Hindernisse, 154–69; Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 128–
Notes to pages 50–52
|
233
43; Britta Lohschelder, “Die Knäbin mit dem Doktortitel”: Akademikerinnen in der Weimarer Republik (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994), 114–17. 33. Hope, “The Story of My Family,” 97–98. 34. Heitcamp, “Hilde Bruch,” 12–13. 35. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 57–58, 84–87. 36. For comparative information on the material situation of German university women, see Stücklen, Untersuching über die soziale und wirtschaftliche Lage der Studentinnen, 65–71, and Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 136–43. 37. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 97. 38. Sime, Lise Meitner, 7, 22, 36. 39. Liebman, “We Kept Our Heads,” 18–19; Hilda Weiss, “My Life in Germany,” #240, 28–31. 40. Several university woman mentioned receiving tuition scholarships, including one from a local Jewish community in 1931. Orfali, A Jewish Girl in the Weimar Republic, 183–84; questionnaire completed by Julia Oppenheimer Rahmer, Stamford, England, 1992. 41. Questionnaire completed on behalf of Irma Klausner-Cronheim by her son, Georg Cronheim (California); correspondence with Georg Cronheim, 1994; Eduard Heimann, “In Memoriam Dr. Irma Klausner-Cronheim, 26/2/1874–24/4/1959” (eulogy, courtesy of Georg Cronheim). 42. Bertha Badt-Strauss, “Studententage in München, 1912–13,” in Hans Lamm, ed., Von Juden in München (Munich: Ner Tamid Verlag, 1958), 143; Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 106–109; Silving, Memoirs, 74–76; Kestenberg, “Kindheit und Wissenschaft,” 168; Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden, 43. 43. Several women students from Orthodox backgrounds, including Rahel Goitein (Straus), Selma Lewin (Wehl), and Henda Silberpfennig (Helen Silving-Ryu), managed to observe kosher dietary laws during their university years, even when living away from home. 44. Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 17–18. 45. For example, Else Liefmann, born in 1882, received a doctorate in medicine from the University of Zurich and in philosophy from the University of Freiburg, whereas Henda Silberpfennig (Helen Silving-Ryu), born in 1906, earned doctorates in both political science and law from the University of Vienna before emigrating to the United States, where she acquired another law degree from Columbia University. Gerstel, “Grandma, Times Have Changed!” 27–28; Silving, Memoirs. 46. See Table 8, “Jewish Students at German Universities by Field of Study,” in Appendix. 47. Kuhn et al., eds., 100 Jahre Frauenstudium, 34. 48. The time and expense factor seems to have been particularly prevalent due to economic difficulties of the interwar years. Questionnaires completed by Maria Bratz Leschnitzer and Lotte Licht, 1992. 49. Wolff, Hindsight, 50–53; Heitcamp, “Hilde Bruch,” 12; Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 93–94. 50. Among the pioneers who had never met a woman physician were Irma Klausner (-Cronheim) and Rahel Goitein (Straus). Klausner, “Dornenweg der Medizinerin” (1929); Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland. Respondents of the younger generation who made their decision to study medicine at an early age include Ruth Zaloscer Gutmann (interview, August 1992), Edith Popper Hacker, Hannah Hedwig Kohn Striesow, Sarah Libon Wiener, and Alisa (Elisabeth) Czempin Yallon (questionnaires completed, 1992–93). 51. Doris Weidemann, Leben und Werk von Therese Benedek 1892–1977: Weibliche Sexualität und Psychologie des Weiblichen (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1988), 7. 52. Nathorff, Tagebuch, 23; Ehrenfried, “Aus meinem Leben,” 28. 53. Hannah E. Lazarus Fraenkel, New York, questionnaire and letter to author, September 1992.
234
| Notes to pages 52–56
54. Daughters of physicians include Eleanor Hadra, Lydia Ehrenfried, and Margaret Schoenberger Mahler; sisters of physicians include Helene Ziegelroth Stoeltzner, Elisabeth Foldes-Roth, and Selma Meyer; nieces of physicians include Hilde Bruch. 55. Ida Silberpfennig (later Judith Kestenberg) was embarrassed when her mother wanted to attend her medical school classes with her. Kestenberg, “Kindheit und Wissenschaft,” 168. In an interview, Gudrun Stoeltzner Fett, who studied natural sciences, expressed regret that she had not become a medical doctor like her mother, Helene Ziegelroth Stoeltzner. Frieda Orkin Laserson, who received her medical doctorate in Berlin in 1912, discouraged her daughter from studying medicine; Renate Laserson Hirschhorn became an engineer like her father instead. Melitta Klein Schmideberg, the daughter Melanie Klein, became a psychoanalyst like her mother, but unlike her mother, completed a doctorate in medicine in 1933. 56. Nathorff, Tagebuch, 23. 57. Wolff, Hindsight, 50. Lydia Ehrenfried decided to become a physician like her father, even though she would have preferred to study classics and become a teacher. Because she was a Jew, she realized that she would have poor employment prospects as a teacher. Ehrenfried, “Aus meinem Leben,” 30–36. 58. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 84–89. 59. Ibid. 60. Tobias, “My Life in Germany” (1939), #235, 3–4. 61. Benno Weiser Varon, Professions of a Lucky Jew (New York: Cornwall Books, 1992), 60. 62. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 95; Langer, Von Wien bis Managua, 67–68; Stang, Fräulein Doktor, 96–101. Informants include Ruth Zaloscer Gutmann, interview, Philadelphia, August 1992; Pauline Glanzberg-Rachlis, interview, Norristown, November 1991; Rita Smrçka Krause, interview, Vienna, July 1991; Edith Popper Hacker, questionnaire, 1992; Franziska Grünhut Hartl, questionnaire, 1992. In their questionnaire responses, several other women, including dentist Eva Cohn Campos and physician Anna Jagendorf Igel, reported antisemitic incidents related to their medical studies and their anatomy professors. See also Varon, Professions of a Lucky Jew, 53. 63. Stang, Fräulein Doktor, 95–96. 64. Ibid., 96–97. 65. Wolff, Hindsight, 59–60; Necheles, “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician,” 8–9; Mahler, Memoirs, 27–38. 66. Borchardt, Blaustrumpf-Modestudentin-Anarchistin?, 73–78; Mahler, Memoirs, 27, 33, 38; Kestenberg, “Kindheit und Wissenschaft,” 170–74; questionnaire, interview and correspondence with Miriam Laserson Varon, Boston, regarding her mother Frieda Orkin Laserson, 1992–94. 67. As quoted in Dorit Bader Whiteman, The Uprooted: A Hitler Legacy (New York: Plenum Press, 1993), 195. 68. Rose-Marie Papanek-Akselrad, “My Life in Germany,” #175, bMS Ger91, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston, 16–19. 69. Varon, Professions of a Lucky Jew, 44–79; Edmund Schechter, Viennese Vignettes (New York: Vantage Press, 1983), 57–59. 70. Langer, Von Wien bis Managua, 67–68; Hale, “Wien 1938,” 3; Else Pappenheim, “Zeitzeugin,” in Friedrich Stadler, ed., Vertriebene Vernunft: Emigration und Exil österreichischer Wissenschaft 1930–40 (Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1987), vol. 2, 221–22; Stang, Fräulein Doktor, esp. 100–107; Silving, Memoirs, 84–85; interviews with Elisabeth FoldesRoth, Haverford, Pa., June 1992, Rita Smrçka Krause, Vienna, July 1992, and Ruth Zaloscer Gutmann, Narberth, Pa., August 1991; questionnaires completed by Helen Ellendmann Jaeckel, Anna Jagendorf Igel, Stefanie Karpf Isser, and Rachel (Lusia) Schlamm Jacobs.
Notes to pages 56–61
|
235
71. John Haag, “Blood on the Ringstrasse: Vienna’s Jewish Students, 1918–33,” Wiener Library Bulletin, no. 29 (1976), 29–33; Harriet Pass Freidenreich, Jewish Politics in Vienna (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 183–84. 72. Stang, Fräulein Doktor, 100. Julius Tandler left Vienna for China after the Austrian Civil War in 1934. 73. Among the 141 women in the medical faculty whom I researched, 7 women completed degrees in dentistry. Only 16 women dropped out after passing their pre-clinical examinations. 74. When Fanny Knesbach received her medical degree in October 1938, it included a red stamp with the declaration that “the practice of medicine in the area of the former region of Austria had been unconditionally relinquished.” Stang, Fräulein Doktor, 194–95. Several women whom I interviewed also completed their medical degrees under equally adverse circumstances: Eleanor Hadra, Pauline Glanzberg(-Rachlis), Elisabeth Foldes-Roth, Rita Smrçka Krause. 75. Heindl and Tichy, “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . . ,” 87–88. 76. See Table 8, “Jewish Students at German Universities by Field of Study,” in Appendix. 77. Rothschild, Verschlungene Wege, 27–29; Ehrenfried, “Aus meinem Leben,” 30; Liebmann, “We Kept Our Heads,” 14. 78. Roughly half of the Jewish women at Prussian universities in the early twentieth century studied in the philosophy faculty, although this proportion gradually declined. (See Table 8 in Appendix.) At the University of Vienna, the proportion of Jewish women in this faculty declined from 80 percent in 1907/08 to about 40 percent by 1933/34. Heindl and Tichy, “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . . ,” 139–47. (See Table 1 in Appendix.) 79. Kaplan, Making of the Jewish Middle Class, 146. 80. Stein, Life in a Jewish Family, 187. After leaving Breslau, Edith Stein studied in Göttingen and then Freiburg, receiving her doctorate in philosophy in 1916. Despite several attempts, she failed to receive a university position, but instead taught philosophy at a Catholic women’s college/normal school in Münster. Elisabeth Boedeker and Maria Meyer-Plath, eds., 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen in Deutschland (Göttingen: O. Schwartz, 1974), 5–6. 81. In 1928/29, women constituted roughly 40 percent of the students majoring in Germanic and Romance languages and literature at German universities. Jewish women comprised less than 4 percent of the women specializing in modern languages in that year, whereas Jewish men made up less than 2 percent of the men studying literature or philology. German, foreign languages, and art history were the only fields in which the absolute numbers of Jewish women exceeded those of Jewish men. Deutsche Hochschulstatistik, 1928/29. See Table 8 in Appendix. 82. Lachs, Warum schaust du zurück?, 150–72. Elfriede Hale also wrote a thesis on a Jewish topic at the University of Vienna, which facilitated her emigration to Palestine in 1938 (Hale, “Wien 1938”). For a listing of humanities dissertations on Jewish topics written by women at various German universities before 1933, see Boedeker, ed., 25 Jahre Frauenstudium in Deutschland, vols. 1 and 2. 83. Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden, 34. 84. Among these art historians were Julie (Braun-)Vogelstein, Gertrud Kantorowicz, Lotte Eisner, and Hilde Zaloscer. 85. Questionnaire and correspondence, Rosy Bender Bodenheimer, Baltimore, 1992. 86. One questionnaire respondent, who was born in Budapest in 1908, when asked why she decided to study physics at the University of Vienna, replied, “Plain snobbery” and “To obtain Ph.D.” She chose physics, “Because I liked it.” After receiving her doctorate in 1932, she was “offered a job working for Madame Curie at the Radium Institute in Paris, but [she] got married instead, and Curie died.” (Questionnaire completed by Madeleine Haberfeld Schwarz with help from her daughter, Mimi Reed, New Jersey, 1992.)
236
| Notes to pages 61–65
87. Among sixty-one women science majors, about a third studied chemistry, a quarter chose physics, 20 percent trained in biology, and 15 percent trained in mathematics, while the remaining few were scattered in other scientific fields, including geology and agronomy. A handful of Jewish women studied at technical institutes in order to become engineers, architects or agronomists. 88. Liebmann, “We Kept Our Heads,” 14. 89. Ibid., 15–16. 90. “Interview with Salome Waelsch,” in Harriet Zuckerman, Jonathan Cole, and John T. Bruer, eds., The Outer Circle: Women in the Scientific Community (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1991), 72–73. 91. Unlike in the United States, where anthropology developed as a social science in the early twentieth century, especially among the students of Franz Boaz at Columbia University, in Germany anthropology was largely a field of biology, focusing on “race science.” None of the Jewish women social scientists in my study population were involved in research that could be defined as cultural anthropology or ethnography; the biologists on whom I have data, mainly geneticists and microbiologists, never did research related to “race science” either. It would seem that Central European women of Jewish origin deliberately avoided studying topics dealing with race and racism, at least before 1933. 92. Salomon, “Jugend- und Arbeitserinnerungen,” 14–34; Dora Peyser, Alice Salomon Die Begründerin des sozialen Frauenberufs in Deutschland; Fassmann, Jüdinnen in der deutschen Frauenbewegung, 250–69, 356–58; Sabine Klöhn, Helene Simon (1862–1947) (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982); Boedeker and Meyer-Plath, eds., 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen in Deutschland, 243–44. 93. Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter; Marie Jahoda, “Ich habe die Welt nicht verändert”: Lebenserinnerungen einer Pionierin der Sozialforschung (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1997). 94. Paula Odenheimer, “The Occupations of Jews in Bavaria” (Dr. rer. pol., Munich, 1914); Cora Berliner, “The Organization of Jewish Youth in Germany” (Dr. phil., Heidelberg, 1916). 95. See Boedeker, ed., 25 Jahre Frauenstudium in Deutschland, vols. 1–3. 96. See Table 8, “Jewish Students at German Universities by Field of Study,” in Appendix. 97. Munk, “Reminiscences/Memoirs,” VI, 36. 98. Ibid., 28–32. 99. Katharina Graffmann-Weschke, “Frau Prof. Dr. Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner (1871–1935),” and Eva Brinkschulte, “Professor Dr. Rahel Hirsch (1870–1953),” in Brinkschulte, ed., Weibliche Ärzte, 93–110; Boedeker and Meyer-Plath, eds., 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen in Deutschland, 93; Pross and Winau, eds., Nicht misshandeln, 58 and 149–51; Archives, Humboldt University, Berlin, Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner, Acta. . . . die Professoren (1919–21), Med. Fak., #1386. 100. Five women of Jewish descent held untenured positions in medical schools. Selma Meyer was associate professor of pediatrics in Düsseldorf, and the remaining four were Privatdozentinnen, generally laboratory researchers rather than lecturers: Anneliese Wittgenstein in internal medicine in Berlin; Berta Ottenstein in dermatology in Freiburg; Emmy Klieneberger(-Nobel) in bacteriology in Frankfurt; and Rahel Liebeschütz-Plaut in physiology in Hamburg. Two women of Jewish origin achieved Habilitation in biology, Gerta von Übisch in Heidelberg and Mathilde Hertz in Berlin; one in chemistry, Gertrud Kornfeld in Berlin; and two in physics, Lise Meitner in Berlin and Hedwig Kohn in Breslau. Aside from Emmy Noether in Göttingen, Hilda Geiringer-Pollaczek (von Mises), a Privatdozentin in Berlin, was the only other Jewish woman with an academic position in mathematics. 101. Aside from Elise Richter in Romance languages in Vienna, Betty Heimann, born in 1888, who received her doctorate from the University of Kiel in 1920, was appointed a lec-
Notes to pages 65–72
|
237
turer in Sanskrit at the same university in 1923. Melitta Gerhard, born in Berlin in 1891, earned her doctorate in German from the University of Berlin in 1919 and became a lecturer in German literature at the University of Kiel in 1927; Agathe Lasch held an appointment as associate professor of Low German philology at the University of Hamberg. Margarete Bieber became an associate professor of classical archeology at the University of Giessen in 1919. 102. Although none of the Bühlers’ protégées held academic positions in Central Europe, several eventually became professors of psychology as émigrés in the United States or England. See Sheldon Gardner and Gwendolyn Stevens, Red Vienna and the Golden Age of Psychology, 1918–1938 (New York: Praeger, 1992), and Jahoda, “Ich habe die Welt nicht verändert.” On Emmy Noether as one of the few mentors of women mathematicians, see Renate Tobies, “Mathematikerinnen und ihre Doktorväter,” in idem, ed., “Aller Männerkultur zum Trotz”: Frauen in Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften (Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 1997), 131–58. 103. Margarete Freudenthal’s and, later, Eva Reichmann’s advisor, for example, was Karl Mannheim. Edith Stein’s Doktorvater was Edmund Husserl (Batzdorff, Aunt Edith, 111–18). See also Anja Burchardt, “Männliche Lehrende—Weibliche Studierende: Die Berliner Professoren und die ersten Medizinstudentinnen, 1896–1918,” in Christoph Meinel and Monika Renneberg, Geschlechterverhältnisse in Medizin, Naturwissenschaft und Technik (Bassum/Stuttgart: Verlag GNT, 1996), 280–87; idem, Blaustrumpf-ModestudentinAnarchistin?, 117–20.
4. PROFESSIONAL QUEST AND CAREER OPTIONS 1. Bertz, “Helene Nathan,” 186. 2. Tilly Edinger Collection, Archives, LBI, New York, AR-1267/4182 and 551/1479; Harriet Pass Freidenreich, “Edinger, Tilly (1897–1967),” in Jewish Women in America, vol. 1, 356–57. 3. See Table 3, “Professional Fields of Jewish University Women,” in Appendix. 4. Kaplan, Making of the Jewish Middle Class, 182–85. 5. Huercamp, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen,” 316, 322. 6. E.g., Susi Trauman Lewinsky, who taught in a Jewish elementary school in Hamburg after 1933; Lili Peller Roubiczek, who established a Montessori school in Vienna; and Gertrud Marx Sachs, who studied law but became a nursery school teacher in the 1930s. 7. Liebmann, “We Kept Our Heads,” 14. 8. Huercamp, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen,” 322. 9. Johanna Clara Philippson, “Werdegang” and “Autobiographical Fragment” (1977, courtesy of F. Lustig); questionnaire completed by, and correspondence with, F. Lustig, Johanna Philippson’s nephew, London, England, 1992–93; telephone conversation with Rose Bethe, niece of Johanna Philippson, Ithaca, N.Y., 1993. 10. Ibid. Johanna Philippson emigrated to England in 1939 and continued to teach German at various evening and vocational schools; while in emigration, she did research on Jewish topics and published articles in the LBIYB. 11. See Klein-Löw, Erinnerungen; Lachs, Warum schaust du zurück; Goldschmidt, Drei Leben. 12. Tilly Epstein, “Einige Erinnerungen an der Philanthropin in Frankfurt am Main,” Archives, LBI, New York, ME-378; Schlotzhauer, Das Philanthropin 1804–1942, 113–25; Boedeker, 25 Jahre Frauenstudium in Deutschland, vol. 1. 13. After the war, Stella Klein-Löw returned to Vienna with her second husband; she taught at her old school, a girls’ gymnasium, and later became a school director. Klein-Löw, Erinnerungen; Edith Prost, “Emigration und Exil österreichischer Wissenschaftlerinnen,” in Stadler, ed., Vertriebene Vernunft, vol. 1, 444–70.
238
| Notes to pages 72–73
14. In 1937, she married a music teacher, whom she had met as a student; they had a child shortly before their departure for England the following year. Both Käte Freyhan and her husband Hans continued to teach music in emigration, although she worked only on a part-time basis. Interview with Käte Freyhan, conducted by Margot Pottlitzer (1974), Archives, LBI, New York, ME-242. 15. Not all of the directors of girls’ schools attended university. Among the most notable school directors in Berlin both before and during the Nazi era were Anna Pelteson and Toni Lessler, members of an older generation who completed their training before universities opened their doors to women. See “Hier ist kein bleiben länger,” 8–17. 16. Göllner, “Mädchenbildung um Neunzehnhundert”; Bader, “One Life Is Not Enough,” Archives, LBI, New York, AR-5455. Other Jewish women with doctorates who directed their own private higher girls’ schools in Vienna included Amalia Sobel and Olga Ehrenhaft-Steindler (Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna, 121). Sigmund Freud’s daughter, Anna Freud, the well-known child analyst in Vienna and then in London, never attended university, but completed her formal education at Salka Goldmann’s Cottage-Lyzeum before continuing her training with her father. 17. See “Hier ist kein bleiben länger.” 18. Women biologists, especially geneticists, had a particularly difficult time finding academic appointments and sometimes turned to high school teaching as an alternative, at least temporarily. Charlotte Auerbach, for example, “realized that as a Jewish woman without private means, she stood no chance of a career in a German university.” G. H. Beale, Charlotte Auerbach (Edinburgh: The Royal Society, 1995), 24. See also Klieneberger-Nobel, Pionierleistungen für die Medizinische Mikrobiologie, 37–50; Ute Deichmann, “Frauen in der Genetik, Forschung und Karrieren bis 1950,” in Tobies, ed., “Aller Männerkultur zum Trotz,” 221–51. 19. Gesa Dane, “Melitta Gerhard (1891–1981): Die erste habilitierte Germanistin . . . ,” in Barbara Hahn, ed., Frauen in den Kulturwissenschaften von Lou Andreas-Salome bis Hannah Arendt (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1994), 219–34. Another example is Elisabeth Blochmann, a Protestant of Jewish descent, who taught high school before being appointed professor in the Pedagogical Academy in Halle. Microbiologist Emmy Klieneberger taught science and math in a private girls’ school for five years before obtaining a research position and Habilitation in her field at the University of Frankfurt. Klieneberger-Nobel, Pionierleistungen für die Medizinische Mikrobiologie, 50–66. 20. This total includes all women, both Jews and non-Jews, who achieved Habilitation at institutions of higher learning of university rank in Germany and at the University of Vienna in Austria. 21. Boedeker and Meyer-Plath, eds., 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen in Deutschland; Stephanie Habeth, “Die Freiberuflerin und Beamtin (Ende 19. Jahrhundert bis 1945),” in Hans Pohl, ed., Die Frau in der deutschen Wirtschaft (Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1985), 168–70; Doris Ingrisch, “Alles war das Institut!” Eine lebensgeschichtliche Untersuching über die erste Generation von Professorinnen an der Universität Wien (Vienna: Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, 1993), 73. It should be noted that, unlike the educators, physicians, and lawyers discussed in this chapter, these thirty-two women of Jewish origin with academic appointments are not a subset of a larger group of Jewish women academics, but the entire population within this classification. Another twenty-seven women in this study worked as research assistants, either temporarily or for extended periods of time, but lacked official appointments. 22. Boedeker and Meyer-Plath, 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen in Deutschland, 6; Batzdorff, Aunt Edith, 20. 23. Hiltrud Häntzschel, “Die Philologin Eva Fiesel (1891–1937),” Jahrbuch der deutschen Schiller-Gesellschaft, 38 (1994), 339–63; idem, “Amerika gab ihr, was ihr Heimatland immer verwehrt hatte,” in Bedrohlich gescheit: Ein Jahrhundert Frauen und Wissenschaft
Notes to pages 74–76
|
239
in Bayern, ed. Hiltrud Häntzschel and Hadumod Bussmann (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1997), 242–47. 24. Selma Stern became a research associate at the Akademie für Wissenschaft des Judentums, an institute directed by the man she eventually married, Eugen Täubler. Sassenberg, ed., Apropos Selma Stern, 18–20. 25. Häntzschel, “Aktenvermerk ‘abgelehnt’”; idem, “Der Exodus von Wissenschaftlerinnen,” 43–52; idem, “Frauen jüdischer Herkunft an bayerischen Universitäten: Zum Zusammenhang von Religion, Geschlecht und ‘Rasse,’” in Häntzschel and Bussmann, eds., Bedrohlich gescheit, 105–36. 26. Elisabeth Andraschko, “Elise Richter—eine Skizze ihres Lebens,” in Heindl and Tichy, eds., “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . . ,” 225–30. 27. Larissa Bonfante, “Margarete Bieber (1879–1948): An Archaeologist in Two Worlds,” in Claire Richter Sherman and Adele M. Holcomb, eds., Women as Interpreters of the Visual Arts, 1820–1979 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), 242–51; Kuhn et al., eds., 100 Jahre Frauenstudium, 12, 55, 140–46. Other women academics in the humanities who faced a similar predicament were Betty Heimann, associate professor of Sanskrit at the University of Halle; Agathe Lasch, associate professor of German philology at the University of Hamburg; Charlotte Krause, a lecturer in Indian literature in Leipzig; Melitta Gerhard, a lecturer in German literature at Kiel; and Hedwig Guggenheimer Hintze, lecturer in history at the University of Berlin and the only married woman in the group. See Boedeker and Meyer-Plath, eds., 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen in Deutschland. 28. Since she had been supported entirely by her family before her emigration to Mexico and then the United States, the Austrian government refused to pay Marietta Blau a pension when she eventually returned after the war. Leopold E. Halpern, “Marietta Blau: Discoverer of the Cosmic Ray ‘Stars,’” in A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity, ed. Marlene F. and Geoffrey W. Rayner-Canham (Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation/Montreal: McGill–Queen’s University Press, 1997), 196–204; idem, “Marietta Blau,” in Women in Chemistry and Physics: A Biobibliographic Sourcebook, ed. Louise S. Grinstein et al. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993), 57–64. 29. Bad as the situation in academia might seem for Jewish women, it was often easier for them to find teaching or research positions in universities than industrial jobs as scientists. See Jeffrey A. Johnson, “German Women in Chemistry, 1895–1925 (Part I)” and “German Women in Chemistry, 1925–1945 (Part II),” NTM, 6 (1998), 1–21, 65–90; idem, “Frauen in der deutschen Chemieindustrie, von den Anfängen bis 1945,” in Tobies, ed., “Aller Männerkultur zum Trotz,” 253–71. 30. In addition to Lise Meitner and Emmy Noether, the associate professors included Gerta von Übisch in plant genetics at Heidelberg; Selma Meyer in pediatric medicine in Düsseldorf; and Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner in bacteriology and Rahel Hirsch in medicine in Berlin. Neither Hirsch nor Rabinowitsch-Kempner officially received Habilitation, however. The Privatdozentinnen were Hedwig Kohn in physics at Breslau; Gertrud Kornfeld in chemistry, Mathilde Hertz in biology, and Hilda Geiringer in mathematics at Berlin; as well as the medical researchers Anneliese Wittgenstein in Berlin; Berta Ottenstein in Freiburg; Rahel Liebeschütz-Plaut in Hamburg; Emmy Klieneberger in Frankfurt; Anna Spiegel-Adolf in Vienna; and Leonore Gourfein-Welt in Geneva. Emmy Noether, Selma Meyer, Hilda Geiringer, and Rahel Hirsch never formally left the Jewish community; it is likely that Berta Ottenstein, Rahel Liebeschütz-Plaut, Anna Spiegel-Adolf, and Leonore Gourfein-Welt remained nominally affiliated as well. 31. The best source of information on Lise Meitner and her career is Ruth Lewin Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics. Other biographies and biographical sketches of Meitner include Patricia Elizabeth Rife, Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age; Deborah Crawford, Lise Meitner, Atomic Pioneer; Charlotte Kerner, Lise, Atomphysiker: Die Lebensgeschichte der Lise Meitner; Fritz Krafft, “Lise Meitner, eine Physikerin des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Frauen in den exacten Naturwissenschaften, ed. Willi Schmidt and Christoph J. Scriba
240
| Notes to pages 76–80
(Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1990), 33–70; Otto R. Frisch, “Lise Meitner, 1879–1968,” in Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society (1970), 405–15; Berta Karlik, “Lise Meitner (1878–1968),” in Neue Österreichische Biographie ab 1815 (Vienna: Amalthea Verlag, 1979), vol. 20, 106–11; Renate Feyl, Der lautlose Aufbruch: Frauen in der Wissenschaft (Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben, 1981), 178–91; Sharon Bertsch McGrayne, Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles and Momentous Discoveries (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1993), 37–63; Sallie A. Watkins, “Lise Meitner: The Foiled Nobelist,” in A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity, ed. Rayner-Canham, 163–91. 32. James W. Brewer and Martha K. Smith, eds., Emmy Noether: A Tribute to Her Life and Work (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1981), 14. 33. Ibid., 18; Dick, Emmy Noether, 50–51. 34. Dick, Emmy Noether, 71–72. 35. See Brewer and Smith, eds., Emmy Noether; Dick, Emmy Noether 1882–1935; McGrayne, Nobel Prize Women in Science, 64–88; Olga Taussky-Todd, “Olga TausskyTodd: An Autobiographical Essay,” in Mathematical People: Profiles and Interviews, ed. Donald J. Albers and G. L. Alexanderson (Boston: Birkhäuser, 1986), 320–25. 36. Dick, Emmy Noether 1882–1935, 2. 37. Boedeker and Meyer-Plath, eds., 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen in Deutschland. 38. Another Jewish university woman who held a similar position was Käthe BauerMengelberg, who was also a lecturer in political economy at the Mannheim Handelshochschule before becoming a professor at the State Vocational Pedagogical Institute in Frankfurt. Bauer-Mengelberg conducted most of her research on socialist and agrarian politics. Boedeker and Meyer-Plath, eds., 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen in Deutschland, 243–46. 39. Wunderlich was a prolific writer in her field. From 1923 to 1933, she edited the political journal Soziale Praxis and published numerous books and articles on social policy and economic theory. In addition, she served as judge in the German Supreme Court for Social Insurance and was also involved in the Commission for Women’s Work of the International Labor Office (ILO). 40. Frieda Wunderlich Collection, Archives, LBI, New York; Theresa Wobbe, “Frieda Wunderlich (1884–1965): Weimarer Sozialreform und die New Yorker Universität im Exil,” in Frauen in der Soziologie: Neun Portraits, ed. Claudia Honegger and Theresa Wobbe (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1998), 203–25. 41. Cora Berliner Collection, AR-1578, Archives, LBI, New York; Esriel Hildesheimer, “Cora Berliner: Ihr Leben und Wirken,” Bulletin des LBI, 67 (1984), 41–70; Margarete Exler, “Cora Berliner (1890–1942),” in Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Frau in Deutschland, ed. Julius Carlebach (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 1993), 167–81. 42. By contrast, 2,224 Jewish men made up 26 percent of German lawyers in 1925 and 2,998 male Jewish lawyers constituted 16 percent of all lawyers in 1933. Huerkamp, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen in Deutschland,” 320–21. 43. Munk, “Reminiscences/Memoirs,” Part 1, VII, 1–11, and VIII, 10–16; Kuhn et al., eds., 100 Jahre Frauenstudium, 169–70. 44. Margarete Berent Collection, AR-2861/2862, Archives, LBI, New York; Hiltrud Häntzschel, “‘Eine neue Form der Bindung und der Freiheit’: Die Juristin Margarete Berent (1887–1965),” in Bedrohlich gescheit, ed. Häntzschel and Bussmann, 232–33. 45. Munk, “Reminiscences/Memoirs,” Part 1, X, 2–12; XI, 1–4; XII, 1–8, 26–27; Margarete Berent Collection, LBI; Häntzschel, “Eine neue Form,” 232–33. 46. Her Jewish husband also lost his right to practice law, although her lawyer father, who was admitted to the bar before World War I, was allowed to practice law in Germany for several more years under the “Hindenburg exceptions” for war veterans and senior male professionals, which never applied to women. Proskauer, Wege und Umwege, 32–40 and 140–44. See also Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 24.
Notes to pages 81–85
|
241
47. In all, there were 252 women lawyers and 46 women judges in Germany in 1933. “Nachwort,” in Proskauer, Wege und Umwege, ed. Berghahn and Wickert, 142, 146. 48. In 1910, there were 168 licensed women physicians in Germany; by 1925, there were 1,540 women physicians in Prussia, of whom 330 (21.4 percent) were Jews. In Berlin, Jews made up 40 percent of the physicians in each gender category. Brinkschulte, ed., Weibliche Ärzte, 158–63; Harriet Pass Freidenreich, “Jewish Women Physicians in Central Europe in the Early Twentieth Century,” Contemporary Jewry, 17 (1996), 81–82; Huercamp, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen in Deutschland,” 318–19; Atina Grossmann, “German Women Doctors from Berlin to New York: Maternity and Modernity in Weimar and in Exile,” Feminist Studies, 19, no. 1 (Spring 1993), 67; Werner Friedrich Kümmel, “Die ‘Ausschaltung’ der jüdischen Ärzte in Deutschland durch den Nationalsozialismus,” in Nicht misshandeln, ed. Pross and Winau, 31–34. 49. Huerkamp, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen in Deutschland,” 319–26; Kümmel, “Die ‘Ausschaltung’ der jüdischen Ärzte in Deutschland,” 34–43; Hans-Peter Kröner, “Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner 1933–1945,” Exilforschung: Ein internationales Jahrbuch, 6 (1988), 83–98; idem, “Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner im Nationalsozialismus,” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 12 (1989), Sonderheft, 1–44; Michael Hubenstorf, “Österreichische Ärzteemigration 1934–1945: Zwischen neuem Tätigkeitsgebiet und organisierten Rückkehrplänen,” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 7 (1984), 85–107. 50. Freidenreich, “Jewish Women Physicians in Central Europe,” 88–92. 51. Glaser, Hindernisse, 93–94; Nathorff, Tagebuch, 24–26; Necheles, “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician,” 9–10. 52. Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 52–57; Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 108–13; Mahler, Memoirs, 45; Nathorff, Tagebuch, 25; Batzdorff, Aunt Edith, 133–34; Necheles, “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician,” 9; Tobias, “My Life in Germany,” 6–9. 53. Batzdorff, Aunt Edith, 133. 54. Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 45–59. 55. Ibid., 75–100. 56. Ibid., 113–21. 57. Ibid., 187–261. 58. Ibid. 59. See Kristin Hoesch, Ärztinnen für Frauen: Kliniken in Berlin 1877–1914 (Stuttgart: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1995); Beate Ziegeler, Weibliche Ärzte und Krankenkassen: Anfang ärztlicher Berufstätigkeit von Frauen in Berlin 1893–1935 (Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag, 1993); Barbara Cohors-Fresenborg, Frau Onkel Doktor: Untersuchung über die Anfänge des Frauenstudiums in der Medizin anhand von Fragebögen und Interviews mit Ärztinnen (Münster: Lit Verlag, 1989), esp. 102–108. 60. Brinkschulte, ed., Weibliche Ärzte, 153–54, 164–65. 61. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland; Necheles, “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician”; Batzdorff, Aunt Edith, 133–46; correspondence with Georg Cronheim, son of Irma Klausner-Cronheim. 62. See Table 9, “Medical Specialization among Central European Physicians in the 1930s,” in Appendix. 63. See Gail A. Hornstein, To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World: The Life of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann (New York: Free Press, 2000), 63–67; Hartmut Müller, “Der Lebensweg Frieda Fromm-Reichmanns,” and Ursula Engel, “Das Heidelberger ‘Thorapeutikum,’” PsA-Info, 30 (March 1988), 1–16; Gershom Scholem, From Berlin to Jerusalem (New York: Schocken Books, 1980), 156. 64. Atina Grossmann, “Berliner Ärztinnen und Volksgesundheit in der Weimarer Republik: Zwischen Sexualreform und Eugenik,” in Unter allen Umständen: Frauengeschichte(n) in Berlin, ed. Christiane Eifert and Susanne Rouette (Berlin, 1986), 183–217; idem,
242
| Notes to pages 85–110
“German Women Doctors from Berlin to New York,” 65–87; idem, Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920–1950 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). 65. Grossmann, “German Women Doctors from Berlin to New York,” 67. 66. Ehrenfried, “Aus meinem Leben,” 48–58; Wolff, Hindsight, 95–105; Mahler, Memoirs, 44–77. Others turned to public health careers as an alternative to clinical practice. Susanne Aschenbrenner, “Dr. med. Marta Fraenkel, Generalsekretärin der Gesolei: Organisatorin und Schriftstellerin in der Gesundheitsaufklärung,” in Geschlechterverhältnisse in Medizin, Naturwissenschaft und Technik, ed. Meinel and Renneberg, 83–88. 67. Mahler, Memoirs, 58–83; Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 128–71; Kestenberg, “Kindheit und Wissenschaft,” 169–73; Langer, Von Wien bis Managua, 85–91. See also Lisa Appignanesi and John Forrester, Freud’s Women (New York: Basic Books, 1992); Inge Stephan, Die Gründerinnen der Psychoanalyse: Eine Entmythologisierun Sigmund Freuds in zwölf Frauenporträte (Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag, 1992). 68. See Table 9 in Appendix. See also Cohors-Fresenborg, Frau Onkel Doktor, 129. 69. Mahler, Memoirs, 23. 70. Ibid., 45. 71. Ibid.; Leah J. Dickstein and Carol C. Nadelson, Women Physicians in Leadership Roles (Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, 1986), 111–19; Harriet Pass Freidenreich, “Mahler, Margaret (1897–1985),” in Jewish Women in America, vol. 2, 882–83. 72. See Elke Mühlleiter, Biographisches Lexikon der Psychoanalyse: Die Mitglieder der Psychoanalytischen Vereinigung 1902–38 (Tübingen: Diskord, 1992); Uwe Henrik Peters, Psychiatrie im Exil: Die Emigration der Dynamischen Psychiatrie aus Deutschland 1933–39 (Düsseldorf: Kupka, 1992).
5. THE MARRIAGE PLOT 1. Uriel O. Schmelz, “Die demographische Entwicklung der Juden in Deutschland von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis 1933,” Bulletin des LBI, 83 (1989), 26. 2. Grossmann, “German Women Doctors from Berlin to New York,” 78–79. 3. For discussion and documentation of the lower rate of marriage and childbirth among the early generations of university women in both Europe and the United States, see Hirsch, Über das Frauenstudium, and Solomon, In the Company of Educated Women, esp. 119–22. 4. Bühler, “Charlotte Bühler,” in Ludwig J. Pongratz et al., eds., Psychologie in Selbstdarstellungen, 16–17; Kritzler, Family Memories; correspondence with Johanna Kritzler, Jerusalem, October 1998, regarding the marriage of her mother, Bertel Wertheim Strauss. 5. There is considerable debate in the literature concerning whether or not, beginning in the late nineteenth century, there was a significant surplus of middle-class women in Central Europe that prompted increasing numbers of women to attend universities and embark on professional careers instead of marrying. In his sociological study of university women, Max Hirsch denies the existence of this phenomenon, at least before World War I. See Hirsch, Über das Frauenstudium, 24–26. After World War I, however, there was indeed a shortage of marriageable males, which resulted in a decline in the marriage rate, at least for young women under twenty-five. Cornelie Usborne, “The New Woman and Generational Conflict: Perceptions of Young Women’s Sexual Mores in the Weimar Republic,” in Generations in Conflict: Youth Revolt and Generation Formation in Germany 1770–1968, ed. Mark Roseman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 154. Within the Jewish community in Prussia, there was a slight surplus of women between 1871 and 1910, but more men than women in some large cities like Berlin; after World War I, the relative surplus of women grew somewhat but was not as great as in the general population. Schmelz, “Die demographische Entwicklung der Juden,” 44–45; H. Silbergleit, Die Bevölkerungs- und
Notes to pages 110–114 |
243
Berufsverhältnisse der Juden im Deutschen Reich (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1930), vol. 1, 46–49, 55. 6. Salomon, “Character Is Destiny,” 36. 7. Ibid., 41. 8. Ibid., 42. 9. Munk, “Reminiscences/Memoirs,” 15–17. 10. Ibid., V, 17. 11. Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 110; Grossmann, “German Women Doctors,” 78. 12. Peter Voswinckel, “Selma Meyer—erste Professorin für Kinderheilkunde,” Ärztin, 1 (1990), 11–14; Ruth Bahners, “Sie wollte ‘keines Mannes Dienstmädchen’ sein,” ÄrzteZeitung, November 28, 1990; correspondence with Peter Voswinckel, Oldenburg, Germany, August 1992. 13. Wolff, Hindsight; Monika Simmel-Joachim, “Hilde Lion zum 100. Geburtstag (1893–1970),” Ariadne, 23 (May 1993), 34–39. For more information on lesbian life in interwar Germany, see Birgit Schipkowski, “Lesbische Subkultur im Berlin der zwanziger Jahre,” in Neue Frauen zwischen den Zeiten, ed. Petra Bock and Katja Koblitz (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1995), 236–43. 14. Weisskopf-Joelson, Father, Have I Kept My Promise?, 11. 15. Hirsch, Über das Frauenstudium, 92, 128; Hope, “The Story of My Family,” 99–105. 16. One example is Bertel Strauss, a woman from an Orthodox background who studied psychology and held teaching certification, but had little intention of teaching and never completed her doctorate. Kritzler, Family Memories; questionnaire completed by Bertel Strauss, Israel, 1992; correspondence with Johanna Kritzler, Jerusalem, October 1998. See also Gitta Benker and Senta Störmer, Grenzüberschreitungen: Studentinnen in der Weimarer Republik (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1991), 50; Schlüter, ed., Pionierinnen, Feministinnen, Karrierefrauen?, 176. 17. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 85. 18. Correspondence with Lore Jonas, Paula Odenheimer Weiner’s daughter, New Rochelle, N.Y., 1992. For information on Selma Stern’s marriage and career, see Marina Sassenberg, “Der andere Blick auf die Vergangenheit,” in Sassenberg, ed., Apropos Selma Stern, 15–28. Unlike most married women in this study, Selma Stern retained her birth name on most of her publications after marriage, although she is sometimes refered to as Selma Stern-Täubler. 19. In pre–World War I Germany, it was understood that female public school teachers could not be married. The situation changed somewhat during and after the war, but regulations were not enforced consistently. Even though the Weimar Constitution permitted married women in civil service positions, some municipalities and states, including Bavaria and Berlin, continued to restrict the hiring of married women as teachers. Claudia Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 215–22; idem, “Zwischen Überfüllungskrise und politischer Reglementierung: Studienrätinnen in Preussen in der Zwischenkriegszeit,” in Juliane, ed., Frauen zwischen Familie und Schule, 108–29. Similar regulations also prevailed in the United States and Canada especially before World War I. Thereafter, if married women were allowed to teach, they certainly could no longer continue to do so if they became pregnant. 20. See Table 10, “Marital and Family Status of Jewish University Women,” in Appendix. 21. E.g., the psychology professor Charlotte Bühler and the bacteriologist Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner, who married, had children and had successful academic and research careers. 22. See Table 10, “Marital and Family Status,” in Appendix. 23. Hirsch, Über das Frauenstudium, 94; Glaser, Hindernisse, 242–46; Clephas-Möcker and Krallmann, “Studentinnenalltag in der Weimarer Republik,” 171, 176.
244
| Notes to pages 114–119
24. See Table 10 in Appendix. About 12 percent of the study population, or fifty-three women, left university without earning a degree or certification; eighty-five women did not complete their doctorates. It is difficult, however, to estimate accurately the proportion of Jewish women students who dropped out of university in order to marry or for some other reason. This group is undoubtedly underrepresented in this study because such individuals are difficult to trace. 25. The women who left university without receiving a degree, married, and had large families included Ella Philippson Ewald (b. 1891, four children); Gudrun Stoeltzner Fett (b. 1909, five children); Elsa Liefmann Freudenberg (b. 1897, five children); Nellie Bruell Friedrichs (b. 1908, five children); Marie Bernstein Goldstern (b. 1879, four children); Frieda Goldberg Hirsch (b. 1890, four children); Katia Pringsheim Mann (b. 1884, six children); Stephanie Braun Orfali (b. 1912, four children); and Bertel Wertheim Strauss (b. 1896, four children). 26. Mann, Unwritten Memories, 4. 27. Her daughter also commented parenthetically about her father’s behavior, saying that “Times have changed—he would not have got away with it nowadays!” Questionnaire and correspondence with Ina Dimon, Haifa, Israel, December 1992 and January 1993. 28. Out of more than 6,000 women who earned doctorates in Germany between 1908 and 1933 in fields other than medicine, only 201 could be identified as being married at the time of their doctorate. Boedeker, ed., 25 Jahre Frauenstudium in Deutschland, vol. 1, lxxi. 29. Rosy Bodenheimer, Baltimore, Md., letter to author, May 1992. 30. Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden, 32–55, 68–82, 106–10. Freudenthal’s dissertation, entitled “The Transformation of Urban Bourgeois and Proletarian Housekeeping with Special Consideration of the Changing Model of Woman and Family, Particularly in South-Western Germany between 1760 and 1933,” was rediscovered and published fifty years later, along with a biographical introduction. Margarete Freudenthal, Gestaltwandel der städtischen bürgerlichen und proletarischen Hauswirtschaft zwischen 1760 und 1910, ed. Katharina Rutschky (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1986). 31. Franz Alexander, ed., Psychoanalytic Pioneers (New York: Basic Books, 1966), 360–72; International Encyclopedia of Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Neurology, ed. B. B. Wolman (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1972), vol. 6, 291–92; International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. David L. Sills (New York: Macmillan Co. and Free Press, 1968), vol. 8, 415–18; Gwendolyn Stevens and Sheldon Gardner, Women of Psychology (Cambridge: Schenkman Publishers, 1982), vol. 1, 168–76. 32. Christine Roloff, “Clara Immerwahr, verh. Haber (1870–1915),” in Pionierinnen, Feministinnen, Karrierefrauen?, ed. Anne Schlüter, 93. 33. Ibid., 94. 34. Ibid., 93–95; von Leitner, Der Fall Clara Immerwahr; Gerit Kokula, “Gegen die Perversion: Vom verlorenen Kampf der Chemikerin Clara Immerwahr,” newspaper article, December 29, 1991, courtesy of the Women’s Documentation Center, Berlin. For a different interpretation of this marriage and for information on Fritz Haber, who remarried and later received a Nobel Prize, see Fritz Stern, Einstein’s German World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 59–164 and Margit Szöllösi-Janze, Fritz Haber (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1998). 35. Questionnaire and correspondence with Lore Jonas, New Rochelle, N.Y., 1992. 36. Liebman, “We Kept Our Heads,” 59; Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 115; Gerstel, “Grandma, Times Have Changed!” 46; Sichel, Challenge of the Past, 104; SallisFreudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden, 54. 37. For example, Erica Tietze-Conrat and Hilde Spiel both married baptized Jews like themselves, whereas Hedwig Guggenheimer Hintze and Charlotte Malachowski Bühler married born Christians. For more information on intermarriage, see chapter 6 below. 38. By contrast, the intermarriage rate for Jewish grooms increased from 14 percent on the eve of World War I to 27 percent by 1932. Schmelz, “Die demographische Entwicklung der Juden in Deutschland,” 27, 39–40.
Notes to pages 119–124 |
245
39. For example, the marriage of Hannah Arendt to Heinrich Bluecher was her second marriage; Bluecher was a self-educated philosopher from a working-class background (Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt). Hilde Oppenheim Koplenig married a fellow Communist of peasant origins (Interview with Hilde Koplenig, Vienna, July 1992). Helen Silving (Henda Silberpfennig), who came from an Orthodox background, married a Korean Protestant law professor, nine years her junior, when she was fifty-one years old (Silving, Memoirs). A highly unusual case is Hilde Zaloscer, an art historian who emigrated to Egypt from Austria in 1935. She converted to Islam upon contracting a fictitious marriage to an Egyptian in order to avoid deportation as an Austrian citizen during World War II (Zaloscer, Ein Heimkehr gibt es nicht; interview with Hilde Zaloscer, Vienna, July 1992). 40. The list of women who married professors includes Charlotte Malachowski Bühler, Hedwig Guggenheimer Hintze, Selma Stern-Täubler, Margarete (Gred) David Freudenthal, and Charlotte (Lotte) Blau Kurrein. Among those married to intellectuals or politicians were Katia Pringsheim Mann, Helene Gumplowicz Bauer, Julie Braun-Vogelstein, and Karola Piotrkowski Bloch. 41. Robert Jütte, “Hedwig Hintze (1884–1942): Die Herausforderung der traditionellen Geschichtsschreibung durch eine linksliberal jüdische Historikerin,” in Juden in der deutschen Wissenschaft, ed. Walter Grab (Tel Aviv: Jahrbuch des Instituts für Deutsche Geschichte, 1986), 251. See also Inge Stephan, “Leben und Werk von Hedwig Guggenheimer-Hintze 1884–1942,” in Das Schicksal der begabten Frau im Schatten berühmter Männer (Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag, 1989), 148. Unlike Hedwig Hintze, Julie Braun-Vogenstein placed higher priority on her role as wife than as scholar. She rejected a teaching contract because she felt obligated to devote her life to her husband’s needs and published the works of her spouse and his son before publishing her own. See Braun-Vogelstein, Was niemals stirbt. 42. Oestreich, “Hedwig und Otto Hintze,” 397–419; Jütte, “Hedwig Hintze (1884– 1942),” 249–79; Hans Schleier, Die bürgerliche deutsche Geschichtsschreibung der Weimarer Republik (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975), 272–302; Stephan, Das Schicksal der begabten Frau im Schatten berühmter Männer, 157–76; Bernd Faulenbach, “Hedwig Hintze-Guggenheimer (1884–1942): Historikerin der Französischen Revolution und republikanische Publizistin,” in Hahn, ed., Frauen in den Kulturwissenschaften, 136–51. 43. Michael Schmidt, “Selma Stern (1890–1981): Exzentrische Bahnen,” in Hahn, ed., Frauen in den Kulturwissenschaften, 204–208; Eugen Taeubler, Aufsätze zur Problematik jüdischer Geschichtsschreibung 1908–1950, ed. Selma Stern-Taeubler (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1977); Sassenberg, Apropos Selma Stern, 25–47. 44. Bühler, “Charlotte Bühler,” 19. 45. Ibid., 9–42; Gardner and Stevens, Red Vienna and the Golden Age of Psychology, esp. 150–67, 195–205; idem, Women of Psychology, vol. 2, 27–31; Lotte Schenk-Danzinger and Hans Thomae Bonn, eds., Gegenwartsprobleme der Entwicklungspsychologie: Festschrift für Charlotte Bühler (Göttingen: Verlag für Psychologie, 1963), 9–26; Eileen A. Gavin, “Charlotte M. Bühler (1893–1974),” in Women in Psychology: A Bio-Bibliographic Sourcebook, ed. Agnes N. O’Connell and Nancy Felipe Russo (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1990), 49–56. 46. See Table 10, “Marital and Family Status of Jewish University Women,” in Appendix. 47. Susanne M. Batzdorff, “Reflections in a Rearview Mirror” (unpublished memoir, Santa Rosa, Calif., 1984), vol. 1, 1–9, and vol. 2, 299 and 315 (courtesy of the author); Batzdorff, Aunt Edith, 134–42; Stein, Life in a Jewish Family, 116–23, 163, 223–28. 48. Nathorff, Tagebuch, 7, 24–30. 49. Among the members of this group were Helene Rosenbach Deutsch, Grete Lehner Bibring, Marianne Rie Kris, and Jenny Pollack Wälder in Vienna, as well as Therese Friedmann Benedek, Annie Pink Reich, and Frieda Fromm-Reichmann in Germany. 50. The marriage of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann to her analysand, the social philosopher Erich Fromm, who was eleven years her junior, ended in divorce, as did the marriages
246
| Notes to pages 124–130
of Annie Reich and Jenny Wälder. For a discussion of Fromm-Reichmann’s marriage, see Hornstein, To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World. 51. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 128–70; Weidemann, Leben und Werk von Therese Benedek, 9–21; Mühlleiter, Biographisches Lexikon der Psychoanalyse; Appignanesi and Forrester, Freud’s Women. 52. Toward the end of their relationship, Helene Rosenbach became pregnant and had a “planned miscarriage,” as her biographer, Paul Roazen, delicatedly phrased it. According to Roazen, “She herself had not for a moment been prepared to have an illegitimate child; it would have wreaked havoc on the career she had been planning. . . . [T]here were limits to how emancipated Helene was prepared to be in defying her family and the social rules of her upbringing. In spite of the way she had lived her life, she also wanted the advantages of the conventional order; she craved a legitimate child.” Roazen, Helene Deutsch: A Psychoanalyst’s Life, 74. 53. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 119. 54. Ibid., 122. 55. In several instances, wives in such close partnerships committed suicide shortly after their husbands died in emigration, undoubtedly due to depression. Two examples of such suicides are the psychologist Else Frenkel-Brunswik and the social reformer and writer Alice Rühle-Gerstel. 56. Kempner, Ankläger einer Epoche, 11–21; Barbara Dewey, “Biography: Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner” (ca. 1949), MS 27, Archives, Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Graffmann-Weschke, “Frau Prof. Dr. Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner,” in Brinkschulte, ed., Weibliche Ärzte, 93–102. 57. Madlyn Millner Kahr, “Erica Tietze-Conrat (1883–1958): Productive Scholar in Renaissance and Baroque Art,” in Sherman and Holcomb, eds., Women as Interpreters of the Visual Arts, 301–304. 58. Preface to The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the 15th and 16th Centuries (New York, 1944), as quoted in Kahr, “Erica Tietze-Conrat,” 307–308. 59. Ibid., 305. 60. Ibid., 301–25, 61. Grossmann, “German Women Doctors,” 79. 62. Bühler, “Charlotte Bühler,” 22. 63. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 122–26. 64. See Freidenreich, “Jewish Women Physicians,” Table 8, 94; Cohors-Fresenborg, Frau Onkel Doktor, 187–90; Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 269. 65. See Table 10, “Marital and Family Status,” in Appendix. Sources describing the lives of women physicians with children include Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland; Nathorff, Tagebuch; Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself; Batzdorff, Aunt Edith, 134–42; Necheles, “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician”; Tobias, “My Life in Germany”; Wehl, House Calls to Eternity. 66. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 141. 67. Ibid., 141–42. 68. Ibid., 143, 290. 69. “In Memoriam Dr. Irma Klausner-Cronheim, 26/2/1874–24/4/1959,” eulogy by Prof. Eduard Heimann at her funeral service, courtesy of her son, Georg Cronheim, California. 70. Ibid.; questionnaire and correspondence with Georg Cronheim, 1992. 71. After emigrating from Germany in 1933, Geiringer spent several years as a professor of mathematics at the University of Istanbul, before coming to the United States, where she taught first at Bryn Mawr College and then at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. Joan L. Richards, “Hilda Geiringer von Mises (1893–1973),” in Women of Mathematics: A Bibliographic Sourcebook, ed. L. S. Grinstein and P. J. Campbell (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989), 41–46; Christa Binder, “Hilda Geiringer: ihre ersten Jahre in Amerika,” in Am-
Notes to pages 130–134 |
247
phora, ed. Sergei S. Demidov (Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1992), 25–53; Harriet Pass Freidenreich, “Geiringer, Hilda (1893–1973),” in Jewish Women in America, vol. 1, 500–501; correspondence and conversation with Magda Tisza, daughter of Hilda Geiringer, Boston, 1993. 72. Häntzschel, “Die Philologin Eva Fiesel (1891–1937),” 339–63; idem, “‘Amerika gab ihr, was ihr Heimatland immer verwehrt hatte,’” 242–47; Eva Fiesel, Personnel Files, Bryn Mawr Archives, Bryn Mawr, Pa. 73. In emigration, Jahoda continued her research and writing and became a professor of psychology at New York University in 1949. In 1958, she returned to England, where she remarried and resumed her academic career, first at Brunel College and then at Sussex University. Her daughter, Lotte Lazarsfeld Bailyn, eventually followed in her mother’s professional footsteps, becoming a professor of psychology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jahoda, “Ich habe die Welt nicht verändert,” 9–100, 122–50; Stuart W. Cook, “Marie Jahoda (1907–),” in O’Connell and Russo, eds., Women in Psychology, 207–209. 74. Claire Richter Sherman, “Widening Horizons,” in Sherman and Holcomb, eds., Women as Interpreters of the Visual Arts, 55; Bonfante, “Margarete Bieber,” ibid., 239–73. Charlotte Auerbach, an unmarried geneticist who was born in 1899 and emigrated to Edinburgh in 1933, also had a great love for children. According to her biographer, G. H. Beale, she “confessed to several of her friends who had families that she would have sacrificed all her fame as a scientist for the satisfaction of having her own family.” While living in Scotland, she unofficially “adopted” two boys, one of whom was the son of her elderly mother’s companion and the other, a poor Italian boy from Sicily. She played a large part in the upbringing and education of these “grandsons” and was extremely generous to them. The Italian “grandson” named his daughter Carla Auerbach Alecci in her honor. Beale, Charlotte Auerbach, 35 (biographical essay, offprint courtesy of the author). 75. Crawford, Lise Meitner, Atomic Pioneer, 69. See also Sime, Lise Meitner, esp. 35, 99–100. 76. The mathematician Emmy Noether had a particularly close relationship with her nephew Gottfried Noether (Dick, Emmy Noether, 45–47). The psychoanalyst Hilde Bruch adopted and raised her orphaned nephew Herbert Bruch after the Holocaust; Frieda Fromm-Reichmann became his “honorary grandmother” (Bruch, Unlocking the Golden Cage; Heitcamp, “Hilde Bruch,” 43–46).
6. JEWS, FEMINISTS, AND SOCIALISTS 1. Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 1. 2. Ibid., 1–8, 104, 261. Frankenthal waited until after the death of both her parents before she left the Jewish community. 3. The earliest collection of autobiographical sketches of European university women, which included social work educator Alice Salomon, professor of Romance languages Elise Richter, and medical researcher Mona Spiegel-Adolf, barely mentioned Jewish identity at all. See Elga Kern, ed., Führende Frauen Europas, 2 vols. (Munich: E. Reinhardt, 1928, 1930). The only autobiography published before the war was Toni Sender’s The Autobiography of a German Rebel (New York: Vanguard, 1939). The few other memoirs written before the war include Elise Richter’s unpublished “Summe des Lebens” and Käthe Leichter’s “Lebenserinnerungen” (in Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter, 235–386), both written in Vienna on the eve of the Holocaust, Leichter’s while she was in prison. The essays written for the Harvard University competition deal with Jewish identity, especially as related to antisemitism, and also include some political activism, but do not address women’s issues. Memoirs written after the war, whether for publication or for family purposes, reflect a considerable range of identity and involvement. Although often fragmentary and not necessarily representative of the ideas of anyone other than the authors themselves, these memoirs form the basis for most of this analysis.
248
| Notes to pages 134–138
4. Jahoda, “Ich habe die Welt nicht verändert,” 29. 5. Baehr, ed., The Portable Hannah Arendt, 7. See also Richard J. Bernstein, Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996). 6. For a more detailed discussion of these categories, see my essay “Jewish Identity and the ‘New Woman’: Central European Jewish University Women in the Early Twentieth Century,” in Gender and Judaism, ed. T. M. Rudavsky (New York: New York University Press, 1995), 113–22. 7. At least 59 out of the 126 university women whom I have classified as “Former Jews” were baptized. See Table 11, “Religious Affiliation, Marital Status, and Intermarriage among Jewish University Women,” in Appendix. 8. In emigration, several “Former Jews,” including the mathematician Hilda Geiringer, joined the Unitarian Church; one woman, Marie Berg, a chemist, identified herself in a questionnaire as a Jew for Jesus. 9. Munk, “Remininscences/Memoirs”; Gerstel, “Grandma, Times Have Changed!”; Spiel, Die hellen und die finsteren Zeiten; Langer, Von Wien bis Managua. 10. Academics of Jewish origin who were baptized as infants or children include psychologist Charlotte Malachowski Bühler, historian Hedwig Guggenheimer Hintze, Germanist Melitta Gerhard, social scientist Charlotte Leubuscher, medical researcher Anneliese Wittgenstein, and Etruscan specialist Eva Lehmann Fiesel. Among women outside of academia who were baptized at a young age and who grew up with very little awareness of being Jewish were the lawyer and judge Marie Munk, the writer Hilde Spiel, and the art historian Erica Tietze-Conrat. 11. Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics, 315–16. 12. Salomon, “Character Is Destiny,” 120–24; Marlis Dürkop, “Erscheinungsformen des Antisemitismus im Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine,” Feministische Studien, 1 (1984), 145. 13. Edith Stein, Life in a Jewish Family. Among the many biographies of Edith Stein, who recently achieved sainthood, several focus on her Jewish identity, as well as her conversion to Catholicism: Batzdorff, Aunt Edith; Waltraud Herbstrith, Edith Stein (New York: Harper & Row, 1985); Reiner Wimmer, Vier jüdische Philosophinnen: Rosa Luxemburg, Simone Weil, Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt (Tübingen: Attempto Verlag, 1990). See also Rachel Feldhay Brenner, Writing as Resistance: Four Women Confronting the Holocaust, Edith Stein, Simone Weil, Anne Frank, Etty Hillesum (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). 14. Paul U. Unschuld, Die Ärztin und der Maler: Carl Jung-Dörfler und Hedwig Danielewicz (Düsseldorf: Triltsch Verlag, 1994), 110, 119; McGrayne, Nobel Prize Women in Science, 94–98; interviews with Gudrun Stoeltzner Fett, Yardley, Pa., 1990; Hilde Zaloscer, Vienna, July 1992; Rita Krause, Vienna, July 1992. 15. According to Marion Kaplan, 16 percent of Jewish women in Germany married outside their religion in 1927 (Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair, 11). Although my data on intermarriage is not complete, since information on religious affiliation of spouses is not always available, it appears that at least a third of the “Former Jews” in this study who married chose non-Jewish spouses, whereas less than 7 percent of affiliated Jews intermarried. Overall, roughly 13 percent of the Jewish university women in this study are known to have married non-Jews. See Table 11, “Religious Affiliation, Marital Status, and Intermarriage,” in Appendix. 16. This was certainly the case with women such as Hannah Arendt and Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner who chose to retain their Jewish surnames from birth after intermarrying. Baehr, ed., The Portable Hannah Arendt, 25–26; Kempner, Ankläger einer Epoche, 14–15, 29, 135–36 17. Emily Melchior Braun, unpublished memoir (Binyamina, Israel, 1986), Archives, LBI, New York, 1–30. Another example of marriage bringing a “Former Jew” back into the Jewish community is Margarete (Gred) David Freudenthal, who was not baptized but raised as “frei-religiös” (or religious dissident). Upon her marriage to Berthold Freudenthal, a Jew-
Notes to pages 139–145
|
249
ish law professor and rector of Frankfurt University, she switched her religious affiliation to Jewish, supposedly to avoid filling out a special form! She later became a Zionist and emigrated to Palestine. Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden, 11–18, 42–60. 18. Interview with Gudrun Fett, Yardley, Pa., September 1990, and subsequent correspondence; discussions with Rochelle and Helmut Lecke, Yardley, Pa. 19. Letters from Christopher R. Friedrichs, Vancouver, B.C., to the author, July 4 and December 4, 1994. See also Friedrichs, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben in Braunschweig. 20. Baehr, ed., The Portable Hannah Arendt, 26. 21. Ibid.; Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World; Bonnie Honig, ed., Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995). 22. Silving, Memoirs, esp. 35–38, 275–77. 23. Ibid., 623. 24. Ibid., 634. 25. This attitude is sometimes attributed to fathers or even grandfathers. See Berwin, “My Own Development,”1; Bertz, “Helene Nathan,” in Lüdke, ed., Leidenschaft und Bildung, 174; Johanna Philippson, “Fragments from an Autobiography” (courtesy of Mr. F. Lustig, London); Klein-Löw, Erinnerungen, 13. 26. Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, vol. 2, 152. 27. Papanek-Akselrad, “My Life in Germany,” #175, 1. 28. Ibid. 29. Questionnaire completed in 1992 by Eva Ehrlich, who was born in Breslau in 1909 and emigrated to Palestine in 1934. 30. Hope, “The Story of My Family,” 86–87; cf. Lewinsky, “Memoires.” 31. The “Jewish Jews” in this study total sixty-eight individuals in all, sixteen of whom never married, but a few, including Hannah Arendt and Helen Silving, who intermarried. 32. For memoirs of “Jewish Jews” from traditional backgrounds, see Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland; Frieda Hirsch, “Mein Weg von Karlsruhe ueber Heidelberg nach Haifa, 1890–1965,” Archives, LBI, New York; Charlotte Popper, “My Life in Germany,” bMS91, #179, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Boston; idem, “Remembrances of a Small Town,” in Richarz, ed., Jewish Life in Germany, 266–70; Wehl, House Calls to Eternity. 33. Menzel, “My Life in Germany,” #155; Braun, unpublished memoir (Israel, 1986); Sallis-Freudenthal, Ich habe mein Land gefunden. 34. Letter from Rosie Bodenheimer, Baltimore, May 1992. Other examples of Zionists from traditional backgrounds include Rahel Straus, Trude Weiss-Rosmarin, Paula WeinerOdenheimer, and Margarethe Turnowsky-Pinner. 35. Margaret T. Muehsam Collection, AR-720, Archives, LBI, New York. 36. Eva Reichmann, “Tragt ihn mit Stolz, den gelben Fleck,” in Die andere Erinnerung, ed. Funke, 311–35. 37. Women were allowed to study at the Hochschule für Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin to become “academic teachers of religion.” Regina Jonas, the only woman to become an ordained rabbi before World War I, had such teaching certification, but, unlike most male rabbis, never attended university. She received her rabbinical diploma in 1935, four years after completing her halakhic thesis, entitled “Can a Woman Hold Rabbinical Office?” She served as a Jewish chaplain in Berlin and later in Theresienstadt, although she was allowed to deliver only lectures, not sermons. Regina Jonas, the first woman rabbi, died in Auschwitz in late 1944. See Katharina von Kellenbach, “‘God Does Not Oppress Any Human Being’: The Life and Thought of Rabbi Regina Jonas,” LBIYB, 39 (1994), 213–26, and Pamela S. Nadell, Women Who Would Be Rabbis: A History of Women’s Ordination 1889–1985 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1998). 38. See Deborah Dash Moore, “Trude Weiss-Rosmarin and the Jewish Spectator,” in Carole S. Kessner, ed., The “Other” New York Jewish Intellectuals (New York: New York University Press, 1994), 101–21; Sichel, Challenge of the Past; Lachs, Warum schaust du zurück;
250
| Notes to 145–148
Senta Meyer-Gerstein, “So wie es war” (1986) and “My Life” (1989), ME-313, Archives, LBI, New York; Mathias Greffrath, “‘Bloch hielt einen Vortrag über Träume vom besseren Leben.’ Gepräch mit Toni Oelsner,” in Greffrath, ed., Die Zerstörung einer Zukunft, 223–47, as well as Michael Brenner, The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 69–110. 39. See Barbara Hahn, “Bertha Badt-Strauss: Die Lust am Unzeitgemässen,” in Hahn, ed., Frauen in den Kulturwissenschaften, 152–65; Schmidt, “Selma Stern (1890–1981): Exzentrische Bahnen,” ibid., 204–18; Sassenberg, Apropos Selma Stern; Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World; Bernstein, Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question. 40. “Die jüdische Frau im Wandel,” in Sassenberg, ed., Apropos Selma Stern, 74–84. 41. Hannah Arendt, Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewish Woman, rev. ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974); Deborah Hertz, “Hannah Arendt’s Rahel Varnhagen,” in German Women in the Nineteenth Century, ed. John Fout (New York, 1984), 72–87; Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World, 85–92; Wimmer, Vier jüdische Philosophinnen: Rosa Luxemburg, Simone Weil, Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt, 254–56. See also Seyla Benhabib, “The Pariah and Her Shadow: Hannah Arendt’s Biography of Rahel Varnhagen,” in Honig, ed., Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt, and Bernstein, Hannah Arendt on the Jewish Question. 42. Hahn, “Bertha Badt-Strauss (1885–1970): Die Lust am Unzeitgemässen,” in Frauen in den Kulturwissenschaften, 152–65, 334–38. 43. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland; Badt-Strauss, Studententage in München; Christiane Schmelzkopf, “Rahel Straus,” in Juden in Karlsruhe, ed. Heinz Schmitt (Karlsruhe: Badenia Verlag, 1988), 476–78. 44. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland; Schmelzkopf, “Rahel Straus,” 476–78; Marita Krauss, “‘Ein voll erfülltes Frauenleben:’ Die Ärztin, Mutter und Zionistin Rahel Straus (1880–1963),” in Bedrohlich gescheit, ed. Häntzschel and Bussmann, 236–41. 45. Hirsch, “Mein Weg von Karlsruhe,” 130; Dora Edinger, Interview with Marion Kaplan (1975), AR-1578, and Lilli Liegner, Interview with Marion Kaplan, AR-3902, Archives, LBI, New York; Sichel, Challenge of the Past, 70–85. 46. For information on Bertha Pappenheim and the Jüdischer Frauenbund, see Marion A. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany: The Campaigns of the Jüdischer Frauenbund, 1904–1938 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979); Lucy Freeman, The Story of Anna O. (New York: Walker & Co., 1972), 139–45. 47. Margarete Berent Collection, AR-2861/62, Cora Berliner Collection, AR-1578, and Ottilie Schoenewald Collection, AR-3896, Archives, LBI, New York; Esriel Hildesheimer, “Cora Berliner: Ihr Leben und Wirken,” Bulletin des LBI, 67 (1984), 41–70; Häntzschel, “‘Eine neue Form der Bindung und der Freiheit’: Die Juristin Margarete Berent (1887–1965),” in Bedrohlich gescheit, ed. Häntzschel and Bussmann, 231–35; Freeman, The Story of Anna O., 140–41, 160. 48. Fassmann, Jüdinnen in der deutschen Frauenbewegung, esp. 12–13. See also Maya Fassmann, “Jüdinnen in der deutschen Frauenbewegung 1865–1919,” in Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Frau in Deutschland, ed. Julius Carlebach (Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 1993), 147–65; Anna Plothow, Die Begründerinnen der deutschen Frauenbewegung, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Rothbarth, 1907); Hilde Ottenheimer, “Pädagogik und Sozialpädagogik” and “Soziale Arbeit,” in Juden im Deutschen Kulturbereich, ed. Siegmund Kaznelson (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1959), 313–20, 830–57; Harriet Anderson, Utopian Feminism: Women’s Movements in Fin-de-siècle Vienna (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). 49. Unlike in Britain and the United States, woman’s suffrage had never been a major focus of mainstream German feminist organizations, but many Jewish university women actively supported this cause. The educator Johanna Philippson wrote her doctoral dissertation on universal suffrage in 1914. In addition to Rahel Straus, other suffragists included Käte Frankenthal, Recha Rothschild, Margarete David Freudenthal, Margarete Meseritz Edelheim, Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner, Elise Richter, and Lillian Stern Bader.
Notes to pages 149–153
|
251
50. Peyser, “Alice Salomon: Ein Lebensbild,” in Alice Salomon, Die Begründerin des sozialen Frauenberufs in Deutschland; Fassmann, Jüdinnen in der deutschen Frauenbewegung, 250–69; Katherine A. Kendall, “Women at the Helm: Three Extraordinary Leaders,” Affilia, 4, no. 1 (Spring 1989), 23–32. 51. See Kathryn Kish Sklar, Anja Schüler, and Susan Strasser, Social Justice Feminists in the United States and Germany: A Dialogue in Documents, 1885–1933 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998). 52. Ibid.; Salomon, “Character Is Destiny”; idem, “Jugend- und Arbeitserinnerungen,” in Kern, ed., Führende Frauen Europas, vol. 1, 26–34; Peyser, Alice Salomon . . . Ihr Leben und ihr Werk; Fassmann, Jüdinnen in der deutschen Frauenbewegung, 250–69; Marlis Dürkop, “Erscheinungsformen des Antisemitismus im Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine,” Feministische Studien, 1 (1984), 140–50. 53. See Antler, The Journey Home, 259–84; Fishman, A Breath of Life, esp. 9–15. 54. Fassmann, Jüdinnen in der deutschen Frauenbewegung, esp. 302, 315, 327–28; idem, “Jüdinnen in der deutschen Frauenbewegung 1865–1919,” 147–65; Monika Simmel-Joachim, “Hilde Lion zum 100. Geburtstag (1893–1970),” Ariadne, 23 (May 1993), 34–39. 55. Munk, “Reminiscences/Memoirs,” Part 1, VII, 14–5; IX, 5–6; XI, 10; XII, 15–17; Kuhn, ed., 100 Jahre Frauenstudium, 169–70; Margarete Berent Collection, AR-2861/62, Archives, LBI, New York; Häntzschel, “Eine neue Form,” 232. 56. Munk, “Reminiscences/Memoirs,” Part 1, IX, 4; XII, 18–22; Berent Collection, LBI; Häntzschel, “Eine neue Form,” 233–35. See also Deutscher Juristinnenbund, Juristinnen in Deutschland: eine Dokumentation, 1900–1984 (Munich: J. Schweitzer, 1984), 7. 57. Christine Eckelmann, Ärztinnen in der Weimarer Zeit und im Nationalsozialismus: Eine Untersuchung über den Bund Deutscher Ärztinnen (Wermelskirchen: Verlag der Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technik, 1992), 20–26. 58. Kempner, Ankläger einer Epoche, 19. Also quoted in Pross and Winau, eds., Nicht misshandeln, 150, and Graffmann-Weschke, “Frau Prof. Dr. Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner,” in Brinkschulte, ed., Weibliche Ärzte, 101. 59. One example is the close friendship between Erna Stein Biberstein and Lilli BergPlateau, who attended medical school together in Breslau, interned together, and helped one another in their medical practices. Batzdorff, Aunt Edith, 85–86, 106, 133–34. 60. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 137–42, 166; Roazen, Helene Deutsch: A Psychoanalyst’s Life, 233–50. See also Appignanesi and Forrester, Freud’s Women; Peters, Psychiatrie im Exil. 61. Rayner-Canham, eds., A Devotion to Their Science, 26–27. 62. Richter, “Summe des Lebens,” 286. Also quoted in Christmann, Frau und “Jüdin” an der Universität, 15. 63. “Dr. phil. Elise Richter,” in Kern, ed., Führende Frauen Europas, vol. 1, 92. 64. Martha Forkl and Bertholda Plechl, “Elise Richter und der Verband der Akademikerinnen Österreichs,” in Forkl and Koffmahn, eds., Frauenstudium und Akademische Frauenarbeit in Österreich, 108–12. 65. “Dr. phil. Elise Richter,” in Kern, ed., Führende Frauen Europas, vol. 1, 92; Richter, “Summe des Lebens”; Christmann, Frau und “Jüdin” an der Universität, 15–16. 66. Sabine Klöhn, Helene Simon (1862–1947): Deutsche und britische Sozialreform und Sozialgesetzgebung im Spiegel ihrer Schriften und ihr Wirken als Sozialpolitikerin im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982). 67. As quoted in Ingrun Lafleur, “Five Socialist Women: Traditional Conflicts and Socialist Visions in Austria, 1893–1934,” in Marilyn J. Boxer and Jean H. Quataert, Socialist Women: European Socialist Feminism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (New York: Elsevier North-Holland, 1978), 230. See also Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter, 376. 68. Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter, esp. 73–103, 129–52.
252
| Notes to pages 153–155
69. Gerda Lerner, Why History Matters: Life and Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977), 50–55. Gerda Lerner, a Jewish university woman of a younger generation who was born in Vienna in 1920 but emigrated in 1939, received her higher education belatedly in the United States. 70. Alice Rühle-Gerstel, Die Frau und der Kapitalismus (Frankfurt: Verlag Neue Kritik, 1972) (facsimile reprint of: Das Frauenproblem der Gegenwart: Eine psychologische Bilanz [Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1932]). See also Ingeborg Nordmann, “Alice Rühle-Gerstel (1894– 1943): Der Versuch, Emanzipation individuell zu denken,” in Hahn, ed., Frauen in den Kulturwissenschaften, 250–61. 71. Helene Deutsch, The Psychology of Women, 2 vols. (New York: Grune & Stratton, 1944–45); Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 149; Roazen, Helene Deutsch: A Psychoanalyst’s Life, 231–38, 259–67, 322; Josef Rattner, Klassiker der Tiefen-Psychologie (Munich: Psychologie Verlags Union, 1990), 256–67; Marie H. Briehl, “Helene Deutsch: The Maturation of Woman,” in Psychoanalytic Pioneers, ed. Franz Alexander (New York: Basic Books, 1966), 282–98. 72. Dorothee Sillem, “Deutschsprachige Ärztinnen im amerikanischen Exil 1933– 1945” (unpublished master’s thesis, Freie Universität Berlin, 1994), 146. Several women physicians were interested in helping women and children improve their physical fitness. The medical researcher Rahel Hirsch published a book on the subject, based on lectures on physical training of women delivered at various conferences on women and sports. Rahel Hirsch, Körperkultur der Frau (Berlin: Urban and Schwarzenberg, 1913). 73. Grossmann, Reforming Sex, 97. One pro-abortion communist physician who undoubtedly practiced what she preached was Martha Ruben-Wolf. See Birgit Rehse, “‘Dein Körper gehört Dir!’ Ärztinnen klären über Geburtenregelung auf,” in Neue Frauen zwischen den Zeiten, ed. Petra Bock and Katja Koblitz (Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1995), 112–28. See also Nathorff, Tagebuch; Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland; Ehrenfried, “Aus meinem Leben”; Necheles, “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician”; Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch. 74. Grossmann, Reforming Sex, 46–49, 138; idem, “Berliner Ärztinnen und Volksgesundheit in der Weimarer Republik: Zwischen Sexualreform und Eugenik,” in Unter allen Umstände: Frauengeschichte(n) in Berlin, ed. Christiane Eifert and Susanne Rouette (Berlin, 1986), 183–217. See also James Woycke, Birth Control in Germany, 1871–1933 (London: Routledge, 1988). 75. Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 114–29; Eckelmann, Ärztinnen in der Weimarer Zeit, 25–28; Cornelie Usborne, The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 128; Grossmann, Reforming Sex, 89. 76. In a panel discussion with Pappenheim sponsored by the JFB in 1930, when the abortion debate was at its height in Germany, Straus declared, “If a woman does not wish to have a child, she should not be forced to have one, married or not. . . . It is also murder, in a sense, if a child is brought up by a mother who does not want him, either because there is no father around, or if she is married, because she cannot handle another child.” Freeman, The Story of Anna O., 146; Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 264. 77. Nathorff, Tagebuch, 29–30; Ehrenfried, “Aus meinem Leben” 49–60; Pross and Winau, eds., Nicht misshandeln, 141–48; Wolff, Hindsight, 102–105; Grossmann, Reforming Sex, 46–76; Usborne, The Politics of the Body, 128–29; Woycke, Birth Control in Germany. 78. For more information on Aletta Jacobs and early birth control clinics, see Aletta Jacobs, Memories, esp. 44–51, 184–86. Similarly, in the United States during the interwar years, many of the physicians associated with Margaret Sanger’s birth control clinics, which later evolved into Planned Parenthood, were also Jewish women. See Margaret Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control (Fairview Park, N.Y.: Maxwell Reprint, 1969); Emily Taft Douglas, Margaret Sanger: Pioneer for the Future (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1970); Ellen Chesler, Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).
Notes to pages 155–158
|
253
79. According to Edith Glaser, premarital sex was uncommon among German women university students, although scattered evidence would indicate that it did occur, especially among the younger generation during the interwar years (Glaser, Hindernisse, 246). Both married and unmarried Jewish university women undoubtedly used birth control, although they never discussed such personal matters in their memoirs. 80. In their memoirs, Jewish university women, particularly those who remained single (e.g., Toni Sender, Käte Frankenthal, and Lotte Eisner), sometimes refer to their relationships with men but generally do not elaborate or name their partners. Unlike Charlotte Wolff, who openly acknowledged her lesbianism, in Frankenthal’s case, one is left to guess whether her relationships were with men or with women. 81. See Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 85–104; Roazen, Helene Deutsch: A Psychoanalyst’s Life, 28–87; Elzbieta Ettinger, Hannah Arendt/Martin Heidegger (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995). Psychoanalyst Marie Glas Langer discusses her sexual experimentation as a high school student and her teenage marriage that dissolved before she began her university studies (Langer, Von Wien bis Managua, 60–67). Gertrud Kantorowicz, an art historian and writer belonging to the older generation, had a lengthy relationship with the philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel, a married man eighteen years her senior. She had a daughter out of wedlock, but he never acknowledged paternity. See Barbara Paul, “Gertrud Kantorowicz (1876–1945): Kunstgeschichte als Lebenentwurf,” in Hahn, ed., Frauen in den Kulturwissenschaften, 96–109. 82. Günther J. Weller, Parlamentarierinnen in deutschen Parlamenten, 1919–1983 (Bonn: Hauptabteilung Wissenschaftlichten Dienste der Verwaltung des Deutschen Bundestages, 1983); Christl Wickert, “Sozialistin, Parlamentarierin, Jüdin. Die Beispiele Käte Frankenthal, Berta Jourdan, Adele Schreiber-Krieger, Toni Sender und Hedwig Wachenheim,” in Juden und deutsche Arbeiterbewegung bis 1933: Soziale Utopien und religiöskulturelle Traditionen, ed. Ludger Heid and Arnold Pauker (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1992), 155–64; idem, Unsere Erwählten: Sozialdemokratische Frauen im Deutschen Reichstag und im Preussischen Landtag 1919 bis 1933, 2 vols. (Göttingen: Sovec, 1986); Claudia Koonz, “Conflicting Allegiances: Political Ideology and Women Legislators in Weimar Germany,” Signs, 1, no. 3, pt. 1 (1976), 669; Hans-Jürgen Arendt, “Weibliche Mitglieder der KPD in der Weimarer Republik—zahlenmässige Stärke und soziale Stellung,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung (DDR), 19, no. 4 (1977), 652–60; Lafleur, “Five Socialist Women,” 235. 83. Correspondence with Gertrud Klausner’s nephew, Georg Cronheim, California; Landau-Muehsam, “Meine Erinnerungen,” LBI, 41. 84. Frieda Wunderlich Collection, AR-C1288–3230, Archives, LBI, New York. See also Theresa Wobbe, “Frieda Wunderlich,” in Honegger and Wobbe, eds., Frauen in der Soziologie, 203–25, and Freidenreich, “Wunderlich, Frieda,” in Jewish Women in America, vol. 2, 1511–12. 85. Sender, The Autobiography of a German Rebel, 244–45. 86. Ibid., 71–130, 260–61. 87. Ibid., 255–56. 88. “Bauer, Helene,” Biographisches Lexikon der österreichischer Frau (1984). 89. There is a voluminous bibliography on Rosa Luxemburg, her life and thought, including Richard Abraham, Rosa Luxemburg: A Life for the International (New York: Berg, 1989); Elzbieta Ettinger, Rosa Luxemburg: A Life (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986); J. Peter Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, 2 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966, 1989); Verena Standler-Labhart, Rosa Luxemburg an der Universität Zurich 1889–1897 (Zurich: H. Rohr, 1978); Wimmer, Vier jüdische Philosophinnen: Rosa Luxemburg, Simone Weil, Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt. See also Hannah Arendt, “Rosa Luxemburg (1871–1919),” in Baehr, ed., The Portable Hannah Arendt, 419–37. 90. “Fischer, Ruth,” unpublished document, Wissenschaftsemigration, Archives, IWK, Vienna; “Fischer, Ruth,” Biographisches Lexikon der österreichischer Frau (1984); Jutta Dick
254
| Notes to pages 158–164
and Marina Sassenberg, eds., Jüdische Frauen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Lexikon zu Leben und Werk (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1993), 114–16. 91. Rothschild, Verschlungene Wege; Liebmann, “We Kept Our Heads”; Eisner, Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland; Bloch, Aus meinem Leben. 92. Ruben-Wolf committed suicide in the Soviet Union, after she and her husband were arrested and interned. Both Ruben-Wolf ’s and Quittner’s husbands died in the gulag. Koplenig and her husband returned to Austria after the war, as did Quittner. Rehse, “‘Dein Körper gehört Dir!,” in Bock and Koblitz, eds., Neue Frauen zwischen den Zeiten, 126–28; interview with Hilde Koplenig, Vienna, July 1992; Genia Quittner, Weiter Weg nach Krasnogorsk: Schicksalbericht einer Frau (Vienna: Fritz Molden, 1971). 93. The archeologist Margarete Bieber was a member of the right-wing liberal German People’s Party (DVP, Deutsche Volkspartei) and the social worker educator Marie Bernays served as a DVP member of the Baden Landtag from 1921 to 1925. Bonfante, “Margarete Bieber,” in Sherman and Holcomb, eds., Women as Interpreters of the Visual Arts, 254; Peter Pulzer, The Jews and the German State, 231. 94. Some, however, continued to adhere to the left-liberal German Democratic Party (DDP) or the Austrian Bourgeois-Democratic Party. For a general overview of Jewish political behavior in Germany, see Richarz, Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland, vol. 3, 29–32, and Pulzer, Jews and the German State, 190–273. For a discussion of Jewish political behavior in Austria, see Freidenreich, Jewish Politics in Vienna. 95. As quoted in Helga Embacher, “Middle Class, Liberal, Intellectual, Female, and Jewish: The Expulsion of ‘Female Rationality’ from Austria,” in Women in Austria, ed. Günter Bischof, Anton Pelinka, and Erika Thurner (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1998), 9. 96. Even though only one in four women in this study attended the University of Vienna or resided in the Austrian capital, almost half of the socialists and communists received their education or lived in Vienna. By contrast, although more than a quarter of the Jewish university women studied or lived in Berlin, only about 15 percent of the left-wing supporters were students at the University of Berlin and roughly one in five was a resident of Berlin. 97. Among the most prominent figures in Austrian Social Democracy in the twentieth century, including both men and women, almost one-third were Jews, at least by birth. Freidenreich, Jewish Politics in Vienna, 92. 98. Joseph Buttinger, In the Twilight of Socialism (New York: F.A. Praeger, 1953), 80. 99. Jahoda, “Ich habe die Welt nicht verändert,” 36. 100. Papanek-Akselrad, “My Life in Germany,” 1. 101. Nathorff, Tagebuch, 23. 102. Dane, “Melitta Gerhard (1891–1981),” in Hahn, ed., Frauen in den Kulturwissenschaften, 223. 103. Tobias, “My Life in Germany,” #235, 12–14. 104. Lilli Kretzmer, “The Years Which the Locust Hath Eaten” (ca. 1950), Archives, LBI, New York, 7 (microfilm from Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe, Cambridge, MC379).
7. INTERRUPTED LIVES 1. See Table 12, “Emigration of Jewish University Women from Central Europe during the Nazi Era,” in Appendix. 2. In researching this book, I was only able to find documentation on thirty-five university women who became victims of the Shoah. This group represents less than 10 percent of the women in this study, which is undoubtedly too low a proportion to reflect how many university women actually died in the Holocaust. An additional twenty-six university women who remained in continental Europe after 1941 can be classified as Holocaust sur-
Notes to pages 164–168
|
255
vivors. Although I have collected many additional names of university women who perished, given a lack of biographical information about their lives and their deaths, it is difficult for me to include them in any meaningful analysis of my findings. See Table 13, “Jewish University Women in Nazi Europe during the Holocaust,” in Appendix. 3. Bertha Katz, Autobiography (Israel, 1979), ME-355, Archives, LBI, New York, 1. 4. “Interview with Salome Waelsch,” in Zuckerman et al., eds., The Outer Circle, 89. 5. See Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987); Jill Stephenson, Women in Nazi Society (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1975); Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann, and Marion Kaplan, eds., When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany (New York: Monthly Review, 1984); Michael H. Kater, “Krisis des Frauenstudiums in der Weimarer Republik,” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 59, no. 2 (1972), 207–55. 6. For a discussion of Jewish life in Nazi Europe with a focus on the experiences of women, see Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). 7. Edith Kramer-Freund, “Autobiographical Sketch” (Australia, 1982), ME-283, Archives, LBI, New York; Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter, 192; Norbert Giovannini, “‘Wer sich nicht bewährt, wird fallen’: Massnahmen und Grenzen nationalsozialistischer Studentenpolitik,” in Auch eine Geschichte der Universität Heidelberg, ed. Karin Buselmeier et al. (Mannheim: Edition Quadrat, 1985), 296. 8. Käthe Mende, “Die neue Gruppe berufstätiger Frauen im Verband Berlin des JFB,” Blätter des JFB, X, no. 1 (January 1934), 8–9. 9. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair, 46–49; Lieberg, Remembrances of Things Past, 41–45; Martha Wertheimer, “In mich ist die grosse dunkle Ruhe gekommen”: Briefe an Siefried Guggenheim in New York, 1939–1941 (Frankfurt: Frankfurter Lern- und Dokumentationszentrum des Holocaust, #8, n.d.); Peter Voswinckel, “Selma Meyer—erste Professorin für Kinderheilkunde,” Ärztin 1 (1990), 13. 10. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland, 266. 11. Gudrun Maierhof, “Überleben in Deutschland? Der Jüdische Frauenbund von 1933 bis zu seiner Auflösung 1938,” Ariadne, 18 (November 1990), 36. 12. Nathorff, Tagebuch, 40. 13. Eckelmann, Ärztinnen in der Weimarer Zeit und im Nationalsozialismus, 44–47; Huerkamp, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 256–57. 14. Dürkop, “Erscheinungsformen des Antisemitismus im Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine,” 147–48; Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 199. 15. Käte Frankenthal, “Berlin, 1933,” in Hitler’s Exiles, ed. Mark M. Anderson (New York: New Press, 1998), 28–34; Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 185–203; Bertz, “Helene Nathan,” 187–90. 16. As quoted in Silke Mehrwald and Leonie Wagner, “Vertriebenes Wissen: Jüdische Wissenschaftlerinnen in Deutschland,” Ariadne, 23 (May 1993), 26. 17. Häntzschel, “Die Philologin Eva Fiesel (1891–1937),” 355–59; idem, “‘Amerika gab ihr, was ihr ihr Heimatland immer verwehrt hatte,’” in Bedrohlich gescheit, ed. Häntzschel and Bussmann, 244–46; idem, “Der Exodus von Wissenschaftlerinnen,” Exil, 2 (1992), 49. 18. At least thirty-two out of eighty women with academic appointments were dismissed on racial grounds. In addition to all of the women with two Jewish parents, several baptized “half-Jews” (Mischlinge) lost their positions, including the Germanist Elisabeth Blochmann and the biologist Gerta von Übisch. The “Aryans” who were dismissed included the Germanist Anna Siemsen(-Vollenweider), the law professor Magdalene Schoch, the physicist Hertha Sponer, the biologist Rhoda Erdmann, and the sociologist and educator Mathilde Vaerting. Boedeker and Meyer-Plath, eds., 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen, 369; Marie-Ann Maushart, “Um mich nicht zu vergessen” Hertha Sponer—Ein Frauenleben für die Physik im 20. Jahrhundert (Bassum: Verlag für Naturwissenschaften und der Technik,
256
| Notes to pages 168–172
1997); Theresa Wobbe, “Mathilde Vaerting (1884–1977): Eine Intellektuelle im Koordinatensystem dieses Jahrhundert,” Jahrbuch für Soziologiegeschichte, 1991, 27–68. 19. Angelika Timm, “Zur Biographie jüdischer Hochschullehrerinnen in Berlin bis 1933. Nach Materialien des Archivs der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin,” Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für Deutsche Geschichte 21 (1992), 243–58; Dagmar Jank, “‘Neben 51 Herren auch zwei Damen:’ die ersten Studentinnen in Berlin,” Emma, 5 (1992), 30–31. 20. Sime, Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics, 134–60, 184–89. 21. The academic women who emigrated in 1933 included Charlotte Auerbach, Betty Heimann, Emmy Klieneberger(-Nobel), Charlotte Leubuscher and Anneliese Wittgenstein, who went to Great Britain, and Margarete Bieber, Eva Fiesel, Hilda Geiringer, Melitta Gerhard, Gertrud Kornfeld, Emmy Noether, and Frieda Wunderlich, all of whom eventually reached the United States before World War II. Elisabeth Boedeker lists a total of twentyseven academic women who emigrated, of whom twenty-three were classified as “nonAryans.” This list, however, is not quite complete (Boedeker and Meyer-Plath, eds., 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen, 369). 22. Five such schools were established in the Berlin district of Wilmersdorf alone. Three of these were headed by university women, Lotte Kaliski, Vera Lachmann, and Leonore Goldschmidt, while the other two were led by Anna Pelteson and Toni Lessler, members of the older generation of Jewish women educators who had not attended university. See “Hier ist kein bleiben länger.” 23. After emigrating to the United States in 1938, Kaliski eventually reestablished the “New Kaliski Country Day School” in Riverdale, New York, for children with learning disabilities. Busemann, Insel der Geborgenheit; “Hier ist kein bleiben länger,” 18–25. 24. Ibid., 28. 25. Vera Lachmann continued her educational activities in the United States by establishing a boys’ summer camp, which lasted for twenty-five years. In addition, she taught German at Vassar and eventually became a professor of classics at Brooklyn College. Ibid., 32. 26. Schlotzhauer, Das Philanthropin, 98–125. 27. Simmel-Joachim, “Hilde Lion,” Ariadne, 23 (May 1993), 34–39. 28. Schlotzhauer, Das Philanthropin,115; Epstein, “Einige Erinnerungen an der Philanthropin,” 7–8; Cora Berliner Collection, AR-1578, Archives, LBI, New York; Hildesheimer, “Cora Berliner,” 50–59. 29. Huerkamp, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen,” 320–21; idem, Bildungsbürgerinnen, 287–88; Proskauer, Wege und Umwege, 38–41, 141–46; Munk, “Reminiscences/Memoirs,” Part 1, XII, 26–27; “Ella Kessler-Reis,” in Signs of Life: Jews from Wuerttemberg, ed. Walter Strauss (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1982), 256; Frank Mecklenburg, “The Occupations of Women Emigres: Women Lawyers in the United States,” in Between Sorrow and Strength, ed. Sibylle Quack, 289–99. 30. Necheles, “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician,” 17–27. Hertha Nathorff recounts similar experiences in her published diaries, excerpts from which have been translated into English in Anderson, ed., Hitler’s Exiles, 69–77. 31. Huerkamp, “Jüdische Akademikerinnen,” 319–20; Grossmann, “German Women Doctors from Berlin to New York,” 67; Eckelmann, Ärztinnen in der Weimarer Zeit und im Nationalsozialismus, 43. 32. Ziegeler, Weibliche Ärzte und Krankenkassen, 107–108. 33. Langer, Von Wien bis Managua, 77–82; Stang, Fräulein Doktor, 192–217. Interviews with Pauline Glanzberg-Rachlis, Elisabeth Foldes-Roth, Eleanor Hadra, and Ruth Zaloscer Gutmann. 34. Nathorff, Tagebuch, 42. 35. Necheles, “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician,” 28–29. 36. Hertha Nathorff, “A Doctor’s View,” in Anderson, ed., Hitler’s Exiles, 69–77; Nathorff, Tagebuch, 102–63; Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair, 67–73, 129–38.
Notes to pages 173–177
|
257
37. Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter, 175–209; Herbert Steiner, “Käthe Leichter,” in Werk und Widerhall: Grosse Gestalten des österreichischen Sozialismus, ed. Norbert Leser (Vienna: Wiener Volksbuchhandlung, 1964), 244. 38. “Ella Kessler-Reis,” in Strauss, ed., Signs of Life, 256. 39. Lucie Adelsberger, Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Story (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995), 11–12. 40. Ibid. Adelsberger’s Auschwitz memoirs were written in 1946 and first appeared in German in 1956. After the war, she worked as an immunologist at Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center in New York. 41. The women whose mothers came to live with them in emigration include Lotte Kaliski, Nellie Bruell Friedrichs, Charlotte Auerbach, Lilli Kretzmer, and Julie Meyer (-Frank). Among the many others who lost their parents in the Holocaust were Margaret Schoenberger Mahler, Helene Rosenbach Deutsch, Henrietta (Henny) Magnus Necheles, Elfriede Fellner Hale, and Ida and Henda Silberpfennig, who became known after emigration as Judith Kestenberg and Helen Silving-Ryu. 42. Letter from Tilly Edinger, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard, to Dr. Robert Yerkes, Yale, April 7, 1951, Tilly Edinger Collection, AR-1267/4182, Archives, LBI, New York. 43. Ibid. 44. See Table 13, “Jewish University Women in Nazi Europe during the Holocaust,” in Appendix. 45. See Tables 12 and 13 in Appendix. 46. Papanek-Akselrad, “My Life in Germany,” #175, 81–87. 47. Letter to author from Anna Igel, Camarillo, Calif., June 16, 1992. 48. Questionnaire responses and correspondence with Katharina Löffler’s daughter, Inge Zornig, Brazil, and her niece, Lore Jonas, New Rochelle, N.Y., 1993. 49. Marta Fraenkel Collection, AR-4348, Archives, LBI, New York; Marta FraenkelSchulze, #743, AFSC Collection, Balch Institute, Philadelphia; Aschenbrenner, “Dr. med. Marta Fraenkel,” in Meinel and Renneberg, eds., Geschlechterverhältnisse in Medizin, Naturwissenschaft und Technik, 86. 50. Käte Schiepan was the aunt of historian Gershom Scholem; what little information exists about her is to be found in his writings and correspondence. See Gershom Scholem, From Berlin to Jerusalem (New York: Schocken Books, 1980), and Betty Scholem and Gershom Scholem, Mutter und Sohn im Briefwechsel, 1917–1946 (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1989). 51. Oestreich, “Hedwig und Otto Hintze,” 408–18; Jütte, “Hedwig Hintze,” in Grab, ed., Juden in der deutschen Wissenschaft, 256–57; Stephan, Das Schicksal der begabten Frau im Schatten berühmter Männer, 155–56; Schleier, Die bürgerliche deutsche Geschichtsschreibung der Weimarer Republik, 300–302. 52. Weidemann, Leben und Werk von Therese Benedek, 20–21; Freidenreich, “Benedek, Therese,” in Jewish Women in America, vol. 1, 137. 53. Bühler, “Charlotte Bühler” in Pongratz, ed., Psychologie in Selbstdarstellungen, 27–39. 54. See Table 13 in Appendix. 55. Johanna Bleker, “Anerkennung durch Unterordnung? Ärztinnen und Nationalsozialismus,” in Brinkschulte, ed., Weibliche Ärzte, 127–28 and 136–39. 56. Physicians Lucie Adelsberger, Ruth Zaloscer Gutmann, Rita Smrçka (Krause), and Esther Fox all managed to survive Auschwitz, as well as other camps. Esther Fox, a physician from Poland, wrote the author that “My profession was the reason I survived the concentration camp; I worked there as a physician.” Else Liefmann worked as a physician in Gurs and Edith Kramer-Freund in Theresienstadt. Ema Jablonowera Altrichterova, a physician from Czechoslovakia who spent the war in the Soviet Union, wrote the author that “In my opinion, my profession of a doctor saved my and my son’s life during the war.” Adelsberger,
258
| Notes to pages 177–181
Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Story; Edith Kramer-Freund, “Autobiographical Sketch” (1982), ME283, Archives, LBI, New York; Edith Kramer, “Hell and Rebirth—My Experiences during the Time of Persecution,” in Sisters in Sorrow: Voices of Care in the Holocaust, ed. Roger A. Ritvo and Diane M. Plotkin (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1998), 129–57; interviews with Ruth Gutmann, Narberth, Pa., 1992 and Rita Krause, Vienna, 1992; questionnaires completed by Esther Fox and Ema Altrichterova. 57. Magdalena Buchwald Schwarz survived the war in hiding in Munich after her colleagues were deported; Helene Ziegelroth Stoeltzner stayed inside her apartment in Berlin throughout the war, refusing to wear her Star of David in public. Renate Jäckle, ed., Schicksale jüdischer und ‘staatsfeindlicher’ Ärztinnen und Ärzte in München (Munich: Die Liste, 1988), 119–20; Stieftöchter der Alma Mater? 90 Jahre Frauenstudium in Bayern—am Beispiel der Universität München, ed. Hadumod Bussmann (Munich: Verlag Antje Kunstmann, 1993), 67–71; interview with Helene Stoeltzner’s daughter, Gudrun Fett, Yardley, 1990. 58. Letter and questionnaire completed by Gerte Cohn, Rose Bay, Australia, 1992. 59. See Table 14, “Emigration Destinations of Jewish University Women before 1945,” in Appendix. 60. See Table 12, “Emigration of Jewish University Women from Central Europe during the Nazi Era,” in Appendix. 61. Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch; Sender, The Autobiography of a German Rebel; Rothschild, Verschlungene Wege. 62. Langer, Von Wien bis Managua; Jahoda, “Ich habe die Welt nicht verändert”; Steiner, ed., Käthe Leichter. 63. Jewish university women who participated in resistance movements during the war include Recha Rothschild, Lotte Eisner, Hanna Grünwald, and Selma Steinmetz in France, and Alice David in Holland. Martha Ruben-Wolf and Frida Rubiner from Germany, Hilde Koplenig, Genia Quittner, and Klara Blum from Vienna all took refuge in Moscow. 64. See Table 14 in Appendix. 65. Mathematician Hilda Geiringer and biologist Rosi Kuerti both taught for several years in Turkey; physicist Lise Meitner found a research position in Sweden; mathematician Käte Fenchel and biochemist Gertrude Perlmann found temporary positions in Denmark. 66. Among these women were paleontologist Tilly Edinger, film critic Lotte Eisner, historians Lucie Varga and Hedwig Hintze, and journalist politician Ruth Fischer. 67. See Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt. 68. Ibid. Other university women temporarily interned in Gurs included physicians Else Liefmann and Lilli Ehrenfried and film critic Lotte Eisner. 69. Natalie Zemon Davis, “Women and the World of the Annales,” History Workshop Journal, 33 (1992), 121; Peter Schöttler, “Lucie Varga: A Central European Refugee in the Circle of the French ‘Annales,’ 1934–1941,” ibid., 108–109; idem, ed., Lucie Varga Zeitenwende: Mentalitätshistorische Studien 1936–1939 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991), 48–49. 70. Victims include psychoanalyst Rosa Walk, who committed suicide in 1942 in France, and historian Hedwig Hintze, who also took her own life in Holland that same year. Survivors include lawyer Emilie Melchior Braun, physician and gymnastics teacher Lilli Ehrenfried, film critic and curator Lotte Eisner, chemists Sara Ginsburg and Katerina Nekvasilova, social workers Hanna Grünwald and Recha Rothschild, and physician Stella Schleissner-Spitz in France; lawyer Edith Kosterlitz in Belgium and another lawyer, Ruth Liepman, in Holland.
8. RECONSTRUCTING LIVES AND CAREERS 1. See Table 14, “Emigration Destinations of Jewish University Women,” in Appendix. For comparative statistics on German-Jewish emigration to the United States, see Mau-
Notes to pages 182–185
|
259
rice R. Davie, Refugees in America: Report of the Committee for the Study of Recent Immigration from Europe (New York: Harper, 1947), and Herbert A. Strauss, “The Immigration and Acculturation of the German Jew in the United States of America,” LBIYB, vol. 16 (1971), 63–94. 2. Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland; Schmelzkopf, “Rahel Straus,” in Juden in Karlsruhe, ed. Schmitt, 479–80; Krauss, “‘Ein voll erfülltes Frauenleben,’” in Bedrohlich gescheit, ed. Häntzschel and Bussmann, 240–41; Proskauer, Wege und Umwege, 46–97. See also Kliner-Fruck, “Es ging ja ums Überleben”: Jüdische Frauen zwischen Nazi-Deutschland, Emigration nach Palästina und ihrer Rückkehr (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1995); Franz-Michael Konrad, Wurzeln jüdischer Sozialarbeit in Palästina: Einflüsse der Sozialarbeit in Deutschland auf die Entstehung moderner Hilfesysteme in Palästina 1890–1948 (Weinheim/Munich: Juventa Verlag, 1993). 3. Frankenthal, Der dreifache Fluch, 242–43. 4. Nathorff, Tagebuch, 170–209. 5. Letter from Refugee Section of the AFSC, August 15, 1940, #3884, AFSC Collection, Archives, Balch Institute, Philadelphia. 6. The school director Eugenie Schwarzwald died in 1940 at the age of 68 in Switzerland, less than two years after she escaped from Vienna. The following year, her successor Aline Fürtmuller died at the age of 57 in the United States, soon after her arrival, after having to flee to Spain from Switzerland. Göllner, “Mädchenbildung um Neunzehnhundert,” 55; Edith Prost, “Emigration und Exil österreichischer Wissenschaftlerinnen,” in Stadler, ed., Vertriebene Vernunft, 456–57; Brinkschulte, “Professor Dr. Rahel Hirsch (1870– 1953),” in idem, ed., Weibliche Ärzte, 109–10; Joachim Wieler, “Destination Social Work: Emigres in a Women’s Profession,” in Between Sorrow and Strength: Women Refugees of the Nazi Period, ed. Sibylle Quack (Washington, D.C./Cambridge: German Historical Institute/Cambridge University Press, 1995), 269–70. 7. See Christine Backhaus-Lautenschläger, . . . Und standen ihre Frau: Das Schicksal deutschsprachiger Emigrantinnen in den USA nach 1933 (Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1991); Sibylle Quack, “Everyday Life and Emigration: The Role of Women,” in Hartmut Lehmann and James J. Sheehan, eds., An Interrupted Past (Washington, D.C.: German Historical Institute, 1991), 102–108; idem, Zuflucht Amerika: Verfolgung, Vertreibung, Einwanderung: Zur Sozialgeschichte deutsch-jüdischer Emigrantinnen nach 1933 (Bonn: Dietz, 1995); idem, ed., Between Sorrow and Strength. 8. “Interview with Salome Waelsch,” in Zuckerman, ed., The Outer Circle, 71–93. 9. Mitchell G. Ash, “Women Emigre Psychologists and Psychoanalysts in the United States,” in Quack, ed., Between Sorrow and Strength, 239–64; Wieler, “Destination Social Work,” ibid., 265–82. 10. Ernst C. Stiefel and Frank Mecklenburg, Deutsche Juristen im amerikanischen Exil (1933–1950) (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1991), 13, 54, 74–76; Frank Mecklenburg, “The Occupations of Women Emigres: Women Lawyers in the United States,” in Quack, ed., Between Sorrow and Strength, 289–99; Quack, Zuflucht Amerika, 187–90. 11. Letter to author from Martin Glass, Jerusalem, Israel, June 14, 1992. 12. Questionnaires and correspondence, Hilde Littmann, Tel Aviv, and Elisheva Stern, Kibbutz Maoz Haim, Israel, June 1992. 13. See Dagmar C. G. Lorenz, Keepers of the Motherland: German Texts by Jewish Women Writers (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997). 14. For a discussion of the difficulties facing émigré intellectuals in writing in both English and German, see, for example, Gerda Lerner, “Living in Translation,” in Lerner, Why History Matters, 33–49. See also Backhaus-Lautenschläger, . . . Und standen ihre Frau; Gert Niers, Frauen schreiben im Exil: Zum Werk der nach Amerika emigrierten Lyrikerinnen Margarete Kollisch, Ilse Blumenthal-Weiss, Vera Lachmann (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1988); Lisa Kahn, In Her Mother’s Tongue: Women Authors in the United States Who Wrote in German, 1938–1983 (Denver: Emerson Press, 1983).
260
| Notes to pages 185–189
15. Ezra Spicehandler, “Goldberg, Lea,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 7, 703–705. 16. Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in the Weekly Sidra, 7 vols., rev. ed. (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1985); Moshe Sokolow, “Nehama Leibowitz: She Taught Torah out of Love,” Jerusalem Report, May 15, 1997, 46. 17. Thomas Lange, “Emigration nach China,” Exilforschung, III (1985), 339–48; Annemarie Türk, “Klara Blum=Zhu Bai-Lan,” UNESCO Austria, XX/4 (December 1990), 27–29. 18. Hilde Zaloscer lectured in French while teaching for many years in Egypt. Hilda Geiringer and Rosi Kuerti lectured in French while holding temporary teaching positions in Turkey before emigrating to the United States; Geiringer even lectured in Turkish on occasion. Christa Binder, “Hilda Geiringer: ihre ersten Jahre in America,” 27; Joan L. Richards, “Hilda Geiringer von Mises,” in Grinstein, ed., Women of Mathematics, 42; Zaloscer, Ein Heimkehr gibt es nicht; Silving, Memoirs. 19. Nathorff, “Arriving in New York” and “An American Life,” in Anderson, ed., Hitler’s Exiles, 218–22, 299–310; Nathorff, Tagebuch, 7–8, 173–211; Backhaus-Lautenschläger, . . . Und standen ihre Frau, 57–59. 20. Wolff, Hindsight, 117–22, 151–67, 201. 21. Kröner, “Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner 1933–1945,” 88–89; Davie, Refugees in America, 257–88. 22. Information on Katharina Weiner Löffler provided in letters from her niece, Lore Jonas, New Rochelle, N.Y., January 6, 1993 and her daughter Inge Zornig, Brazil, May 4, 1993. 23. Questionnaire completed by Trude Keins, East Meadow, N.Y., 1992. 24. Questionnaire completed by her daughter, Flora Cornfield, Glenside, Pa., 1994; Hilde Zaloscer, Eine Heimkehr gibt es nicht (Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 1988), 75. 25. Wehl, House Calls to Eternity, 26–54. 26. Sillem, “Deutschsprachige Ärztinnen im amerikanischen Exil 1933–1945,” 23, 208–23; Davie, Refugees in America, 266–79; Quack, Zuflucht Amerika, 182–87; interviews with Pauline Glanzberg Rachlis, Elizabeth Foldes Roth, and Eleanor Hadra, 1992; questionnaire responses. 27. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself; Mahler, Memoirs; Hornstein, To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World; Weidemann, Leben und Werk von Therese Benedek; Bruch, Unlocking the Golden Cage; Heitcamp, “Hilde Bruch”; See also Mühlleiter, Biographisches Lexikon der Psychoanalyse; Peters, Psychiatrie im Exil. Other important Central European women émigré psychoanalysts and psychiatrists include Alexandra Adler, Grete Bibring, Margarete Brandt, Ruth Eissler, Kate Friedländer, Berta Grünspan, Salomea GutmannIsakower, Margit Herz, Edith Jacobson, Anny Angel-Katan, Marianne Kris, Annie Reich, Melitta Sperling, and Josephine Stross. 28. Kröner, “Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner im Nationalsozialismus,” 20. 29. A Jewish émigré from Italy, Rita Levi-Montalcini also received a Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1986. Her memoir is entitled In Praise of Imperfection: My Life and Work (New York: Basic Books, 1988). Other Jewish women who won Nobel Prizes in science or medicine are Gertrude Elion, Rosalind Franklin, and Rosalyn Sussman Yalow. McGrayne, Nobel Prize Women in Science, 93–116, 201–24, 280–355. 30. Ibid., 99–107. 31. Unlike many male émigré intellectuals, her second husband, Heinrich Waelsch, provided Gluecksohn-Waelsch with a great deal of encouragement and support in the home and helped in raising their children. “Interview with Salome Waelsch,” in Zuckerman, et al., eds., The Outer Circle, 71–93; Michael T. Kaufman, “A Jew, a Woman and Still a Scientist,” New York Times, February 6, 1993. 32. M. Brewster Smith, “”Else Frenkel-Brunswik,” in O’Connell and Russo, eds., Women in Psychology, 90–92; Harriet Pass Freidenreich, “Frenkel-Brunswik, Else,” in Jewish Women in America, vol. 1, 479.
Notes to pages 189–192
|
261
33. Mathematicians Emmy Noether and Hilda Geiringer, Etruscan specialist Eva Fiesel, Germanist Hilde Cohn, and social work educator Hertha Kraus all held positions at Bryn Mawr College upon their arrival in the United States in the 1930s. Kraus was the only émigré to remain at Bryn Mawr; Noether and Fiesel both died soon after their emigration; Geiringer eventually taught at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. Personnel Files, Archives, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa.; Felix Gilbert, “Desirable Elements: Refugee Professors at Bryn Mawr in the 30’s and 40’s,” in A Century Recalled, ed. Patricia Hochschild Labalme (Bryn Mawr, Pa.: Bryn Mawr College Library, 1987), 73–86. See also Quack, Zuflucht Amerika, 190–200. 34. Erna Barschak, My American Adventure (New York: Ives Washburn, 1945); case files, American Friends Service Committee Collection, Balch Institute, Philadelphia. 35. Case file #214, AFSC Collection, Archives, Balch Institute, Philadelphia. 36. Deutsch, Confrontations with Myself, 178; interview with Pauline Glanzberg-Rachlis. 37. Else Frenkel-Brunswik, along with Theodor W. Adorno, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford, The Authoritarian Personality (New York: Harper & Row, 1950); Marie Jahoda and Nathan W. Ackerman, Anti-Semitism and Emotional Disorder: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation (New York: Harper, 1950); Marie Jahoda, Race Relations and Mental Health (Paris: UNESCO, 1960). 38. Eva G. Reichmann, Hostages of Civilisation: The Social Sources of National Socialist Anti-Semitism (London: Victor Gollancz, 1950; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970). 39. Case file #18906, AFSC Collection, Archives, Balch Institute, Philadelphia. 40. Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harcourt Brace & Co., 1951, 1979); Eichmann in Jerusalem (New York: Viking Penguin, 1991); Baehr, ed., The Portable Hannah Arendt. See also Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World; Bernstein, Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question. 41. Selma Stern, The Court Jew (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1950); Der preussische Staat und die Juden, 7 vols. (Tübingen, 1962–1975); Sassenberg, “Der andere Blick auf die Vergangenheit,” in Apropos Selma Stern, 36–47; idem, “The European Factor: The Historian Selma Stern (1890–1981) and Her Portrait of the ‘Court Jew,’” European Association for Jewish Studies Newsletter, 7 (1999/2000), 7–10. 42. Wolff, Hindsight, 136–38, 173–75, 181; Marie Luise Gansberg, “‘Dass ich immer eine Fremde war und sein werde’: Aussenseiter als Interpretationsmuster in Charlotte Wolffs sexual-wissenschaftlicher und literarischer Produktion,” in Inge Stephan, Sabine Schilling, and Sigrid Weigel, eds., Jüdische Kultur und Weiblichkeit in der Moderne (Cologne/ Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1994), 159–72. See also Backhaus-Lautenschläger, . . . Und standen ihre Frau, 151–82. 43. Socialists who returned to Vienna include educators Minna Lachs, Stella KleinLöw, Maria Deutsch, Friederike Friedmann, and Helene Popper, as well as lawyer Erna Zaloscer Sailer and physicians Maria (Mitzi) Frischauf and Franziska Hartl. Communists Hilde Koplenig, Elisabeth Freundlich, Genia Quittner, and Selma Steinmetz also went back to Vienna. Ema Altrichterova, Sarah Weiner, and Katerina Nekvasilova returned to Czechoslovakia; and Karola Bloch, Auguste Lazar, Recha Rothschild, Anna Seghers, and Margarete Wittkowski went to live in East Germany. 44. See Klein-Löw, Erinnerungen, 165–72; Lachs, Warum schaust du zurück, 269; Prost, “Emigration und Exil österreichischer Wissenschaftlerinnen” in Stadler, ed., Vertriebene Vernunft, vol. 1, 444–70. Among the women who returned to Central Europe with hopes of finding academic employment were Elisabeth Blochmann, Käte Hamburger, Berta Ottenstein, Klara Weingarten, Gerta von Übisch, Marietta Blau, and Hilde Zaloscer. The last three, however, became extremely disillusioned by lack of appropriate employment and salary. Erna Proskauer returned from Israel to practice law in Berlin, and handled mainly reparations cases. Käthe Loewy Manasse also left Israel to become a judge in Hamburg. Margarete Eisenstädtler Haimberger-Tanzer served as a municipal judge in Vienna, while
262
| Notes to pages 192–201
lawyer Erna Zaloscer Sailer served as Austrian ambassador to India during the Bruno Kreisky era. 45. Among the retirees were Gudrun Fett, Edith Goldschmidt, Lotte Gruenwald, and Emmy Klieneberger-Nobel. 46. Lange, “Emigration nach China,” 339–48; Türk, “Klara Blum=Zhu Bai-Lan,” 27–29. 47. Langer, Von Wien bis Managua; idem, Motherhood and Sexuality, trans. Nancy Caro Hollander (New York: Guilford Press, 1992). 48. Zaloscer, Ein Heimkehr gibt es nicht, 182–83; idem, “Das dreimalige Exil,” in Stadler, ed., Vertriebene Vernunft, vol. 1, 544–72; interviews with Hilde Zaloscer, Vienna, July 1992 and Ruth Zaloscer Gutmann, Narberth, Pa., August 1992. 49. Rife, Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age, 267. 50. Silving, Memoirs, 624. 51. Mahler, Memoirs, 157. 52. Wickert, “Sozialistin, Parlamentarierin, Jüdin,” in Heid and Pauker, eds., Juden und die deutsche Arbeiterbewegung bis 1933, 163. 53. Wolff, Hindsight, 239.
EPILOGUE 1. A list of selected works in English written by Jewish university women is included at the end of the bibliography. 2. Correspondence with Lore Jonas, daughter of Paula Odenheimer-Weiner, and Gudrun Fett, daughter of Helene Stoeltzner. 3. Examples include Lotte Lazarsfeld Bailyn, daughter of Marie Jahoda, and Melitta Klein Schmideberg, daughter of Melanie Klein. 4. Lerner, Why History Matters. 5. Bridenthal, Grossmann, and Kaplan, eds., When Biology Became Destiny; Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany; idem, Making of the German Middle Class; idem, Between Dignity and Despair; Grossmann, Reforming Sex.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
ARCHIVES, ARCHIVAL COLLECTIONS, AND UNPUBLISHED MEMOIRS
Balch Institute, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania American Friends Service Collection Refugee Case Records
Bryn Mawr College Archives, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania Personnel Files: Cohn, Hilde; Fiesel, Eva; Geiringer, Hilda; Kraus, Hertha
Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts Memoirs submitted for 1940 Prize Competition on “My Life in Germany Before and After January 30, 1933.” 57M-203, bMS Ger91. Bernheim, Hanna Berwin, Beate Clara (pseud. Elisabeth Moore). “My Own Development.” Frankenthal, Käte Geisler, Marianne Hirsch, Helena Kamm, Berta S. Krug, Lily S. Littauer, Margot Menzel, Rudolfine Nathorff, Hertha Necheles, Henriette (Henny) Magnus. “Reminiscences of a German Jewish Physician.” Oppenheimer, Mara Papanek-Akselrad, Rose-Marie Popper, Lotte Schiller, Hettie Sichel, Hilda Honneh Siemsen, Anna Spiegel, Margot Tobias, Paula Weiss, Hilda
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Archives Acta der königl. Friedrich-Wilhelm Universität zu Berlin betreffend Promotionen, 1907–1913.
264
| Bibliography
Acta . . . die Professoren (1919–21): Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner Habilitationen (personnel documents): Geiringer, Hilda; Hertz, Mathilde; Hintze, Hedwig; Kornfeld, Gertrud; Leubuscher, Charlotte; Meitner, Lise; Wittgenstein, Anneliese Rektorat/Senat. “Jüdischer Studentinnenverein an der Universität Berlin 1916/20.” Acta der Medizinischen Fakultät betreffend Nicht promovierte Juden, 1932–40
Landes- und Stadtsarchiv, Vienna, Manuscript Collection (Nachlass) Elise und Helene Richter, MA9, 336/47, III, 37/3, Box 3 Richter, Elise. “Summe des Lebens: Lebensfreuden/Lebensleid.” Vienna, 1940.
Leo Baeck Institute, New York Collections Berent, Margarete Berliner, Cora Edinger, Dora. Interview with Marion Kaplan Edinger, Tilly Fraenkel, Marta Goldschmidt, Henriette Jonas, Regina Kitzinger, Elisabeth Liegner, Lilli. Interview with Marion Kaplan Muehsam, Margaret T. Perl, Katharina. Leopold Perl Family Collection Salomon, Alice Schoenewald, Ottilie Stern-Täubler, Selma. Diaries. Stolper, Toni Wunderlich, Frieda
Memoirs Bab, Elisabeth. “Aus zwei Jahrhunderten: Lebenserinnerungen.” Bader, Lillian M. “One Life Is Not Enough: Autobiographical Vignettes.” Braun, Emily Melchior. “Memoiren.” Israel, 1986. Ehrenfried, Lydia. “Aus meinem Leben.” Kfar Saba, 1968. Epstein, Tilly. “Einige Erinnerungen an der Philanthropin in Frankfurt am Main.” Freyhan, Kate. Interview with Margot Pottlitzer. 1974. Gerstel, Else, “Grandma, Times Have Changed!” Hale, Elfriede. “Wien 1938.” Hirsch, Frieda. “Mein Weg von Karlsruhe ueber Heidelberg nach Haifa, 1890–1965.” Hope, Ruth Feitelberg. “The Story of My Family.” Oakland, Calif., 1961. Katz, Bertha. “Autobiography.” Israel, 1979. Kramer-Freund, Edith. “Autobiographical Sketch.” Australia, 1982. Landau-Muehsam, Charlotte. “Meine Erinnerungen.” Landre, Berta Allerhand. “Durch Sieb der Zeit gefallen.” Levinger, Charlotte. “My First Fifty Years.”
Bibliography
| 265
Liebmann, Dodo. “We Kept Our Heads: Personal Memories of Being Jewish in Nazi Germany and Making a New Home in England.” 1976. Livneh, Emmy. (Biographical sketch.) Israel, n.d. Mende, Kaethe. “Von der Familie Mende.” Berlin/Dahlem, 1950. Meyer, Leonore. “Velvet and Steel: The Life of Johanna Meyer (1874–1957).” 1989. Meyer-Gerstein, Senta. “My Life.” 1989. ———. “So wie es war.” 1986. Meyring, Elsa. (No title.) Stockholm, n.d. Munk, Marie. “Reminiscences/Memoirs.” 1961. Pincus-Wieruszowski, Ruth. “Erinnerungen an Alfred Wieruszowski (1857–1945).” Rothschild, Recha. “Memoirs of Recha Rothschild (1880–1964).” Salomon, Alice. “Character Is Destiny: An Autobiography.” Samulon, Henry A. “Else Rahel Samulon-Guttmann.” Schönewald, Ottilie. “Lebenserinnerungen.” New York, 1961. Schwarz, Olly. “Lebens-Erinnerungen.” Chicago, 1959. Steinberg, Margarethe C. (No title, place, or date.)
Medical College of Pennsylvania, Archives and Special Collections on Women in Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania British Medical Journal, September 1912. Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, July 1901 and June/July 1912. Dewey, Barbara. Biography: Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner. 1949. MS 27. Medical Women’s International Journal, 1925; 1927. Medical Women’s Journal, October 1930; March 1931; July 1936; September 1937; May 1942. MWIA, German Refugees Employment Abroad; Federal Republic of Germany 1924–49.
Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe, Cambridge, Massachusetts Kretzmer, Lilli. “The Years Which the Locust Hath Eaten.” ca. 1950.
Unpublished Memoirs in Private Collections Batzdorff, Susanne M. “Reflections in a Rearview Mirror.” Santa Rosa, Calif., 1984. Lewinsky, Susi. “Memoires.” San Francisco. Lowe, Marianne. “Studying Psychology in Turbulent Times.” London, 1984. Mark, Frank R. (K. R. Kramm). “The Seeds of a Refugee Mother.”
PUBLISHED MEMOIRS AND MEMOIR COLLECTIONS Adelsberger, Lucie. Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Story. Translated by Susan Ray. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995. Anderson, Mark M., ed. Hitler’s Exiles. New York: New Press, 1998. Bach, Susanne. Karussel von München nach München. Nürnberg: Frauen in einer Welt, 1991. Badt-Strauss, Bertha. Studententage in München, 1912–13. Munich: Ner Tamid Verlag, 1959. Barschak, Erna. My American Adventure. New York: Ives Washburn, 1945.
266
| Bibliography
Bloch, Karola. Aus meinem Leben. Pfüllingen: Neske, 1981. Braun-Vogelstein, Julie. Was niemals stirbt: Gestalten und Erinnerungen. Stuttgart, 1966. Croner(-Kretschmer), Else. Das Tagebuch eines Fräulein Doktor. Stuttgart: Union Deutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1908. Deutsch, Helene. Confrontations with Myself: An Epilogue. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1973. Eisner, Lotte H. Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland: Memoiren. Written with Martje Grohmann. 2nd ed. Heidelberg: Wunderhorn, 1984. Frankenthal, Käte. Der dreifache Fluch: Jüdin, Intellektuelle, Sozialistin. Edited by Kathleen M. Pearle and Stephan Leibfried. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1981. Friedrichs, Nellie H. Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben in Braunschweig 1912–1937. 2nd ed. Braunschweig: Stadtarchiv und Stadtbibliothek, 1988. Goldschmidt, Edith. Drei Leben: Autobiographie einer deutschen Jüdin. Steinfurt: Stadt Steinfurt, 1992. Hermanns, Ludger M., ed. Psychoanalyse in Selbstdarstellungen. Tübingen: Diskord, 1992. Jacobi, Jolande. Masks of the Soul. Translated by Ean Begg. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1976. Jahoda, Marie. “Ich habe die Welt nicht verändert”: Lebenserinnerungen einer Pionierin der Sozialforschung. Edited by Steffani Engler and Brigitte Hasenjürgen. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1997. Katz, Jacob. With My Own Eyes: The Autobiography of an Historian. Hanover/London: Brandeis University Press, 1995. Kempner, Robert M.W. Ankläger einer Epoche: Lebenserinnerungen. Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1983. Kern, Elga, ed. Führende Frauen Europas. 2 vols. Munich: E. Reinhardt, 1928, 1930. Klein-Löw, Stella. Erinnerungen: Erlebtes und Gedachtes. Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1980. Klieneberger-Nobel, Emmy. Pionierleistungen für die Medizinische Mikrobiologie: Lebenserinnerungen. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer, 1977. Konopka, Gisela. Courage and Love. Edina, Minn.: Burgess Printing Co., 1988. Kritzler, Johanna S. Family Memories. Jerusalem, 1996. Lachs, Minna. Warum schaust du zurück: Erinnerungen 1907–1941. Vienna: Europaverlag, 1986. Langer, Marie. Von Wien bis Managua: Wege einer Psychoanalytiker. Frankfurt: Kore, 1986. Lerner, Gerda. Why History Matters: Life and Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Leser, Norbert, ed. Werk und Widerhall: Grosse Gestalten des österreichischen Sozialismus. Vienna: Wiener Volksbuchhandlung, 1964. Lichtblau, Albert. Als hätten wir dazugehört: Österreichisch-jüdische Lebensgeschichte aus der Habsburgermonarchie. Vienna: Böhlau, 1999. Lieberg, Alice. Remembrances of Things Past. Dedham, Mass.: Sylvester Press, 1993. Lixl-Purcell, Andreas, ed. Erinnerungen deutsch-jüdischer Frauen, 1900–1990. Leipzig: Reclam Verlag, 1992. ———. Women of Exile: German-Jewish Autobiographies since 1933. New York: Greenwood Press, 1988. Mahler, Margaret. The Memoirs of Margaret S. Mahler. Edited by Paul E. Stepansky. New York: Free Press, 1988. Mann, Katia. Unwritten Memories. Edited by Elisabeth Plessen and Michael Mann. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975.
Bibliography
| 267
Michaelis-Jena, Ruth. Heritage of the Kaiser’s Children: An Autobiography. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1983. Nathorff, Hertha. Das Tagebuch der Hertha Nathorff: Berlin-New York Aufzeichnungen 1933 bis 1945. Edited by Wolfgang Benz. Schriftenreihe der Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte, vol. 54. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1987. Orfali, Stephanie Braun. A Jewish Girl in the Weimar Republic. Berkeley: Ronin Publishing, 1987. Pongratz, Ludwig J., et al., eds. Psychologie in Selbstdarstellungen. Bern: Verlag Hans Huber, 1972. Proskauer, Erna. Wege und Umwege: Erinnerungen einer Rechtsanwältin. Edited by Sabine Berghahn and Christl Wickert. Berlin: D. Nishen, 1989. Quittner, Genia. Weiter Weg nach Krasnogorsk: Schicksalsbericht einer Frau. Vienna: Fritz Molden, 1971. Renthe-Fink, Barbara von. So alt wie das Jahrhundert: Lebensbericht einer Berliner Ärztin. Frankfurt: Edition Fischer, 1982. Rothschild, Recha. Verschlungene Wege: Identitätssuche einer deutschen Jüdin. Edited by Karin Hartewig. Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1994. Sallis-Freudenthal, Margarete. Ich habe mein Land gefunden: Autobiographischer Rückblick. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Josef Knecht, 1977. Scholem, Gershom. From Berlin to Jerusalem. New York: Schocken Books, 1980. Sender, Toni. The Autobiography of a German Rebel. New York: Vanguard, 1939. Sichel, Frieda H. Challenge of the Past. Johannesburg, 1975. Silving, Helen. Helen Silving Memoirs. New York: Vantage Press, 1989. Spiel, Hilde. Die hellen und die finsteren Zeiten: Erinnerungen 1911–1946. Munich: List Verlag, 1989. Spinelli, Ingrid Warburg. Die Dringlichkeit des Mitleids und die Einsamkeit, nein zu sagen. Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz Verlag, 1990. Stang, Fanny. Fräulein Doktor. Sussex: Book Guild, 1988. Stein, Edith. Life in a Jewish Family, 1891–1916. In The Collected Works of Edith Stein, Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Discalced Carmelite. Edited by L. Gelber and Romaeus Leuven. Vol. 1. Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications, 1986. Straus, Rahel. Wir lebten in Deutschland. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1961. Susman, Margarete. Ich habe viele Leben gelebt: Erinnerungen. Stuttgart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, 1964. Taussky-Todd, Olga. “Olga Taussky-Todd: An Autobiographical Essay.” In Donald J. Albers and G. L. Alexanderson, eds., Mathematical People: Profiles and Interviews, 309–36. Boston: Birkhäuser, 1986. Tiburtius, Franziska. Erinnerungen einer Achtzigjährigen. 3rd ed. Berlin: C. A. Schwetschke, 1929. Varon, Benno Weiser. Professions of a Lucky Jew. New York: Cornwall Books, 1992. Wachenheim, Hedwig. Vom Grossbürgertum zur Sozialdemokratie: Memoiren einer Reformistin. Berlin: Colloquium Verlag, 1973. Weisskopf-Joelson, Edith. Father, Have I Kept My Promise? Madness as Seen from Within. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1988. Wertheimer, Martha. “In mich ist die grosse dunkle Ruhe gekommen”: Briefe an Siefried Guggenheim in New York, 1939–41. No. 8. Frankfurt: Frankfurter Lern- und Dokumentationszentrum des Holocaust, n.d. Wolff, Charlotte. Hindsight. London: Quartet Books, 1980.
268
| Bibliography
———. On the Way to Myself: Communications to a Friend. London: Methuen, 1969. Zaloscer, Hilde. Eine Heimkehr gibt es nicht. Vienna: Löcker Verlag, 1988. Zweig, Stefan. The World of Yesterday. New York: Viking Press, 1943.
STATISTICAL AND OTHER PUBLISHED PRIMARY SOURCES Boedeker, Elisabeth, ed. 25 Jahre Frauenstudium in Deutschland. 4 vols. Hannover: C. Trute, 1935–39. Bund österreichischer Frauenvereine. Frauenbewegung, Frauenbildung und Frauenarbeit in Österreich. Vienna, 1930. Davie, Maurice R. Refugees in America: Report of the Committee for the Study of Recent Immigration from Europe. New York: Harper, 1947. Der deutsche Hochschulsführer: Lebens- und Studienverhältnisse an der deutschen Hochschulen. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1930–33. Deutsche Hochschulstatistik. Vols. 1–8. Berlin: Struppe & Winckler, 1928–32. Doeberl, Michael, ed. Das akademische Deutschland. Vol. 3. Berlin: C. A. Weller Verlag, 1930. Dreissig Jahre Frauenstudium in Österrreich, 1897–1927. Vienna, 1927. Geyer, Anna. Die Frauenerwerbskeit in Deutschland. Jena: Thüringer Verlagsanstalt, 1924. Herrmann, Judith. Die deutsche Frau in akademischen Berufen. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1915. Hirsch, Max. Über das Frauenstudium: Eine soziologische und biologische Untersuchung auf Grund einer Erhebung. Leipzig: Curt Kabitzsch, 1920. Jende-Radomski, Hilde. Akademische Frauenberufe. Dessau: Dünnhaupt, 1929. Österreichisches Statistisches Zentralamt. Geschichte und Ergebnisse der zentralen amtlichen Statistik in Österreich 1829–1979. Vienna, 1979. Plothow, Anna. Die Begründerinnen der deutschen Frauenbewegung. 2nd ed. Leipzig: Rothbarth, 1907. Preussische Hochschulstatistik. Berlin: Struppe & Winckler, 1928. Silbergleit, H. Die Bevölkerungs- und Berufsverhältnisse der Juden im Deutschen Reich. Vol. 1. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1930. Stelzner, Helenefrederike. “Der weibliche Arzt.” Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, 38, no. 26: 1243–44 (June 1912); 38, no. 27: 1290–91 (July 1912). Stücklen, Gerta. Untersuching über die soziale und wirtschaftliche Lage der Studentinnen. Göttingen: Dietrich, 1916. Titze, Hartmut. Das Hochschulstudium in Preussen und Deutschland 1820–1944. Datenbuch zur deutschen Bildungsgeschichte. Vol. 1, Part 1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987. ———. Wachstum und Differenzierung der deutschen Universitäten, 1830–1945. Datenbuch zur deutschen Bildungsgeschichte. Vol. 1, Part 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995. Verband der Akademikerinnen. Das Frauenstudium an der Schweizer Hochschule. Zurich, 1928. Verzeichnis nichtarischer Rechtsanwälte Deutschland. Berlin: Scherk, 1934. Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden. Berlin, 1905–31.
Bibliography
| 269
BIOGRAPHIES, COLLECTIVE BIOGRAPHIES, AND BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARIES Alexander, Franz, et al., eds. Psychoanalytic Pioneers. New York: Basic Books, 1966. Appignanesi, Lisa, and John Forrester. Freud’s Women. New York: Basic Books, 1992. Barnouw, Dagmar. Visible Spaces: Hannah Arendt and the German-Jewish Experience. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990. Batzdorff, Susanne M. Aunt Edith: The Jewish Heritage of a Catholic Saint. Springfield, Ill.: Templegate Publishers, 1998. Beale, G. H. Charlotte Auerbach. Edinburgh: The Royal Society, 1995. Bernstein, Richard J. Hannah Arendt and the Jewish Question. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996. Biographisches Lexikon der österreichischer Frau. Vienna, 1984. Boedeker, Elisabeth, and Maria Meyer-Plath, eds. 50 Jahre Habilitation von Frauen in Deutschland. Göttingen: O. Schwartz, 1974. Brewer, James W., and Martha K. Smith, eds. Emmy Noether: A Tribute to Her Life and Work. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1981. Bruch, Joanne Hatch. Unlocking the Golden Cage: An Intimate Biography of Hilde Bruch, M.D. Carlsbad, Calif.: Gürze Books, 1996. Buehne, Sheema Z., et al., eds. Helen Adolf Festschrift. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1968. Busemann, Hertha. Insel der Geborgenheit: die Private Waldschule Kaliski, Berlin 1932–39. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1992. Bussmann, Hadumod, ed. Stieftöchter der Alma Mater? 90 Jahre Frauenstudium in Bayern— am Beispiel der Universität München. Munich: Verlag Antje Kunstmann, 1993. Christmann, Hans Helmut. Frau und “Jüdin” an der Universität: Die Romanistin Elise Richter (Wien 1865–Theresienstadt 1943). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980. Claus, Sybille, et al., eds. International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigres 1933–1945/Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933. Research Foundation for Jewish Immigration. 4 vols. Munich: KG Saur. 1980–83. Crawford, Deborah. Lise Meitner, Atomic Pioneer. New York: Crown Publishers, 1969. Deegan, Mary Jo, ed. Women in Sociology: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991. Deichmann, Hans. Leben mit provisorischer Genehmigung: Leben, Werk und Exil von Dr. Eugenie Schwarzwald (1872–1940). Berlin: Guthmann-Peterson, 1988. Dick, Auguste. Emmy Noether 1882–1935. Translated by H. I. Blocher. Boston: Birkhäuser, 1981. Dick, Jutta, and Marina Sassenberg, eds. Jüdische Frauen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert: Lexikon zu Leben und Werk. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1993. Dickstein, Leah J., and Carol C. Nadelson. Women Physicians in Leadership Roles. Washington, D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, 1986. Ettinger, Elzbieta. Hannah Arendt/Martin Heidegger. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Fassmann, Irmgard Maya. Jüdinnen in der deutschen Frauenbewegung, 1865–1919. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1996. Feyl, Renate. Der lautlose Aufbruch: Frauen in der Wissenschaft. Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben, 1981. Frederiksen, Elke. Women Writers of Germany, Austria and Switzerland: An Annotated BioBibliographical Guide. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989.
270
| Bibliography
Funke, Hajo, ed. Die andere Erinnerung: Gespräche mit jüdischen Wissenschaftlern im Exil. Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag, 1989. Greffrath, Mathias, ed. Die Zerstörung einer Zukunft: Gespräche mit emigrierten Sozialwissenschaftlern. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1979. Grinstein, Louise S., et al., eds. Women in the Biological Sciences: A Biobibliographic Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. ———. Women in Chemistry and Physics: A Biobibliographic Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1993. ———. Women of Mathematics: A Biobibliographic Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987. Hahn, Barbara. Frauen in den Kulturwissenschaften von Lou Andreas-Salome bis Hannah Arendt. Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1994. Häntzschel, Hiltrud, and Hadumod Bussmann. Bedrohlich gescheit: Ein Jahrhundert Frauen und Wissenschaft in Bayern. Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1997. Herbstrith, Waltraud. Edith Stein. New York: Harper & Row, 1985. Herdan-Zuckmayer, Alice. Genies sind im Lehrplan vorgesehen. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1979. Heuer, Renate. Bibliographia Judaica: Verzeichnis jüdischer Autoren deutscher Sprache. 3 vols. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, n.d. “Hier ist kein bleiben länger.” Jüdische Schulgründerinnen in Wilmersdorf. Berlin: Wilmersdorf Museum, 1992. Honegger, Claudia, and Theresa Wobbe, eds. Frauen in der Soziologie: Neun Portraits. Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1998. Hornstein, Gail A. To Redeem One Person Is to Redeem the World: The Life of Frieda FrommReichmann. New York: Free Press, 2000. Jäckle, Renate, ed. Schicksale jüdischer und “staatsfeindlicher” Ärztinnen und Ärzte in München. Munich: Die Liste, 1988. (Japhe, Fanny.) Ha-Rofa’ah. (The Woman Doctor: In Memory of Dr. Fanny Japhe.) Kibbutz Hefzibah, Israel, 1966. (In Hebrew.) Kaznelson, Siegmund, ed. Juden im deutschen Kulturbereich. Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1959. Kerner, Charlotte. Lise, Atomphysiker: Die Lebensgeschichte der Lise Meitner. Weinheim/ Basel: Beltz, 1986. Kersey, Ethel M., ed. Women Philosophers: A Bio-Critical Source Book. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1989. Kliner-Fruck, Martina. “Es ging ja ums Überleben”: Jüdische Frauen zwischen Nazi-Deutschland, Emigration nach Palästina und ihrer Rückkehr. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 1995. Klöhn, Sabine. Helene Simon (1862–1947). Deutsche und britische Sozialreform und Sozialgesetzgebung im Spiegel ihrer Schriften und ihr Wirken als Sozialpolitikerin im Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer Republik. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1982. Kuhn, Annette, Brigitte Mühlenbruch, and Valentine Rothe. 100 Jahre Frauenstudium: Frauen der Rheinischen Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. Bonn: Edition Ebersbach, ca. 1996. Lexikon der Frau. 2 vols. Zurich: Encyclios Verlag, 1953–54. Lowenthal, Ernst G. Juden in Preussen: Ein biographisches Verzeichnis. Berlin: Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1981. Maushart, Marie-Ann. “Um mich nicht zu vergessen”: Hertha Sponer—Ein Frauenleben für die Physik im 20. Jahrhundert. Bassum: Verlag für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik, 1997.
Bibliography
| 271
McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch. Nobel Prize Women in Science: Their Lives, Struggles and Momentous Discoveries. New York: Birch Lane Press, 1993. Mühlleiter, Elke. Biographisches Lexikon der Psychoanalyse: Die Mitglieder der Psychoanalytischen Vereinigung 1902–38. Tübingen: Diskord, 1992. O’Connell, Agnes N., and Nancy Felipe Russo, eds. Women in Psychology: A Bio-Bibliographic Sourcebook. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1990. Osen, Lynn M. Women in Mathematics. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974. Perl, Teri. Math Equals: Biographies of Women Mathematicians. Menlo Park, Calif.: AddisonWesley, 1978. Peters, Uwe Henrik. Psychiatrie im Exil: Die Emigration der Dynamischen Psychiatrie aus Deutschland 1933–39. Düsseldorf: Kupka, 1992. Peyser, Dora, ed. Alice Salomon, Die Begründerin des sozialen Frauenberufs in Deutschland: Ihr Leben und ihr Werk. Cologne: Carl Heymanns Verlag, 1958. Pross, Christian, and Rolf Winau, eds. Nicht misshandeln: Das Krankenhaus Moabit. Berlin: Hentrich, 1984. Rattner, Josef. Klassiker der Tiefen-Psychologie. Munich: Psychologie Verlags-Union, 1990. Rayner-Canham, Marlene F. and Geoffrey W., eds. A Devotion to Their Science: Pioneer Women of Radioactivity. Philadelphia: Chemical Heritage Foundation; Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1997. Richarz, Monika, ed. Jewish Life in Germany: Memoirs from Three Centuries. Translated by Stella P. Rosenfeld and Sidney Rosenfeld. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991. ———. Jüdisches Leben in Deutschland. Vol. 2: Selbstzeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte im Kaiserreich. Vol. 3: Selbstzeugnisse zur Sozialgeschichte 1918–1945. Stuttgart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, 1979, 1982. Rife, Patricia Elizabeth. Lise Meitner and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age. Boston: Birkhäuser, 1999. Ring, Jennifer. The Political Consequences of Thinking: Gender and Judaism in the Work of Hannah Arendt. Albany: SUNY Press, 1997. Roazen, Paul. Helene Deutsch: A Psychoanalyst’s Life. Garden City: Anchor/Doubleday, 1989. Sassenberg, Marina, ed. Apropos Selma Stern. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Neue Kritik, 1998. Sayers, Janet. Mothering Psychoanalysis: Helene Deutsch, Karen Horney, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein. New York: W.W. Norton, 1991. Schenk-Danzinger, Lotte, and Hans Thomae Bonn, eds. Gegenwartsprobleme der Entwicklungspsychologie: Festschrift für Charlotte Bühler. Göttingen: Verlag für Psychologie, 1963. Schleier, Hans. Die bürgerliche deutsche Geschichtsschreibung der Weimarer Republik. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1975. Schmidt, Willi, and Christoph J. Scriba, eds. Frauen in den exakten Naturwissenschaften. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1990. Schmitt, Heinz ed. Juden in Karlsruhe. Karlsruhe: Badenia Verlag, 1988. Schöttler, Peter, ed. Lucie Varga Zeitenwende: Mentalitätshistorische Studien 1936–1939. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991. Seeber, Ursula, ed. Die Zeit gibt die Bilder: Schriftsteller, die Österreich zur Heimat hatten. Vienna: Zirkular, 1992. Shearer, Benjamin F. and Barbara S., eds. Notable Women in the Physical Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Sherman, Claire Richter, and Adele M. Holcomb, eds. Women as Interpreters of the Visual Arts, 1820–1979. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981.
272
| Bibliography
Sicherman, Barbara, and C. H. Green, eds. Notable American Women: The Modern Period. Vol. 4. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980. Siegel, Patricia Joan, and Kay Thomas Finley. Women in the Scientific Search: An American Bio-Bibliography 1724–1979. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1985. Sime, Ruth Lewin. Lise Meitner: A Life in Physics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Stadler, Friedrich, ed. Vertriebene Vernunft: Emigration und Exil österreichischer Wissenschaft 1930–40. 2 vols. Vienna: Jugend und Volk, 1987. Standler-Labhart, Verena. Rosa Luxemburg an der Universität Zurich 1889–1897. Zurich: H. Rohr, 1978. Steiner, Herbert, ed. Käthe Leichter: Leben und Werk. Vienna: Europaverlag, 1973. Stephan, Inge. Die Gründerinnen der Psychoanalyse: Eine Entmythologisierun Sigmund Freuds in zwölf Frauenporträte. Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag, 1992. ———. Das Schicksal der begabten Frau im Schatten berühmter Männer. Stuttgart: Kreuz Verlag, 1989. Stevens, Gwendolyn, and Sheldon Gardner. Women of Psychology. 2 vols. Cambridge: Schenkman Publishers, 1982. Stiefel, Ernst C., and Frank Mecklenburg. Deutsche Juristen im amerikanischen Exil (1933– 1950). Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1991. Strauss, Herbert A., ed. Jewish Immigrants of the Nazi Period in the U.S.A. Vol. 3/1: Oral History. New York: K. G. Saur, 1982. Strauss, Walter. Signs of Life: Jews from Wuerttemberg. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1982. Szöllösi-Janze, Margit. Fritz Haber. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1998. Uglow, Jennifer S., and Frances Hinton, eds. International Dictionary of Women’s Biography. New York: Continuum/Macmillan, 1982. Unschuld, Paul U. Die Ärztin und der Maler: Carl Jung-Dörfler und Hedwig Danielewicz. Düsseldorf: Triltsch Verlag, 1994. von Leitner, Gerit. Der Fall Clara Immerwahr: Leben für eine humane Wissenschaft. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1993. Walk, Joseph. Kurzbiographien zur Geschichte der Juden 1918–1945. New York: K. G. Saur, 1988. Wall, Renate. Verbrannt, verboten, vergessen: Kleines Lexikon deutschsprachiger Schriftstellerinnen 1933 bis 1945. Cologne: Paul-Rugenstein, 1988. Wehl, Yaakov and Hadassah. House Calls to Eternity: The Story of Dr. Selma Wehl, Heroine of Medical Practice and Torah Living. Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications, 1987. Weidemann, Doris. Leben und Werk von Therese Benedek 1892–1977: Weibliche Sexualität und Psychologie des Weiblichen. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1988. Wickert, Christl. Unsere Erwählten: Sozialdemokratische Frauen im Deutschen Reichstag und im Preussischen Landtag 1919 bis 1933. 2 vols. Göttingen: Sovec, 1986. Wieler, Joachim, and Susanne Zeller, eds. Emigrierte Sozialarbeit: Portraits vertriebener SozialarbeiterInnen. Freiburg: Lambertus Verlag, 1995. Wolman, B. B., ed. International Encyclopedia of Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Neurology. 6 vols. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1972. Wimmer, Reiner. Vier jüdische Philosophinnen: Rosa Luxemburg, Simone Weil, Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt. Tübingen: Attempto Verlag, 1990. Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth. Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.
Bibliography
| 273
Zapf, Lilli. Die Tübinger Juden: Eine Dokumentation. Tübingen: Katzmann Verlag, n.d. Zusne, Leonard, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Psychology. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984.
UNPUBLISHED DOCTORAL DISSERTATIONS AND MASTER’S THESES Göllner, Renate. “Mädchenbildung um Neunzehnhundert: Eugenie Schwarzwald und ihre Schulen.” University of Vienna, 1986. Heitcamp, Reinhard. “Hilde Bruch (1904–1984), Leben und Werk.” Medical Faculty, University of Cologne, 1987. Hirsch, Luise. “Juden an Schulen und Universitäten in Deutschland 1848–1918.” Freie Universität Berlin, 1994. Lind, Anna. “Das Frauenstudium in Österreich, Deutschland und in der Schweiz.” University of Vienna, 1961. Rife, Patricia Elizabeth. “Lise Meitner: The Life and Times of a Jewish Woman Physicist,” Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities, 1983. Sillem, Dorothee. “Deutschsprachige Ärztinnen im amerikanischen Exil 1933–1945.” Freie Universität Berlin, 1994. Tournier, Michelle. “L’accès des femmes aux études universitaires en France et en Allemagne (1861–1967).” Paris, 1972.
BOOKS Albisetti, James C. Schooling German Girls and Women: Secondary and Higher Education in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988. Backhaus-Lautenschläger, Christine. . . . Und standen ihre Frau: Das Schicksal deutschsprachiger Emigrantinnen in den USA nach 1933. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1991. Benker, Gitta, and Senta Störmer. Grenzüberschreitungen: Studentinnen in der Weimarer Republik. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1991. Bischof, Günter, Anton Pelinka, and Erika Thurner, eds. Women in Austria. Contemporary Austrian Studies, vol. 6. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1998. Bock, Petra, and Katja Koblitz, eds. Neue Frauen zwischen den Zeiten. Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1995. Bock, Ulla, and Dagmar Jank. Studierende, lehrende und forschende Frauen in Berlin: 1908– 1945 an der Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin; 1948–1990 Freie Universität Berlin. Berlin: Universitätsbibliothek der Freie Universität Berlin, 1990. Bonner, Thomas Neville. To the Ends of the Earth: Women’s Search for Education in Medicine. Cambridge.: Harvard University Press, 1992. Bridenthal, Renate, Atina Grossmann, and Marion Kaplan, eds. When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany. New York: Monthly Review, 1984. Brinkschulte, Eva, ed. Weibliche Ärzte: Die Durchsetzung des Berufsbildes in Deutschland. Institut für Geschichte der Medizin der Freien Universität Berlin. Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1993. Burchardt, Anja. Blaustrumpf-Modestudentin-Anarchistin? Deutsche und russische Medizinstudentinnen in Berlin 1896–1918. Stuttgart/Weimar: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1997. Buselmeier, Karin, et al., eds. Auch eine Geschichte der Universität Heidelberg. Mannheim: Edition Quadrat, 1985.
274
| Bibliography
Carlebach, Julius, ed. Zur Geschichte der jüdischen Frau in Deutschland. Berlin: Metropol Verlag, 1993. Cocks, Geoffrey, and Konrad H. Jarausch, eds. German Professions, 1800–1950. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Cohen, Gary B. Education and Middle-Class Society in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918. West Lafeyette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1996. Cohors-Fresenborg, Barbara. Frau Onkel Doktor: Untersuchung über die Anfänge des Frauenstudiums in der Medizin anhand von Fragebögen und Interviews mit Ärztinnen. Münster: Lit Verlag, 1989. Deichmann, Ute. Biologists Under Hitler. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996. Deutscher Juristinnenbund. Juristinnen in Deutschland: Eine Dokumentation, 1900–1984. Munich: J. Schweitzer, 1984. Eckelmann, Christine. Ärztinnen in der Weimarer Zeit und im Nationalsozialismus: Eine Untersuchung über den Bund Deutscher Ärztinnen. Wermelskirchen: Verlag der Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technik, 1992. Eifert, Christiane, and Susanne Rouette. Unter allen Umständen: Frauengeschichte(n) in Berlin. Berlin: Rotation, 1986. Forkl, Martha, and Elisabeth Koffmahn. Frauenstudium und Akademische Frauenarbeit in Österreich. Vienna: W. Braumüller, 1968. Gardner, Sheldon, and Gwendolyn Stevens. Red Vienna and the Golden Age of Psychology, 1918–1938. New York: Praeger, 1992. Giovannini, Norbert. Zwischen Kaiserreich und Faschismus: Heidelberger Studentinnen und Studenten, 1918–45. Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag, 1990. Glaser, Edith. Hindernisse, Umwege, Sackgassen: Die Anfänge des Frauenstudiums in Tübingen 1904–1934. Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag, 1992. Good, David F., Margarete Grandner, and Mary Jo Maynes, eds. Austrian Women in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. Providence: Berghahn Books, 1996. Grossmann, Atina. Reforming Sex: The German Movement for Birth Control and Abortion Reform, 1920–1950. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Heid, Ludger, and Arnold Pauker, eds. Juden und deutsche Arbeiterbewegung bis 1933: Soziale Utopien und religiös-kulturelle Traditionen. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1992. Heindl, Waltraud, and Marina Tichy, eds. “Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück . . .” Frauen an der Universität Wien (ab 1897). Schriftenreihe des Universitätsarchivs Universität Wien, vol. 5. Vienna: WUV-Universitätsverlag, 1990. Hoesch, Kristin. Ärztinnen für Frauen: Kliniken in Berlin 1877–1914. Stuttgart: Verlag J. B. Metzler, 1995. Huerkamp, Claudia. Bildungsbürgerinnen: Frauen im Studium und in akademischen Berufen, 1900–1945. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996. Hyman, Paula E. Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History: The Roles and Representation of Women. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995. Ingrisch, Doris. “Alles war das Institut!” Eine lebensgeschichtliche Untersuching über die erste Generation von Professorinnen an der Universität Wien. Vienna: Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, 1993. Jacobi, Juliane, ed. Frauen zwischen Familie und Schule. Professionalisierungsstrategien bürgerlicher Frauen im internationalen Vergleich. Frankfurt: Böhlau Verlag, 1994. Kaplan, Marion A. Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Bibliography
| 275
———. The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany: The Campaigns of the Jüdischer Frauenbund, 1904–1938. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979. ———. The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. Kass-Simon, G., and Patricia Farnes. Women of Science: Righting the Record. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990. Lamm, Hans, ed. Von Juden in München: Ein Gedenkbuch. Munich, 1958. Lehmann, Hartmut, and James L. Sheehan, eds. An Interrupted Past: German-Speaking Refugee Historians in the U.S. after 1933. Cambridge: German Historical Institute, 1991. Lohschelder, Britta. “Die Knäbin mit dem Doktortitel”: Akademikerinnen in der Weimarer Republik. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus-Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994. Lüdke, Helga, ed. Leidenschaft und Bildung: Zur Geschichte der Frauenarbeit in Bibliotheken. Berlin: Orlanda Frauenverlag, 1992. Meinel, Christoph, and Monika Renneberg. Geschlechterverhältnisse in Medizin, Naturwissenschaft und Technik. Bassum/Stuttgart: Verlag für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik (GNT), 1996. Mertens, Lothar. Vernachlässigte Töchter der Alma Mater: Ein sozialhistorischer und bildungssoziologischer Beitrag zur strukturellen Entwicklung des Frauenstudiums in Deutschland seit der Jahrhundertwende. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1991. Meyer, Michael A., ed. German-Jewish History in Modern Times. 4 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996–98. Nauck, Ernst Theodor. Das Frauenstudium an der Universität Freiburg im Breisgau. Beiträge zur Freiburger Wissenschafts- und Universitätsgeschichte, vol. 3. Freiburg: Verlag Eberhard Albert Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1953. Neumann, Daniela. Studentinnen aus dem Russischen Reich in der Schweiz, 1867–1914. Zurich: Hans Rohr, 1987. Pickus, Keith H. Constructing Modern Identities: Jewish University Students in Germany 1815–1914. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999. Plaschka, Richard Georg, and Karlheinz Mack, eds. Wegenetz europäischen Geistes II: Universitäten und Studenten. Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik, 1987. Pohl, Hans, ed. Die Frau in der deutschen Wirtschaft. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag, 1985. Pulzer, Peter. The Jews and the German State: The Political History of a Minority, 1848–1933. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992. Quack, Sibylle, ed. Between Sorrow and Strength: Women Refugees of the Nazi Period. Washington, D.C./Cambridge: German Historical Institute/Cambridge University Press, 1995. ———. Zuflucht Amerika: Verfolgung, Vertreibung, Einwanderung: Zur Sozialgeschichte deutsch-jüdischer Emigrantinnen nach 1933. Bonn: Dietz, 1995. Rohner, Hanny. Die ersten 30 Jahre des medizinischen Frauenstudiums an der Universität Zürich, 1867–1897. Zurich: Juris-Verlag, 1972. Roseman, Mark, ed. Generations in Conflict: Youth Revolt and Generation Formation in Germany 1770–1968. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Rozenblit, Marsha L. The Jews of Vienna, 1867–1914: Assimilation and Identity. Albany: SUNY Press, 1983. Schlotzhauer, Inge. Das Philanthropin 1804–1942: Die Schule der israelitischen Gemeinde in Frankfurt am Main. Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Waldemar Kramer, 1990. Schlüter, Anne, ed. Pionierinnen, Feministinnen, Karrierefrauen? Zur Geschichte des Frauenstudiums in Deutschland. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, 1992.
276
| Bibliography
Schröder, Wilhelm Heinz, ed. Lebenslauf und Gesellschaft. Stuttgart: Ernst Klett Verlag, 1985. Shepherd, Naomi. A Price Below Rubies: Jewish Women as Rebels and Radicals. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993. Sklar, Kathryn Kish, Anja Schüler, and Susan Strasser, eds. Social Justice Feminists in the United States and Germany: A Dialogue in Documents, 1885–1933. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998. Soden, Kristine von, and Gaby Zipfel, eds. Siebzig Jahre Frauenstudium: Frauen in der Wissenschaft. Cologne: Paul-Rugenstein, 1979. Stephan, Inge, Sabine Schilling, and Sigrid Weigel, eds. Jüdische Kultur und Weiblichkeit in der Moderne. Cologne/Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1994. Stock, Phyllis. Better Than Rubies: A History of Women’s Education. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1978. Tobies, Renate, ed. “Aller Männerkultur zum Trotz”: Frauen in Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften. Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 1997. Usborne, Cornelie. The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. von Ankum, Katharina, ed. Women in the Metropolis: Gender and Modernity in Weimar Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Wertheim, Margaret. Pythagoras’ Trousers: God, Physics, and the Gender Wars. New York: Times Books, 1995. Whiteman, Dorit Bader. The Uprooted: A Hitler Legacy. New York: Plenum Press, 1993. Ziegeler, Beate. Weibliche Ärzte und Krankenkassen: Anfänge ärztlicher Berufstätigkeit von Frauen in Berlin 1893–1935. Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag, 1993. Zuckerman, Harriet, Jonathan Cole, and John T. Bruer, eds. The Outer Circle: Women in the Scientific Community. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1991.
ARTICLES Binder, Christa. “Hilda Geiringer: ihre ersten Jahre in America.” Amphora. Festschrift für Hans Wussing zu seinem 65. Geburtstag. Basel: Birkhäuser Verlag, 1992, 25–53. Boehm, Laetitia. “Von den Anfängen des akademischen Frauenstudiums in Deutschland.” Historisches Jahrbuch, 77 (1958), 298–327. Dudgeon, Ruth A. “The Forgotten Minority: Women Students in Imperial Russia, 1872–1917.” Russian History, 9 (1982), 1–26. Dürkop, Marlis. “Erscheinungsformen des Antisemitismus im Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine.” Feministische Studien, 1 (1984), 140–50. Embacher, Helga. “Aussenseiterinnen: bürgerlich, jüdisch, intellektuel—links.” L’Homme Zeitschrift für Feministische Geschichtswissenschaft, 2, no. 2 (1991). Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 57–76. Freidenreich, Harriet Pass. “Gender, Identity, and Community: Jewish University Women in Germany and Austria.” In In Search of Jewish Community: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918–1933, ed. Michael Brenner and Derek Penslar, 154–75. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998. ———. “Jewish Identity and the ‘New Woman’: Central European Jewish University Women in the Early Twentieth Century.” In Gender and Judaism, ed. T. M. Rudavsky, 113–22. New York: New York University Press, 1995. ———. “Jewish Women Physicians in Central Europe in the Early Twentieth Century.” Contemporary Jewry, 17 (1996), 79–105.
Bibliography
| 277
Gilbert, Felix. “Desirable Elements: Refugee Professors at Bryn Mawr in the ’30’s and ’40’s.” In Patricia Hochschild Labalme, ed., A Century Recalled, 73–86. Bryn Mawr, Pa.: Bryn Mawr College Library, 1987. Grossmann, Atina. “German Women Doctors from Berlin to New York: Maternity and Modernity in Weimar and in Exile.” Feminist Studies, 19, no. 1 (Spring 1993), 65–87. Häntszchel, Hiltrud. “Der Exodus von Wissenschaftlerinnen: Jüdische Studentinnen an der Münchner Universität und was aus ihnen wurde.” Exil: Forschung, Erkenntnisse, Ergebnisse, 2 (1992), 43–52. ———. “Die Philologin Eva Fiesel (1891–1937).” Jahrbuch der deutschen Schiller-Gesellschaft, 38 (1994), 339–63. Heindl, Waltraud, and Rudolf Wytek. “Die jüdischen Studentinnen an der Universität Wien 1897–1938.” In Der Wiener Stadttempel, Die Wiener Juden, 137–50. Vienna: J&V Edition, 1988. Hildesheimer, Esriel. “Cora Berliner: Ihr Leben und Wirken.” Bulletin des LBI, 67 (1984), 41–70. Hubenstorf, Michael. “Österreichische Ärzteemigration 1934–1945: Zwischen neuem Tätigkeitsgebiet und organisierten Rückkehrplänen.” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 7 (1984), 85–107. Huerkamp, Claudia. “Frauen, Universitäten und Bildungsbürgertum. Zur Lage studierender Frauen 1900–1933.” In Hannes Siegrist, ed., Bürgerliche Berufe: Zur Sozialgeschichte der freien und akademischen Berufe im internationalen Vergleich, 200–22. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1988. ———. “Jüdische Akademikerinnen in Deutschland, 1900–1938.” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 19 (1993), 311–31. Jank, Dagmar. “‘Neben 51 Herren auch zwei Damen:’ Die ersten Studentinnen in Berlin.” Emma, 5, no. 92, 28–31. Johnson, Jeffrey A. “German Women in Chemistry, 1895–1925 (Part I)” and “German Women in Chemistry, 1925–1945 (Part II),” NTM, 6 (1998), 1–21, 65–90. Jütte, Robert. “Hedwig Hintze (1884–1942): Die Herausforderung der traditionellen Geschichtsschreibung durch eine linksliberale jüdische Historikerin.” In Walter Grab, ed., Juden in der deutschen Wissenschaft, 249–79. Tel Aviv: Jahrbuch des Instituts für Deutsche Geschichte, 1986. Kaplan, Marion A. “Priestess and Hausfrau: Women and Tradition in the German-Jewish Family.” In Steven M. Cohen and Paula E. Hyman, eds., The Jewish Family: Myths and Reality, 62–81. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1986. ———. “Tradition and Transition: The Acculturation, Assimilation and Integration of Jews in Imperial Germany—A Gender Analysis.” LBIYB, 27 (1982), 3–36. Kater, Michael H. “Krisis des Frauenstudiums in der Weimarer Republik.” Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte (W. Germany), 59, no. 2 (1972), 207–55. Kellenbach, Katharina von. “‘God Does Not Oppress Any Human Being’: The Life and Thought of Rabbi Regina Jonas.” LBIYB, 39 (1994), 213–26. Klönne, Irmgard. “‘1933 wurde das anders. Da habe ich alles Jüdische betont.’ Edith Wolff genannt EWO—Eine Würdigung.” Ariadne, 23 (May 1993), 28–33. Korotin, Ilse. “. . . Vorbehaltlich eines jederzeit zulässigen Widerrufes genehmigt”: Philosophinnen an der Wiener Universität bis 1938.” IWK Mitteilungen, no. 2, 1992. Kröner, Hans-Peter. “Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner 1933–1945.” Exilforschung: Ein internationales Jahrbuch, 6 (1988), 83–98. ———. “Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner im Nationalsozialismus.” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 12 (1989), Sonderheft, 1–44.
278
| Bibliography
Lafleur, Ingrun. “Five Socialist Women: Traditionalist Conflicts and Socialist Visions in Austria, 1893–1934.” In Marilyn J. Boxer and Jean H. Quataert, eds., Socialist Women: European Socialist Feminism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 215–48. New York, 1978. Lange, Thomas. “Emigration nach China: Wie aus Klara Blum Dshu Bailan wurde.” Exilforschung, III (1985), 339–48. Mehrwald, Silke, and Leonie Wagner. “Vertriebenes Wissen: Jüdische Wissenschaftlerinnen in Deutschland.” Ariadne, 23 (May 1993), 23–27. Moore, Deborah Dash. “Trude Weiss-Rosmarin and the Jewish Spectator.” In Carole S. Kessner, ed., The “Other” New York Jewish Intellectuals, 101–21. New York: New York University Press, 1994. Oestreich, Brigitta. “Hedwig und Otto Hintze: Eine biographische Skizze,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 11 (1985), 397–419. Pickus, Keith H. “German Jewish Identity in the Kaiserreich: Observations and Methodological Considerations.” Jewish History, 9, no. 2 (1995), 73–91. ———. “Jewish University Students in Germany and the Construction of a Post-Emancipatory Jewish Identity.” LBIYB, 39 (1994), 65–82. Preston, David L. “The German Jews in Secular Education, University Teaching, and Science: A Preliminary Inquiry,” Jewish Social Studies, 38, no. 2 (Spring 1976), 99–116. Schmelz, Uriel O. “Die demographische Entwicklung der Juden in Deutschland von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis 1933.” Bulletin des LBI, 83 (1989), 15–63. Schöttler, Peter. “Lucie Varga: A Central European Refugee in the Circle of the French ‘Annales’, 1934–1941.” History Workshop Journal, 33 (1992), 100–20. Simmel-Joachim, Monika. “Hilde Lion zum 100. Geburtstag (1893–1970),” Ariadne, 23 (May 1993), 34–39. Steiner, Herbert. “Käthe Leichter.” In Österreich in Geschichte und Literatur, 18 (1974), 273–79. Timm, Angelika. “Zur Biographie jüdischer Hochschullehrerinnen in Berlin bis 1933. Nach Materialien des Archivs der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.” Tel Aviver Jahrbuch für Deutsche Geschichte, 21 (1992), 243–58. Tournier, Michelle. “Women and Access to University in France and Germany (1861– 1967).” Comparative Education, 9 (October 1973), 107–17. Voswinckel, Peter. “Selma Meyer—erste Professorin für Kinderheilkunde.” Ärztin, 1 (1990), 11–14. Weigert, Edith. “In Memoriam, Frieda Fromm-Reichmann, 1889–1957.” Psychiatry, 21 (February 1958), 91–95. Wierling, Dorothee. “Studentinnen in der Weimarer Republik.” In Bürgerliche Gesellschaft in Deutschland, 364–85. Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag, 1990. Wobbe, Theresa. “Mathilde Vaerting (1884–1977): Eine Intellektuelle im Koordinatensystem dieses Jahrhundert.” Jahrbuch für Soziologiegeschichte (1991), 27–68.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS IN ENGLISH BY JEWISH UNIVERSITY WOMEN Anderson, Evelyn. Hammer or Anvil: The Story of the German Working-Class Movement. London: V. Gollancz, 1945. Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Viking Press, 1963.
Bibliography
| 279
———. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. ———. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1951. 3rd ed., 1966. ———. Rahel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess. London: East-West Library, 1958. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1974. Badt-Strauss, Bertha. White Fire: The Life and Times of Jessie Sampter. New York: Reconstructionist Press, 1956. Reprint, 1977. Baumgarten, Franziska. The Psychology of Human Relations in Industry. London/New York: Pitman, 1950. Benedek, Therese. Depression and Human Existence. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1975. ———. Parenthood: Its Psychology and Psychopathology. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1970. ———. Psychosexual Functions in Women. New York: Ronald Press, 1952. Bieber, Margarete. Alexander the Great in Greek and Roman Art. Chicago: Argonaut, 1964. ———. The History of the Greek and Roman Theater. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. Bruch, Hilde. Conversations with Anorexics. Edited by Danita Czyzewski and Melanie A. Suhr. New York: Basic Books, 1988. ———. Eating Disorders: Obesity, Anorexia Nervosa and the Person Within. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Bühler, Charlotte. The Child and His Family. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1972. Reprint of 1939 edition. ———. The Course of Human Life: A Study of Goals in the Humanistic Perspective. New York: Springer, 1968. ———. Introduction to Humanistic Psychology. Monterey: Brooks/Cole, 1972. Deutsch, Helene. Neuroses and Character Types: Clinical Psychoanalytic Studies. New York: International Universities Press, 1965. ———. Psychoanalysis of the Sexual Functions of Women. Edited by Paul Roazen. London: Karnac, 1991. ———. The Psychology of Women. 2 vols. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1944–45. Edinger, Tilly. Paleoneurology 1804–1966: An Annotated Bibliography. Berlin: SpringerVerlag, 1975. Fischer, Ruth. Stalin and German Communism: A Study in the Origins of the State Party. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948. Frenkel-Brunswik, Else, with Theodor W. Adorno, Daniel J. Levinson, and R. Nevitt Sanford. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper & Row, 1950. ———. Motivation and Behavior. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 16. Provincetown, Mass.: The Journal Press, 1942. Fromm, Erika. Intelligence: A Dynamic Approach. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955. ———. Psychoanalysis and Hypnosis. Madison, Conn.: International Universities Press, 1997. Fromm-Reichmann, Frieda. An Intensive Study of Twelve Cases of Manic Depressive Psychosis. Washington, D.C.: Washington School of Psychiatry, 1954. ———. Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy: Selected Papers of Frieda Fromm-Reichmann. Edited by Dexter M. Bullard. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1959. Ginor, Fanny. Socio-economic Disparities in Israel. Tel Aviv: David Horowitz Institute/New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1979. Jacobi, Jolande. The Psychology of C. G. Jung. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1951.
280
| Bibliography
Jahoda, Marie, and Nathan W. Ackerman. Anti-Semitism and Emotional Disorder: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation. New York: Harper, 1950. ———. Employment and Unemployment: A Social-Psychological Analysis. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. ———. Race Relations and Mental Health. Paris: UNESCO, 1960. Klein, Viola. Britain’s Married Women Workers. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965. ———. The Feminine Character: History of an Ideology. New York: International Universities Press, 1949. Langer, Marie. Motherhood and Sexuality. Translated by Nancy Caro Hollander. New York: Guilford Press, 1992. Leibowitz, Nehama. Studies in the Weekly Sidra. Translated by Aryeh Newman. 7 vols. Rev. ed., Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, 1985. Mahler, Margaret S. On Human Symbiosis and Vicissitudes of Individuation. New York: International Universities Press, 1968. Reichmann, Eva G. Hostages of Civilisation, The Social Sources of National Socialist AntiSemitism. London: Victor Gollancz, 1950. Reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970. Salomon, Alice. Education for Social Work: A Sociological Interpretation Based on an International Survey. Zurich/Leipzig: Verlag für Recht und Gesellschaft, 1937. ———. Labor Laws for Women in Germany. London: Women’s Industrial Council, 1907; Berlin: Strand, 1907. Sichel, Frieda. From Refugee to Citizen: A Sociological Study of the Immigrants from HitlerEurope Who Settled in Southern Africa. Capetown: A.A. Balkema, 1966. Silving, Helen. Constituent Elements of Crime. Springfield, Ill.: Thomas, 1967. ———. Immigration Laws of the United States. New York: Oceana Publications, 1948, 1953. Spiel, Hilde. Fanny von Arnstein: A Daughter of the Enlightenment, 1758–1818. Translated by Christine Shuttleworth. New York: Berg, 1991. Stern, Selma. The Court Jew: A Contribution to the History of the Period of Absolutism in Central Europe. Translated by Ralph Weiman. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1950. Reprint, 1985. ———. Josel of Rosheim, Commander of Jewry in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Translated by Gertrude Hirschler. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1965. Weiss-Rosmarin, Trude. Jewish Women Through the Ages. New York: Jewish Book Club, 1940. ———. Judaism and Christianity: The Differences. New York: Jewish Book Club, 1943. Reprint, 1972. Wolff, Charlotte. Love Between Women. London: Gerald Duckworth, 1973. ———. Magnus Hirschfeld: A Portrait of a Pioneer in Sexology. London: Quartet Books, 1986. Wunderlich, Frieda. Farm Labor in Germany, 1810–1945. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961. ———. German Labor Courts. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1946.
INDEX
Abitur: requirements for, 6; preparation for, 8, 14–16; as ordeal for women, 14, 15; taken as externs, 15; not required for teachers, 223n48 Abortion, 155, 246n52; supporting legalization of, 83, 85, 133, 146, 154, 199, 252n73, 252n76; as illegal, 171 Academic appointments: difficulty in attaining, 45, 52, 59, 60, 64–65, 68, 73–74, 121, 193, 200, 235n80, 238n18, 261n44; requirements for, 64–65; mentors needed for, 65; of women, 65, 73–79, 120–122, 130, 131, 198, 236n100, 236–237n101, 238nn20,21; dismissal from, 165, 167–168, 255n18; in emigration, 184, 188–191, 192, 193 Academy for the Science of Judaism, Berlin, 121, 239n24 Adelsberger, Lucie, 173–174, 177, 257nn40,56 Adler, Alexandra, 260n27 Admission to university: of women, 4, 8, 9; in U.S., 4; requirements for, 6; in Switzerland, 8; in Austria, 9; in Germany, 9 Adoption, 131, 247nn74,76 Advanced courses for women: in Russia, 7; in Vienna, 14, 15; in Berlin, 15; in Stettin, 25 Age cohorts, 219n14; older generation, xix, 87, 113; younger generation, xix, 88; and marriage, 110, 114, 132; and motherhood, 113, 117; and emigration, 175, 183, 200; and the Holocaust, 177; lost generation, 200 Agronomy, 236n87 Aichhorn, August, 86 Akademie für Wissenschaft des Judentums, 121, 239n24 Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, 188, 189 Altmann-Gottheiner, Elisabeth, 63, 78, 149 Altrichterova, Ema Jablonowera, 257n56, 261n43 American Friends Service Committee, 183 Anatomy: discrimination against women studying, 53, 54–55 Anatomy Institute, Vienna, 54–55, 56–57 Angel-Katan, Anny, 151, 260n27 Anschluss, 161, 163, 178 Anthropology: as field of study, 236n91 Antisemitism: in civil service appointments, 6, 68, 81, 87; in school hiring, 12, 13, 17, 58,
61, 69, 234n57; in Wandervogel, 38, 230n90; awareness of, 39–40, 143, 164; impact on Jewish identity, 39–40, 142; impact on career choices, 39, 50, 164–165, 234n57; at universities, 55–57, 61, 66, 73–74, 77, 142, 234n62; prevalence of, 63, 193, 196; in job market, 67, 68, 87–88, 113, 198; within German woman’s movement, 148, 149, 155; within political parties, 159; in the United States, 190, 196; research on, 190–191. See also Nazi Germany; Quotas Arbeiterkammer, Vienna, 152, 158 Archeology, 60, 74–75, 237n101 Architects, 236n87 Arendt, Hannah: early awareness of antisemitism of, 39; goals of, 60; photo of, 91; Jewish identity of, 134, 140, 145, 248n16; personal life of, 140, 155, 245n39, 249n31; research of, 145, 190–191; internment of, 179; as émigré, 190–191; family of, 225n7, 226n36 Argentine Psychoanalytic Association, 193 Arrests: of socialist women, 153, 173, 178, 179; of husbands, 172, 176. See also Deportations Art education, 5, 19, 20, 21, 28 Art historians, 25, 28, 125–126, 193, 235n84 Art history: as field of study, 60, 116, 235n81 Aspirations: of high school girls, 2, 41; of women students, 45–46, 52–53, 59, 60–61, 63 Association for Advanced Courses for Women, Vienna, 14 Association of German Citizen Women, 156 Association of Socialist Physicians (VSÄ), 150, 154; photo of, 103 Association of University Women, 150, 151 Auditors: Jewish women as, 9, 14, 44, 53, 220n15; stereotypes of, 43–44; mothers as, 51, 225n9, 234n55 Auerbach, Charlotte, 226n36, 238n18, 247n74, 256n21, 257n41 Aunts: university women as, 132, 247n76 Auschwitz, 169, 173, 179, 249n37 Austria: Jewish population of, 2–3; university education in, 6, 9, 10; Jewish women students from, 8–9; women as professors in,
282
| Index
14, 73, 74, 121, 151; return to, 181, 185, 192, 261nn43,44. See also Anschluss; Civil War, Austria; Vienna Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ), 158–159, 160 Austrian identity, 142, 160 Austrittsgemeinde, 32, 33, 144 Autobiographies. See Memoirs Awards: granted to women, 75, 76, 153, 185 Baden: women admitted to universities in, 9 Bader, Lillian Stern, 10, 15, 72, 225n7, 250n49 Badt-Strauss, Bertha, 145, 225n7 Bai-Lan, Dshu. See Blum, Klara Bailyn, Lotte Lazarsfeld, 131, 247n73, 262n3 Baptism, xvii, xix, xx, 2, 23, 120–121, 136–138, 149; age of, 36, 73, 75, 80, 137, 161, 229n81, 248n10; unwillingness to accept, 37, 39, 40; and academic hiring, 73, 75, 77–78, 137; and politics, 159. See also “Former Jews” Bauer, Helene Gumplowicz, 158, 245n40 Bauer, Otto, 158 Bauer-Mengelberg, Käthe, 78, 240n38 Baum, Doris Elisabeth, 229n89 Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, 188 Belgium, 175, 179, 258n70 Bell, Susan Groag, 201 Benedek, Therese Friedmann, 52, 87, 176, 188, 245n49 Berent, Margarete, 79–80, 147, 150, 151, 184 Berg, Marie Hirsch, 248n8 Berg-Platau, Lilli, 82, 251n59 Berlin: education of Jewish children in, 5–6; as major Jewish center, 19; as assimilated Jewish community, 32; as university city, 46; Jewish women teachers in, 70–71, 72, 169; Jewish schools in, 72, 169, 256n22; women physicians in, 82–83, 123, 171, 241n48; Jewish socialists in, 254n96 Berlin, University of: Jewish women enrolled at, 9, 26, 54; women with doctorates from, 22, 47, 148–149, 156, 169; stereotypes of women at, 43–44; popularity of, 46; academic appointments for women at, 65, 74, 75, 77, 120, 125, 150, 236n100, 237n101, 239n30; dismissal of Jews from, 168 Berliner, Cora, 78, 79, 145, 147, 170, 227n43; photo of, 93 Bern: University of, 8; anti-war conference in, 305 Bernays, Marie, 72–73, 254n93 Berwin, Beate, 40, 226n21 Biberstein, Erna Stein: family of, 29, 123, 225n6, 226n36; as physician, 82, 123, 251n59; photo of, 90, 105 Biberstein, Hans, 123 Bible scholars, women as, 185
Bibring, Grete Lehner, 87, 151, 245n49, 260n27 Bieber, Margarete: career of, 60, 74–75, 237n101; photo of, 95; as baptized Jew, 137, 167, 230n95; as parent, 131; as émigré, 167, 256n21; political orientation of, 254n93 Bildung, xvii, 2, 4, 18, 20, 198 Bildungsbürgertum, 5, 17 Bing, Gertrud, 155 Biographies: of Jewish women, 145, 219n11 Biology: as field of study, 236nn87,91; careers in, 236n100, 238nn18,19, 239n30 Birth control: clinics for, 7, 83, 85, 123, 154, 155; advocacy of, 83, 133, 146, 154–155, 199; use of, 253n79 Birth order, 22, 26–27, 30, 227nn42,43 Birthplaces: of Jewish university women, xix, 19 Birthrate: of Jews, 17, 27, 108 Blackwell, Elizabeth, 4 Blau, Marietta, 75, 151, 239n28, 261n44 Blau-Weiss, 38 Bloch, Karola Piotrkowski, 158, 245n40, 261n43 Blochmann, Elisabeth, 238n19, 255n18, 261n44 Blücher, Heinrich, 140, 245n39 Bluestockings: fear of, 25, 45 Blum, Klara, 185, 192–193, 258n63 B’nai B’rith Women, 135, 146 Boarding houses, 47, 48, 51, 183 Bodenheimer, Brigitte Levy, 184 Bodenheimer, Rosy Bender, 115–116 Bonn, University of, 46, 74, 169 Bosnia, 28, 193 Bourgeois-Democratic Workers’ Party, Austria, 151, 254n94 Boycott Day (April 1, 1933), 170–171 Boys: envy of, 14, 23, 32; wearing clothing of, 23, 32; relationships with, 31 Brandt, Margarete, 260n27 Braun, Emilie Melchior, 138, 144, 226n21, 258n70 Braun-Vogelstein, Julie, 25, 120, 224n53, 232n30, 235n84, 245nn40,41 Braunschweig, 139 Brazil, 175, 187 Breslau, 19, 29, 46; University of, 46, 59, 117, 236n100 Bridenthal, Renate, 201 Britain: emigration to, 168, 178, 179, 181, 237n10, 238n14, 256n21; physicians in, 186; academic appointments in, 237n102, 247n73 Brooklyn College, New York, 10, 256n25 Brothers: as role models, 17, 24, 28, 226n22; resentment of, 29 Bruch, Hilde, 50, 87, 188, 226nn22,36, 227n43, 229n76, 234n54, 247n76; photo of, 89, 107
Index Bruch family: photo of, 89 Brunel College, England, 247n73 Brunswik, Egon, 189 Bryn Mawr College, 130, 246n71, 261n33 Bühler, Charlotte Malachowski: as student, 45–46, 48; marriage of, 65, 116, 121–122, 244n37, 245n40; as mentor, 65, 130; academic career of, 77, 121–122, 243n21; as mother, 127, 129; as émigré, 176; as child, 227n42, 229n81, 248n10 Bühler, Karl, 65, 121–122, 130, 176 Bukovina, 2, 8 Bund deutscher Ärztinnen (BDÄ), 150, 154, 167 Bund deutscher Frauenvereine (BDF), 22, 147, 148–149, 167 Burial: in Christian cemetery, 140–141, 194; in Jewish cemetery, 194 Burschenschaften, 48, 56 Buttinger, Joseph, 159 Careers: in academia, difficulty in attaining, 45, 59, 60, 61; choices regarding, 52–53, 61, 62, 68, 83–84, 132; and families, 108–109, 111, 116–118, 122–131, 197, 201; and marriage, 120–126, 197; in emigration, 176, 192, 183–190, 192–193, 200 Carlbach, Rabbi Joseph, 72 Carleton University, Ottawa, 193 Catholicism: conversion to, 28–29, 73, 75, 136, 137–138. See also Baptism Charité Hospital, Berlin, 83 Chicago Institute of Psychoanalysis, 176 Celibacy: as requirement for women teachers, 13, 53, 113, 243n19 Centralverein (CV), 144–145 Chajes Realgymnasium, Vienna, 72 Chaperone, 231n17 Chemistry: as field of study, 117–118, 236n87; careers in, 236n100, 239nn29,30 Child analysts, 86–87, 116, 188, 238n16 Child custody, 130, 131 Childcare, 109, 118, 123, 126–128, 131, 132, 197 Childhood: description of, 19–20, 30–32 Children: raising of, 115–118, 122–138, 172; separation from, 126, 127, 131; love of, 131–132, 247n74; working with, 63, 68, 84, 86–87, 174, 199 China, 185, 192–193 Christianity: attraction to, 36. See also Baptism; Catholicism; Protestantism Christmas: celebration of, 34, 37, 136 Church attendance, 36 City College, New York, 10 Civil rights: acquisition of, 2–3; loss of, 165 Civil servants: Jews not hired as, 6, 62, 80; women as, 70–71, 78–81, 83, 85; dismissal of, 70, 83, 165, 167–168, 171
| 283
Civil War, Austria, 153, 161, 165 Classics: as field of study, 60, 72, 169, 183, 185, 234n57, 237n101 Clothing: man-tailored, 10, 44, 197; boys’, 23, 32; styles for women, 43–44; lack of concern about, 31, 51, 76, 77 Co-education, 4; lack of, 30, 31 Cohen, Hermann, 145 Cohn, Gerte Jacoby, 177 Cohn, Hilde, 261n33 Collaboration: husband-wife, 122–126 College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, 188, 189 Cologne, 19; University of, 46 Columbia University, New York, 131, 188, 189 Commerce: as occupation for Jewish men, 6, 18, 24 Communists: Jewish women as, 154, 158–159, 254n92; during Nazi era, 162, 163, 178; after World War II, 192, 193, 261n43 Commuter students, 17, 19, 46, 50, 54, 231n16 Competition: in job market, 43, 44, 68, 87, 88, 113, 164 Concentration camps, 153, 172, 173, 174, 177, 249n37, 257n56. See also Deportations; Holocaust Confirmation ceremony, 38, 229n89 Conrat, Erica, 125–126, 129, 225n7, 230n95 Cooking: avoidance of, 20, 51, 83; required to learn, 22, 25 Cori, Carl, 188 Cori, Gerty Radnitz, 137, 188–189, 227nn39,42 Cottage-Lyzeum, Vienna, 72, 238n16 Cram courses for women, 15, 16 Crawford, Deborah, 131 Curie, Marie Skladowska, 11, 55, 61, 235n86 Czechoslovakia, 178, 179, 261n43 Dancing classes, 5, 31, 117; dislike of, 18, 31 David, Alice, 258n63 Davis, Natalie Zemon, 179 Dentists, 187, 235n73 Deportations, 170, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179 Depression, impact in 1930s of the, 46, 88, 113, 164 Deutsch, Felix, 124, 128; photo of, 101 Deutsch, Helene Rosenbach: as socialist, 11; family of, 23–24, 227n43, 257n41; career of, 85, 86–87, 129; photo of, 101; marriage of, 124, 245n49; extra-marital relationship of, 124, 155, 246n52; views on motherhood of, 124, 127–128; friendships of, 151; research of, 153–154; as émigré, 188; leaving home to study, 224n53; as Polish nationalist, 230n99 Deutsch, Maria Herzmansky, 261n43
284
| Index
Deutsche Akademie für soziale und pädagogische Frauenarbeit, Berlin, 149, 150 Deutsche Demokratische Partei (DDP), 28, 36, 78, 156, 159 Deutsche Volkspartei (DVP), 254n93 Deutscher Juristinnenverein, 150 Discrimination against women: as students, 53–56, 61–62, 66; as foreign students, 56; in academia, 64–65, 73–78, 85–86, 188–190; as professionals, 67–68, 70, 86, 164–166, 196, 198; as “double earners,” 67, 163, 165; in Nazi Germany, 165, 170; in emigration, 181, 184, 185, 187, 188–190 Dismissal from jobs: on racial grounds, 70, 71, 75, 81, 120, 125, 165, 167–168, 170, 239n27, 240n46, 255n18; as women, 80, 81, 83, 165, 170 Divorcées, 21, 116, 130–131, 175–176, 187, 201, 225n7, 245n50 Doctoral dissertations: in medicine, 52; topics of, 60, 62, 63, 244n30, 250n49; on Jewish subjects, 60, 63, 145, 147, 235n82; on women, 63, 150; requirements for, 64 Doctorates: honorary, 14, 149, 152; requirements for, 52, 64, 66; completion of, 57, 61, 62, 63–64, 115–116, 234n55, 244n28; incomplete, during Nazi era, 163, 164, 165, 234n74; revocation of, 165; recipients of multiple, 233n45 Doktorväter. See Mentors Domestic help: employment of, 19, 21, 109, 111, 123, 126–129, 197; émigrés working as, 179, 182–183 Dormitories: for women students, 48, 232n24 “Double earners”: regulations against, 67, 80, 165; attitudes toward, 108–109, 113, 163 Dowries: need for, 25–26; rejection of, 26, 119 Dresden, 65, 121, 156 Dress: of women students, 10–11, 43–45; for women, 43; critique of, 189 Düsseldorf, 236n100, 239n30 Economics. See Political economy Economists: women as, 24, 28, 31, 67, 78–79, 152, 157–158 Edinger, Dora Meyer, 146–147 Edinger, Fritz, 174 Edinger, Tilly, 67, 174, 226n27, 258n66 Editors, 24, 68, 78, 144–145, 157, 185, 240n39 Education, early: of Jewish boys, 4–6; of Jewish girls, 5–6, 15, 221n14; at home, 5, 14, 15. See also Jewish education, for girls Educators: fathers and daughters as, 24, 71; women as, 12–13, 69–73. See also Teachers Egypt, 28, 178, 187, 193, 245n39, 260n18 Ehrenfried, Lydia, 21, 154, 234nn54,57, 258nn68,70 Ehrenhaft-Steindler, Olga, 238n16
Einstein, Hertha. See Nathorff, Hertha Einstein Eisler, Elfriede. See Fischer, Ruth Eisner, Lotte, 158, 226n21, 235n84, 253n80, 258nn63,66,68,70 Eissler, Ruth, 260n27 Electricity: in Jewish homes, 20 Elion, Gertrude, 260n29 Emancipation of Jews: in Germany and Austria, 2–3; impact on women, 3; delayed in Russia, 3–4; reversal of, in Germany, 165 Emigration: adaptation to, xxi, 131, 181–190; impact on older generation, xxi, 181, 183–184; impact on younger generation, xxi, 183; reasons for, 163; waves of, 163, 178; of academics, 167, 168, 178; difficulties involved in, 171–176, 178; fear of, 174, 177; of socialists, 178–179 Émigrés: single women as, 174, 186, 189–190; married women as, 174, 183–184, 187–189; physicians as, 182, 186–188; lawyers as, 184; teachers as, 184–185; writers as, 185–186; academic women as, 188–189, 256n21 Engineers: fathers as, 24, 234n55; Jewish women as, 234n55, 236n87 Epstein, Tilly, 71, 170 Erdmann, Rhoda, 255n18 Erlangen, University of, 46, 76 Etruscan philology, 60, 73, 130, 167 Ewald, Ella Philippson, 244n25 Examinations: at university, 44, 47, 54, 64; for professional accreditation, 64. See also Abitur Families: size of, 26–27, 33, 108, 114, 197, 226n36, 244n25; with daughters only, 27, 226nn39,40 Fassmann, Maya, 148 Fathers: as decision-makers, 3, 135; as role models, 17, 18, 21, 24, 28, 31, 226n21, 234nn55,57; relationship with, 23–24, 31–32; rebellion against, 24, 33, 36; as supportive, 24–25, 28, 49–51; disapproval of, 25, 33 Federation of German Women Physicians (BDÄ), 150, 154, 167 Federation of German Women’s Associations (BDF), 22, 147, 148–149, 167 Fellowships, 74, 122, 151 Femininity: downplaying of, 18, 76, 77, 83; ambivalence about, 23, 31–32, 41, 228n60; in dress and behavior, 44, 47, 197 Feminist organizations: involvement in, 22, 78, 146, 148–150, 155 Feminists: identification as, xx, 148–150, 151, 155, 199; mothers as, 21, 25; Jewish university women as, 22, 83, 146, 148–150, 156, 197; stereotypes of, 43–44; social values of, 63, 83–84; goals of, 148; socialists as, 152–155; socialist critique of, 152, 193; antisemitism among, 148, 149, 155, 166
Index Fenchel, Käte, 258n65 Ferchland, Nathalie Ziegelroth, 28, 137, 227n44 Fett, Gudrun Stoeltzner, 139, 234n55, 244n25 Field of study: choice of, 45, 49–50, 51–53, 57–61, 62–63 Fiesel, Eva Lehmann, 60, 73, 130, 167–168, 248n10, 256n21, 261n33 Figner, Vera, 11 Financial difficulties, 46, 50, 130, 233n48 Financial support, 17, 41, 49–50, 67, 74, 87, 127 Fischer, Ruth, 158, 178, 258n66 Foldes-Roth, Elisabeth, 234n54 Foreign students: in Switzerland, xv, 7–9, 10–11, 218n3; in Germany, xv, 9, 44, 56; in Austria, xv, 9, 16; discrimination against, 56 “Former Jews,” xx, 33, 34, 36–37, 39, 136–139, 248n7; as educators, 72–73; as academics, 73; marriages of, 119, 138, 245n30; political orientation of, 159, 253n93; as Germans, 161; as “non-Aryans,” 161, 167 Foster, Edith, 36 Fox, Esther, 257n56 Fraenkel-Schulze, Marta, 175–176 France, 176, 178, 179, 186, 187, 258nn63,70 Frankenthal, Käte, 219n10; appearance of, 44, 83, 231n8; lack of housekeeping skills of, 51, 83; career of, 82–84; as unconventional, 83, 155; dismissal from job, 83, 167; emigration of, 83, 178; as feminist, 83, 250n49; as municipal deputy, 83, 133, 157; photo of, 103; decision not to marry, 111–112; Jewish identity of, 133, 134; organizational involvement of, 150, 154; as émigré, 182; leaving home to study, 224n58; personal life of, 253n80 Frankfurt am Main, 5, 19, 26, 46, 71, 156; Orthodox community in, 32, 33, 38, 144, 164; University of, 46, 71, 236n100, 238n19 Franklin, Rosalind, 260n29 Franzos, Karl Emil, 60 Fraternities: exclusion of women from, 42, 48, 66; exclusion of Jews from, 48; Jewish, 48 Freiburg, University of, 45, 46, 47, 56, 61; women with doctorates from, 70, 73, 78, 233n45, 235n80; academic appointments for women at, 236n100, 239n30 Freie Wissenschaftliche Vereinigung, 49 Frenkel-Brunswick, Else, 189, 190, 227n43, 246n55 Freud, Anna, 87, 238n16 Freud, Sigmund, 86, 124 Freudenberg, Elsa Liefmann, 244n25 Freudenthal, Berthold, 248–249n17 Freudenthal, Margarete David, 116, 120, 226n36, 231n24, 237n103, 224n30, 245n40, 248–249n17, 250n49
| 285
Freundlich, Elisabeth, 185, 261n43 Freyhan, Käte Levi, 72, 169, 238n14 Freytag, Katherina, 131 Friedländer, Kate, 260n27 Friedmann, Friederike, 261n43 Friedrichs, Christopher, 139 Friedrichs, Nellie Bruell, 139–140, 225n7, 229n89, 244n25, 257n41 Friendships, 39, 40, 48, 76, 131, 132, 151, 193; with Jews, 135, 138, 142, 143, 251n59 Frischauf, Maria Pappenheim, 261n43 Fromm, Erich, 245n50 Fromm-Reichmann, Frieda, 85, 87, 188, 227n42, 245nn49,50, 247n76 Furtmüller, Aline Klatschko, 12, 158, 178–179, 259n6 Galicia: migration of Jews from, 2–3, 19; women students from, 11, 12, 16, 23, 59–60, 158; Orthodox Jews from, 32, 33, 140, 229n88 Geiringer, Hilda: as single parent, 130; career of, 168, 236n100, 239n30; as émigré, 186, 246n71, 248n8, 256n21, 258n65, 260n18, 261n33; family of, 227n43 Generations of students. See Age cohorts Geneva, University of, 8–9, 239n30 Geneva Medical College, New York, 4 Geology, 236n87 Gerhard, Melitta, 73, 161, 237n101, 239n27, 256n21 German Association for Woman Suffrage, 146 German Communist Party (KPD), 158, 159 German culture: adoption by Jews of, 2, 4, 18, 19, 20, 160; pride in, 40, 161–162 German Democratic Party (DDP), 28, 36, 78, 156, 159 German Democratic Republic (East Germany), 185, 193, 261n43 German identity, xx, 40, 136, 143, 160–162, 167, 194 German language and literature, 2, 20; study of, 59, 60, 145, 192, 235n81; academic appointments in, 73, 161, 239n101; in emigration, 184–185, 192–193 German People’s Party (DVP), 254n93 German-Jewish symbiosis, 144 Germany: Jewish population of, 2; return to, 181, 185, 192, 261n44 Giessen, University of, 46, 74, 115, 131, 237n101 Ginsburg, Sara, 258n70 Girls: expectations of, 1, 3, 22, 24, 33, 46, 111; challenging conventional norms for, 1, 10, 18, 20, 23–24; considered incapable of studying, 6, 25, 53, 55 Gleichschaltung, 167 Gluecksohn-Waelsch, Salome, 61–62, 164–165, 189, 260n31
286
| Index
Goitein, Rahel. See Straus, Rahel Goitein Goldberg, Lea, 60, 185 Goldmann, Salka, 72, 238n16 Goldschmidt, Leonore, 72, 256n22 Goldstern, Marie Bernstein, 244n25 Göttingen, University of, 46, 65, 75–77, 235n80, 236n100 Gourfein, Leonore Welt, 8–9, 239n30 Governesses, 14, 15, 19, 179 Grandparents: Jewish observances of, 34, 37, 142–143, 236n71 Greifswald, University of, 46, 83 Grossmann, Atina, 85, 109, 127, 201 Grünspan, Berta, 260n27 Grünwald-Eisfelder, Hanna, 258nn63,70 Guggenheimer, Hedwig. See Hintze, Hedwig Guggenheimer Gurs, France, 179, 257n56, 258n68 Gutmann, Ruth Zaloscer, 28–29, 257n56 Gutmann-Isakower, Salomea, 260n27 Gymnasium education: for girls, 2, 10, 11, 14, 15–16, 33, 60; for boys, 5, 6; in Russia, 8 Gynecologists, 53, 82, 84, 199 Haber, Clara Immerwahr, 9, 13, 61, 117–118, 137, 227n43; photo of, 93 Haber, Fritz, 117–118, 244n34 Habilitation: women ineligible for, 59, 64; of women, 64–65, 73–74, 236n100, 238nn19,20,21; denial of, 73–74, 238n18 Habilitationsschrift, 74, 76, 120; not required, 75, 239n30 Hadra, Eleanor, 234n54 Hahn, Otto, 76; photo of, 79 Haimberger-Tanzer, Margarete Eisenstädtler, 261n44 Hairstyles: cut short as protest, 21, 32, 43, 44, 197, 231n8; women’s fashions of, 43, 231n8 Hale, Elfriede, 235n82, 257n41 Halle, University of, 9, 44, 46, 51, 227n44, 239n27 Hamburg, 18; University of, 46, 236n100, 239nn27,30 Hamburger, Käte, 192, 261n44 Handelshochschule, Mannheim, 78, 240n38 Handicrafts, 5, 22 Häntzschel, Hiltrud, 74 Harvard University, Cambridge: essay competition of, xviii, 133, 142, 219n10, 247n3; research position at, 173, 174, 176 Ha-Shomer Ha-Ttza’ir, 38 Hebrew: learning of, 35, 37, 38, 72, 138, 140; difficulties with, 182, 184–185; publications in, 185, 186 Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, 191 Heidegger, Martin, 140, 155 Heidelberg, University of, 9, 46, 48, 53–54; women’s student organization at, 48;
antisemitism at, 61; Jewish women with doctorates from, 63, 79, 152; academic appointments for women at, 236n100, 239n30 Heimann, Betty, 60, 236–237n101, 239n27, 256n21 Heindl, Waltraud, 16 Herrmann, Helene, 169 Hertz, Deborah, xvii Hertz, Mathilde, 168, 236n100, 239n30 Herz, Margit, 260n27 Hilbert, David, 76, 77 Hintze, Hedwig Guggenheimer: as certified teacher, 13; academic appointment of, 65, 120, 239n27; marriage of, 116, 120–121, 176, 244n37, 245n40; during Nazi era, 168, 176, 258nn66,70; baptism of, 229n81, 230n95, 248n10; as older student, 232n30 Hintze, Otto, 120–121, 176 Hirsch, Frieda Goldberg, 147, 244n25 Hirsch, Rahel, 33, 65, 183, 194, 226n36, 232n30, 239n30, 252n72; photo of, 97 Hirschhorn, Renate Laserson, 234n55 Historians: women as, 65, 74, 120–121, 191, 201 History: of women, xvii, 145, 201; as field of study, 60; as teaching field for women, 68 Hochschule für Bodenkultur, Vienna, 56, 142 Hochschule für Wissenschaft des Judentums, Berlin, 249n37 Hochstätter, Professor of Anatomy, Vienna, 55 Hoffer, Willi, 86 Höhere Tochter, 22, 41, 44 Holland, 7, 176, 179, 258nn63,70 Holocaust: survivors of, 163–164, 173–174, 176–177, 180, 254–255n2, 257n56, 258nn57,70, 403; victims of, 164, 169, 170, 171, 173, 175, 176, 177, 179, 200, 254–255n2, 257n41, 258n70; in hiding during, 177, 178, 179, 258n57 Homemakers: mothers as, 18, 20–21; university women as, 115–116, 118 Homosexuality, 83, 112, 197, 253n80 Hope, Ruth (Feitelberg), 19, 37, 47–48, 49–50, 143, 226n27 Hospitals: employment in, 67, 81–83, 85, 123, 188 Housekeeping: avoidance of, 20; required to learn, 21, 25; lack of skills in, 51, 116; dissertation on, 116, 244n30; in emigration, 182–183 Huerkamp, Claudia, 16, 17, 27 Humanities: study of, 52, 58–60; academic appointments in, 65, 73–74, 239n27 Hungary, 6, 31, 194 Hunter College, New York, 10 Husbands: as supportive, 109, 377, 260n31; overshadowing wives, 109, 120–122; working
Index for, 115, 116, 118, 120; collaboration with, 118, 120–123, 124–126, 131; choice of, 119–120, 122; role of, 124, 260n31 Husserl, Edmund, 73, 137, 237n103 Igel, Anna Jagendorf, 175 Illness, 14, 23, 29, 169, 179 Immerwahr, Clara, 9, 13, 61, 117–118, 137, 227n43; photo of, 93 Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), 156 India: Austrian ambassador to, 28, 262n44 Inflation: impact of, 46, 50, 74, 88 Institute for Child Research, Vienna, 65, 121 Institute for Infectious Diseases, Berlin, 125 Institute of Child Welfare, Berkeley, 189 Intermarriages, xvii, 17, 19, 137–138, 139–141, 145, 199, 244n37, 245n39; rate of, 119, 244n38, 248n15; during Nazi era, 175–176, 177, 258n57 International Council of Women (ICW), 22, 149 Israel, 181–182, 184–185, 194, 196 Israel Prize, 185 Italy, 179, 260n29 Jacobs, Aletta, 7, 155 Jacobson, Edith, 86, 260n27 Jacoby, Edith Oske, 177 Jahoda, Marie, xv; identity of, 34, 39, 134, 160; research of, 63, 190; as mother, 130–131, 262n3; as socialist, 160, 178–179, 229n82; as émigré, 247n73 Jaspers, Karl, 140 Jena, University of, 46, 56, 86 Jewish community: abandonment of, xix, xx, 2, 36, 72–73, 133, 138, 159; affiliation with, xx, 2, 36, 40, 77, 135, 141; separatist Orthodox, 32, 33, 144; employment in, 79, 144–145, 147, 170; payment of taxes to, 134, 135; status of women in, 135, 147, 199; involvement of women in, 135, 146–147, 166; marginality within, 135–136, 139–140, 199 Jewish education, for girls, 34–36, 41, 72, 140, 144, 199 Jewish identity: varieties of, xix, 32–34, 40–41, 133–146; influence of antisemitism on, 39–40, 142; as reflected in memoirs, 134–135, 247n3; measurement of, 134–135; as private, 135, 139–140; search for, 145. See also “Former Jews”; “Jewish Jews”; “Just Jews” “Jewish Jews,” xx, 33, 34, 35, 38, 40, 74, 136, 144–147, 162, 249n31 Jewish men students: fields of study of, 6, 58, 235n81; as victims of antisemitism, 56–57, 142
| 287
Jewish observances, 33, 41, 138; of Sabbath and festivals, 34, 135, 138–139, 140, 143, 146; of High Holy Days, 34, 37–38, 139–140, 146 Jewish studies: interest in, 59–60, 63, 235n82; competence in, 71, 72; research in, 74, 135, 144–145, 166, 190–191, 201, 235n82, 237n10, 249n37; specialists in, 145, 185, 190–191, 199, 249n37 Jewish women students: Eastern European, xv, 7–8, 218n3, 220n15; as pioneers, 7–9, 33, 51, 63, 66–67; in U.S., 9–10; overrepresentation of, 10, 16–17; as loners, 49, 66; age of, 49; fields of study of, 52, 58, 235n81; antisemitism experienced by, 56–57; number of, 218–219n8 Jewish women’s organizations, 135, 146–147 Jews, self-definition of: by religion, 33, 40, 142, 143; by ethnicity, 33, 134, 140, 194; by descent, 40, 133, 135, 136, 143 Job prospects: lack of, 3, 25; for professional women, 62, 67–68, 164–165, 201; in education, 68, 69–70; in medicine, 68, 81–82, 84–87; in law, 79–80; for married women, 108–109, 113, 129; in Nazi Germany, 165–166; for émigrés, 179, 182 Jobs: part-time, 50, 71, 78, 113, 119, 129, 132, 182; full-time, 50, 87, 113; unpaid, 50, 67, 87, 174, 198; free-lance, 119, 121, 125, 126, 129, 179 Jonas, Rabbi Regina, 249n37 Journalists, 68, 79, 144, 153, 158; in emigration, 179, 184, 185 Judaism: observance of, 32–34; knowledge of, 34–35; rejection of, 36, 133, 140, 229n82; return to, 138, 144, 194, 248–249n17; estrangement from, 141; role of women within, 199, 249n37 Judges: father and daughter as, 24, 80; women as, 28, 79, 80, 240n39, 241n47, 261n44 Jüdischer Frauenbund (JFB), 135, 146–147, 154, 166–167 Jüdischer Kulturbund, 166 Jung-Danielowicz, Hedwig, 137 “Just Jews,” xx, 34–35, 39–40, 136, 141–144, 162 Kahr, Madlyn, 126 Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, Berlin, 75, 118, 168 Kakeles, Sarah Welt, 8–9 Kaliski, Lotte, 72, 169, 256nn22,23, 257n41 Kameraden, 38 Kantorowicz, Gertrud, 155, 235n84, 253n81 Kaplan, Marion, xvii, 1, 58, 201 Karlik, Bertha, 151 Karlsruhe, 19; Orthodox community in, 32, 33 Karlsruhe Girls’ Gymnasium, 2, 14, 53 Karminski, Hannah, 149
288
| Index
Kashevarova-Rudneva, Varvara, 7 Kashrut: observance of, 34, 51, 128, 135, 140, 146, 233n43 Katz, Bertha, 164 Keins, Trude Lebermann, 187 Kempner, Robert, 125, 150 Kempner, Walter, 125 Kempner family: photo of, 102 Kessler-Reis, Ella, 173 Kestenberg, Judith Silberpfennig, 194, 234n55, 257n41 Kiel: Jewish community of, 123; University of, 73, 236n101, 239n27 Kindertransport, 169 Klausner, Edith, 28, 156 Klausner, Gertrud, 28, 156 Klausner, Judith, 28 Klausner-Cronheim, Irma: as pioneer, 9, 11, 15; family of, 28, 50–51; as medical student, 44–45; as physician, 84, 171; as mother, 130; emigration of, 171 Klein, Melanie Reizes, 87, 116, 234n55, 261n3 Klein-Löw, Stella Herzig, 72, 169, 192, 229n82, 237n13, 261n43 Klieneberger-Nobel, Emmy: as teacher, 13, 238n19; her mother as influence, 21–22; as medical researcher, 236n100, 238n19, 239n30; as émigré, 256n21 Knesbach, Fanny. See Stang, Fanny Knesbach Koch, Robert, 125 Kohn, Hedwig, 236n100, 239n30 Konfessionslos, 2, 72, 133, 134, 136, 138, 139, 159 Königsberg, 46; University of, 46, 47 Konopka, Gisela Peiper, 225n6 Koplenig, Hilde Oppenheim, 12, 159, 245n39, 254n92, 258n63, 261n43 Korea, 140–141, 194 Kornfeld, Gertrud, 168, 236n100, 239n30, 256n21 Kosterlitz, Edith Dosmar, 258n70 Kovalevskaia, Sophia, 11, 61 Kramer-Freund, Edith, 257n56 Kraus, Hertha, 261n33 Krause, Charlotte, 60, 239n27 Krause, Rita Smrc¨ka, 138, 257n56 Kretzmer, Lilli Cohen, 162, 257n41 Kris, Marianne Rie, 87, 151, 260n27 Kristallnacht, 163, 178 Kuerti, Rosi Jahoda, 186, 258n65, 260n18 Kultusgemeinde. See Jewish community Kurrein, Charlotte Blau, 115, 120, 245n40 Lachmann, Vera, 60, 72, 169, 185, 256nn22,25 Lachs, Minna Schiffman, 59–60, 192, 261n43 Landtag deputies: in Prussia, 28, 156; in Baden, 254n93 Lange, Helene, 15
Langer, Marie Glas, 11, 12, 23, 87, 178–179, 193, 253n81 Language: as barrier in emigration, 182, 184–185, 187; versatility in, 184–186, 260n18. See also German language and literature; Modern languages Lasch, Agathe, 237n101, 239n27 Laserson, Frieda Orkin, 234n55 Latin America, 178, 179, 181, 186, 187, 193, 196 Law, practice of: women excluded from bar, 62, 64, 79; admission to bar, 64, 68, 79, 80; limitations for women in, 68, 79–80, 261n44; during Nazi era, 165, 170; in emigration, 182, 184, 261n44 Law, study of: by Jewish men, 6; women excluded from, 24; by daughters of lawyers, 24, 28, 63; by Jewish women, 52, 62–64 Law clerks, 67, 79–80 Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, 165 Lawyers: fathers as, 24, 226n23; daughters as, 24, 28; women as, 64, 67, 79–80, 150, 173, 241n47; as husbands, 118, 124, 128, 146; as émigrés, 182, 184; Jewish men as, 240nn42,46 Lazar, Auguste, 261n43 Lazarsfeld, Paul, 130–131 League of Jewish Women (JFB), 135, 146–147, 154, 166–167 Leaving home to study: in Switzerland, 7–9, 19; for Abitur, 15, 24, 224n53; at university, 46–48 Leaving university: to marry, 30, 57, 114–116, 139, 244n25; due to Nazi regime, 57, 114, 163, 164, 165; without doctorate, 59, 61, 70, 114, 235n73, 244n24 Legal aid clinics, 63, 79–80 Lehrhaus, Frankfurt, 145 Leibowitz, Nehama, 60, 185 Leichter, Käthe Pick: as girl, 31, 227nn39,43; ambivalence about femininity, 31, 227n60; socialist activities of, 31, 152–153, 158; research interests of, 63; photo of, 92; as feminist critic, 152; incarceration of, 153, 172–173, 178–179; legacy of, 153; father as role model, 226nn21,23,27; rejection of Judaism, 229n82 Leipzig, University of, 46, 239n27 Lenard, Professor of Physics, Heidelberg, 61 Leo Baeck Institute, New York, 219n9 Lerner, Gerda, 153, 201, 252n69 Lesbians, 112, 197, 253n80 Lessler, Toni, 72, 238n15, 256n22 Leubuscher, Charlotte, 77, 168, 248n10, 256n21 Levi-Montalcini, Rita, 260n29 Lewinsky, Susi Trauman, 237n6
Index Liberals, 36, 144, 152, 156, 159 Librarians, 68, 115, 167, 184, 192 Lieberman, Hermann, 124, 155 Liebeschütz-Plaut, Rahel, 236n100, 239n30 Liebman, Dodo Badt, 35, 61, 70, 158, 226n21 Liefmann, Else, 222n39, 233n45, 257n56, 258n68 Liepman, Ruth Lilienstein, 258n70 Lion, Hildegard, 112, 149–150, 151, 169 Living away from home, 46–48, 49, 232n43 Löffler, Katharina Weiner, 175, 187 London, 183, 194; University of, 190 London School of Economics, 152 Loneliness, 66, 76, 132, 183, 193 “Looking Jewish,” 40, 143, 189 Luxemburg, Rosa, 11, 134, 155, 158 Maas, Johanna, 171 Mahler, Margaret Schoenberger: family of, 22, 31–32, 227n42, 234n54, 257n41; ambivalence about femininity, 31–32; discriminated against, 56; career of, 86–87; as émigré, 86–87, 188; photo of, 98; grave of, 194; leaving home to study, 224n53; marriage of, 228n63 Malachowski, Charlotte. See Bühler, Charlotte Malachowski Manasse, Käte Loewy, 192, 261n44 Mann, Katia Pringsheim, 30, 115, 120, 244n25, 245n40 Mann, Thomas, 30, 115 Mannheim, Karl, 237n103 Mannheim, 19, 54 Marburg, University of, 46 Marital counselling bureaus, 83, 85, 123, 154 Marriage, 108–131; age of, 1, 3, 108, 117, 119, 228n63; as optional, 1, 26; concerns of parents about, 17, 25, 110, 112; uncertainty about, 17, 30–32, 53, 109–111; shortage of Jewish partners for, 17, 110; attitudes toward, 18, 25–26, 110–112, 157; age differences in, 25, 119–120, 226n33; as companionate, 26, 119, 122–126, 128–129, 132, 197; impact on career, 108–109, 118–119, 122–123, 197; postponement of, 112–113, 117, 123, 197; as unequal, 120–122; to one’s boss, 121, 123, 239n24; fictitious, 158, 193, 245n39; and emigration, 175–176. See also Intermarriages Marriage ceremonies: in synagogue, 37, 38, 138, 142; civil, 119; in church, 137–138, 140; during Nazi era, 142, 175 Married women: lack of employment opportunities for, 3, 108–109; economic role of, 21, 225n6; as teachers, 71, 113, 243n19; as physicians, 85, 87, 109, 122–124, 128–129; without children, 113, 120–121; with children, 113, 114–118, 121–129; as students, 115–116, 244n28; obligations of, 132, 182; as volunteers, 146–147, 184; as
| 289
émigrés, 182, 184, 186, 188–189. See also “Double earners” Maternity clinic, 85, 123, 154 Mathematicians: fathers as, 24, 30; daughters as, 24, 76; careers of, 76–77, 130; marriage of, 130 Mathematics: as field of study, 50, 58, 60–61, 236n87; academic appointments in, 76–77, 130, 236n100 Matriculation examinations. See Abitur Matura examination. See Abitur Medical accreditation, 28, 57, 64, 81, 186–187 Medical research: academic appointments for women in, 57, 65, 73, 81, 125, 236n100, 238n19, 239n30; in emigration, 188–189 Medical school: admission of women to, in U.S., 4; Jewish women students in, 7, 8–9, 16, 28, 33, 52, 53–57; opposition to women in, 33, 53; costs of, 49, 52, 53; requirements of, 52, 55; examinations, 52, 54; during Nazi era, 56–57, 235n74; completion of, 57, 64, 235n74; dropping out of, 57, 222; academic appointments for women in, 65, 236n100, 239n30 Medical Surgical Academy, St. Petersburg, 7 Medicine: study of, by Jewish men, 6; as career choice for women, 11, 24, 47, 50, 51, 52–53, 116; practice of, 68, 81–87, 122–124, 154, 170–171; in emigration, 182, 186–188. See also Medical school; Physicians Meitner, Lise: as pioneer, 9, 61; as role model, 11; as teacher, 13, 50; family of, 28, 50, 89, 226n36, 227n43; religious identity of, 36, 137, 229n81, 230n95; femininity of, 44; academic career of, 75–76, 236n100; photo of, 89, 97; friendships of, 131, 151; during Nazi era, 168; grave of, 194; recognition of, 194; as older student, 236n30; as émigré, 258n65 Meitner family: photo of, 89 Memoirs, xviii–xix, 134, 216n13, 247n3 Mende, Käthe, 147 Mensas, 48 Mental health professionals, 68, 83, 84, 85–87, 184, 186, 188. See also Psychoanalysts Mentors: men as, 60, 61–62, 66, 73–74, 130, 137, 237n103; importance of, 64–65; women as, 65, 76, 77; marriage to, 65, 120–122, 130 Menzel, Rudolfine Walltuch, 144 Meseritz, Margarete, 79, 144, 150, 185, 250n49 Meyer, Michael, 141 Meyer, Selma, 112, 234n54, 236n100, 239n30; photo of, 106 Meyer-Frank, Julie, 77, 257n41 Middle-class values: of German Jews, xvii, 1, 2, 17, 18, 19–20, 112, 198; regarding working mothers, 108–109 Migration, 2–3, 19, 178–179, 181, 196
290
| Index
Mises, Hilda Geiringer von. See Geiringer, Hilda Mises, Richard von, 130 Misrachi Women, 146 Moabit Hospital, Berlin, 125 Mobility: of Jews, 19, 196; of university students, 46–48. See also Migration Modern languages: study of, 12, 50, 53, 59, 235n81; as teaching field for women, 13, 59–60, 68, 71, 156, 189; academic appointments in, 65, 236–237n101; expertise in, 184–186, 260n18 Motherhood: and career, 108–109, 117, 122–131; planning for, 112–113; as full-time job, 115, 118; demands of, 117, 118, 124; and medical practice, 122–124, 127–129; guilt concerning, 127–129, 131; protection of, 148; research on, 152, 153–154 Mothers: not role models, 1, 18, 20, 118, 200, 234n55; as homemakers, 18, 20, 21; education of, 20–21; as volunteers, 21; as role models, 21, 53, 200; as feminists, 21; unfulfilled dreams of, 21–22, 52, 225n10; as strong supporters, 21–22, 57, 131; opposing daughters’ aspirations, 22; responsibility for looking after, 22–23, 172–173, 189; rebellion against, 23; not discuss sexuality, 30; as facilitators, 51; concerned about marriage, 112 Motivation: for studying medicine, 52–57; high level of, 57, 114; for study of social science and law, 62–63 Muehsam-Edelheim, Margarete Meseritz, 79, 144, 150, 185, 250n49 Munich, 19, 46, 146, 257n57 Munich, University of, 45, 46, 56; Jewish women with degrees from, 60, 74, 112–113, 121; women faculty at, 73–74, 130, 167 Municipal Council, members of: in Berlin, 83, 133, 157; in Frankfurt, 156, 157; in Vienna, 158 Municipal School Board, Vienna, 158 Munk, Marie: as certified teacher, 13; father as role model, 24, 226nn21,27; as law student, 63–64; as lawyer and judge, 79–80; photo of, 98; attitudes toward marriage, 111; publications of, 150; as youngest child, 227n43; Jewish awareness of, 248n10 Münster, 235n80; University of, 46 Music education, 5, 20, 21 Nanjing, University of, 192 Nathan, Helene, 167 Nathorff, Erich, 123 Nathorff, Hertha Einstein, 219n10, 224n54, 226n21; as physician, 85, 123, 150, 154; identity of, 161; during Nazi era, 167, 172; as émigré, 182–183, 186 National Women’s Service, 78, 80
Nazi Germany: impact of, 57, 71, 134, 161–180, 200, 234n55, 235n74; Jewish schools in, 71–72, 160; legislation against Jews in, 165–166, 167–168, 170–171, 178; persecution of Jews in, 171–174, 175, 199–200; resistance movements against, 178–179, 258n63. See also Holocaust Necheles, Henrietta Magnus, 20, 56, 84, 170–171, 172, 257n41 Nekvasilova, Katerina Adler, 258n70, 261n43 Nepotism: rules against, 188–189, 198 Neumann, Elsa, 9 New School for Social Research, New York, 176, 227n49 New York, 10, 182, 183, 187, 194 New York University, 247n73 Nobel Prize, 76, 188, 260n29 Noether, Emmy: as certified teacher, 13; as daughter of mathematician, 24; as pioneer, 61; as mentor, 65; academic career of, 75, 76–77, 236n100; photo of, 100; recognition of, 195; as oldest child, 227n42; appearance of, 231n8; as aunt, 247n76; as émigré, 256n21, 261n33 Nuremberg, 19 Nuremberg Laws, 163, 165, 176 Nurses, 52, 82, 161, 182, 186 Oberlin College, Ohio, 4 Odenheimer, Paula, 112–113, 118, 181–182, 249n34 Ollendorff, Paula, 167 Orfali, Stephanie Braun, 229n89, 244n25 Organizations, Jewish: involvement in, 135, 146–147, 181–182 Orthodox Jews, 2, 21, 26, 144, 164, 187; as underrepresented, 33; attitudes concerning educating girls, 33; attendance at synagogue as social, 38; as Zionists, 38, 40–41, 249n34; as teachers, 72, 243n16; as students, 140, 233n43; prayer at home, 229n88 Ostracism: of Jews, 166–167, 169, 172 Ottenstein, Berta, 236n100, 239n30, 261n44 Pacifists, 36, 76, 157, 160 Paleontologists, 67, 174 Palestine: emigration to, 9, 29, 40, 116, 118, 178, 179, 181–182, 235n82; adjustment to, 182, 185 Papenek-Akselrad, Rose-Marie, 56, 142, 175 Pappenheim, Bertha, 147, 154, 252n76 Pappenheim, Elsa, 12 Parents: support by, 17, 22, 24–25, 41, 49–51, 74, 127; opposition from, 21–22, 24–25, 26, 33; influence of, 22, 24, 25, 49–50, 51; approval of, 119; leaving behind, 172, 174, 177, 257n41; caring for, 173, 183, 189; rescue of, 174, 257n41. See also Fathers; Mothers
Index Passover: observance of, 34 Patriotism, 32, 40, 161, 162 Pediatricians, 84, 86, 187, 188, 199 Pelteson, Anna, 238n15, 256n22 Perlmann, Gertrude, 258n65 Permission required: to attend classes, 7, 44, 53, 54; for examinations, 44, 50–51, 54 Personal independence: for women, 46, 47–48, 49, 111, 155, 197 Philanthropin, Frankfurt, 5, 35, 71, 169 Philippson, Johanna, 70–71, 169, 237n10 Philology. See Classics; Modern languages Philosophy: as field of study, 29, 47, 59, 60; doctorates in, 60, 235n80 Philosophy, faculty of, 52, 62; male students in, 6, 58; popularity among female students, 13, 58, 69; Jewish women students in, 16, 52, 235n78 Physical appearance: as unattractive, 18, 29–31, 227n53; as less attractive than mother or sister, 30–33; as looking Jewish, 40, 143, 189; as looking German, 40, 168; of women students, 43–45; lack of concern about, 51, 76; as unfeminine, 77, 83, 231n8; as feminine, 86, 111 Physical disabilities. See Illness Physical fitness, 252n73 Physicians: Jewish women as, 7, 28, 81–87, 170–171, 198–199, 227n44, 241n48; trained in Switzerland, 8–9, 28; fathers as, 21, 24, 52; daughters as, 24, 32, 234nn54,57; brothers as, 28, 52, 234n54; uncles as, 52, 234n54; women as, 67, 68, 109, 241n48; specialization of, 68, 84–85, 188; Jewish men as, 81, 84, 241n48; with families, 109, 122–125, 127–129; marriages of, 122–125, 171, 172, 186, 188, 193; support networks of, 150, 151, 257n59; as feminists, 154–155; during Nazi era, 170–172, 173–174, 257–258n56, 258n57; as émigrés, 186–188, 193 Physics: as field of study, 9, 236n87; decision to study, 61, 235n86; academic appointments in, 75–76, 236n100 Physikum examination, 52, 54, 57 Pick, Käthe. See Leichter, Käthe Pick Pirquet, Clemens von, 86 Planck, Max, 75 Platau, Lilli, 82, 257n59 Poets, 185 Political economy: as field of study, 47, 50, 62, 148–149, 152, 158; academic appointments in, 77–79, 240n38 Political involvement: left-wing, xx, 11, 36–37, 156–160, 197, 199; not permitted for women, 3; as liberals, 36, 151–152, 156 Political science. See Political economy Politicians: women as, 26, 28, 78, 83, 156–158, 199; fate of, 178–179
| 291
Pollaczek, Hilda Geiringer. See Geiringer, Hilda Popper, Helene Deutsch, 261n43 Prague, 46; German University of, 188 Prayer, in home, 140, 229n88 Pringsheim, Katia, 30, 115, 120, 244n25, 245n40 Privatdozentinnen, 64, 65, 67, 73–74, 75, 76, 120, 121, 236n100, 239n30 Professional accreditation: requirements for, 52, 64–65; in emigration, 184, 186–188 Professional organizations: involvement in, 123, 150–151; exclusion from, 167 Professionals: Jewish men as, 6, 18, 24, 198; discrimination against women as, 67–68, 196, 198; Jewish women as, 67–88, 186–190 Professors: fathers as, 24; treatment of women by, 53–56, 61–62; as antisemites, 61; women as untenured, 64–65, 73–79, 120–122, 236nn100,101; marriage to, 114, 115, 116, 117–118, 120–122, 184, 188–189, 191, 245n40; women as, in emigration, 184, 185, 188–190, 191, 192, 193, 246n71, 247n73, 256nn21,25, 261nn33,44 Proskauer, Erna Aronsohn, 40, 80, 182, 192, 261n44 Protestant religious education, 36, 73, 139 Protestantism: conversion to, 23, 136–137. See also Baptism Prussia: women admitted to universities in, 9; Jewish women students in, 16, 235n78; Jewish birthrate in, 27; women students in, 58; Jews as teachers in, 69, 70; women as physicians in, 241n48 Psychoanalysts: attitudes toward mothers, 23, 234n55; Jewish women as, 83, 84, 85–87; marriages of, 123–124, 245nn49,50; network of, 151; as émigrés, 176, 184, 186, 188, 193 Psychology: as field of study, 45–46, 59, 62; academic appointments in, 65, 77, 121–122, 189, 237n102, 247n73 Public health: women in, 81, 83, 85, 154, 188; dismissal from positions in, 167, 170, 171 Public office: election to, 155–158, 199 Publications of Jewish university women, 145, 149, 150, 153–154, 185–186, 190–191, 193, 196; list of, in English, 278–280 Puerto Rico, University of, 140, 184, 186, 194 Quittner, Genia Lande, 159, 254n92, 258n63, 261n43 Quotas: at universities, 7, 10, 66, 165 Rabbinical seminaries: women in, 145, 249n37 Rabbis: fathers as, 24, 25, 40, 194; women as, 25, 249n37; influence of, 33, 35, 72
292
| Index
Rabinowitsch-Kempner, Lydia: family of, 7–8, 227n43; photo of, 102; career of, 125, 239n30, 243n21; marriage of, 125, 127, 248n16; as feminist, 150, 250n49 Racism, 63, 190, 196, 201, 236n91 Radium Institute, Vienna, 75 Rahmer, Julia Oppenheimer, 226n22 Ravensbruck, 153, 173, 174 Reich, Annie Pink, 87, 245n49, 246n50, 260n27 Reichmann, Eva Jungmann, 144–145, 190, 227n43, 237n103 Reichmann, Frieda. See Fromm-Reichmann, Frieda Reichstag, representatives in, 26, 36, 156–157 Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden, 79, 145, 170 Relationships: with men, 26, 111, 130, 150, 253n80; with male students, 44–45, 53–54, 231n17; with women, 112, 131, 150, 253n80; extra-marital, 124, 140, 150, 197, 253n81; between Jews and non-Jews, 143–144, 151, 166–167 Research, by Jewish university women: on women, 63, 78, 150, 152–154, 193, 198–199, 201; on children, 63, 86; on workers, 63, 78, 152–153, 156; on Jewish topics, 63, 74, 144–145, 190–191, 237n10; on social policy, 156, 157, 240nn38,39; on prejudice, 190–191 Researchers, women as: unpaid, 50, 65, 67, 76, 83, 188, 189; assistants, 65, 67, 73, 75, 76, 81, 83, 86, 238n21; associates, 78, 117, 121, 122, 125, 189, 238n19, 239n24 Richter, Elise: education of, 14, 232n30; illness of, 14; career of, 14, 65, 74, 236n101; relationship with sister, 29, 272n43; as mentor, 65; photo of, 104; as feminist, 151–152, 250n49; deportation of, 175; identity of, 230n95 Richter, Helene, 14, 29, 175 Roazen, Paul, 124 Role models: lack of women as, 11, 196; teachers as, 12, 169; men as, 23–24, 52; women as, 61, 146, 197, 199 Rona, Elizabeth, 151 Rosenbach, Helene. See Deutsch, Helene Rosenbach Rosenzweig, Franz, 145 Rostock, University of, 46, 130 Rothschild, Recha, 158, 178, 229n82, 250n49, 258nn63,70, 261n43 Roubiczek, Lili Peller, 237n6 Ruben-Wolf, Martha, 158–159, 252n73, 254n92, 258n63 Rubiner, Frieda, 258n63 Rühle-Gerstel, Alice, 153, 246n55 Russia: Jews in, 3–4, 7; special courses for women in, 4, 7; antisemitism in, 6, 7; Jewish
women as physicians in, 7; education of Jews in, 7, 8; Jewish women as students in, 7, 221n24; migration from, 7, 19 Sachs, Gertrud Marx, 237n6 Sailer, Erna Zaloscer, 28–29, 137–138, 261nn43,44 Sallis-Freudenthal, Margarete David. See Freudenthal, Margarete David Salomon, Alice: as social worker educator, 22, 148–149; as feminist, 22, 63, 149; as older student, 22, 232n30; as devoted daughter, 22–23; baptism of, 23, 72–73, 137, 229n81; childhood of, 30, 226n36, 227n43; research of, 63; photo of, 96; attitudes toward marriage, 110–111; as émigré, 183; recognition of, 194 Salon women, xvii, 145 Samson Raphael Hirsch Realschule, Frankfurt, 35 Sanskrit, 60, 236–237n101 Scandinavia, 176, 179, 258n65 Schiepan, Käthe Hirsch, 171, 176, 257n50 Schleissner-Spitz, Stella, 258n70 Schmideberg, Melitta Klein, 234n55, 262n3 Schoch, Magdalene, 255n18 Schoenberger, Margaret. See Mahler, Margaret Schoenberger Scholarships, 50, 238n40 Scholem, Gershom, 257n50 Schools, Jewish: communal, 5, 35, 229n76; women as teachers in, 69, 71–72; during Nazi era, 163, 168–169, 256n22; for refugees, 169, 184 Schools, private: Jewish children in, 5–6; Jewish women as directors of, 12, 69, 72, 113, 168–169, 237n13, 238nn15,16, 256n22; Jews as teachers in, 69–73, 113, 184 Schools, public: Jewish children in, 5–6: Jews as teachers in, 69–71, 72–73, 113; exclusion from, 168–169 Schools, vocational: Jewish women as teachers in, 69 Schwarz, Magdalena Buchwald, 258n57 Schwarzwald, Eugenie Nussbaum, 11, 12, 72, 259n6 Schwarzwaldschule, Vienna, 12, 72, 158 Science: as field of study, 52, 58, 60–62, 236nn87,91; careers in, 61–62, 239n29; academic appointments for women in, 65, 73, 75–76, 236n100, 238nn18,19, 239n30 Scientists: fathers as, 24; marriages of, 124–125; network of, 151; as émigrés, 184, 188–189 Secondary schools for boys: Jewish attendance at, 5–6; subjects taught, 6 Secondary schools for girls: subjects taught, 5, 6, 15; Jewish attendance at, 6; teachers at, 11–12, 70–72. See also Gymnasium education Seghers, Anna, 185, 261n43
Index | 293 Selbsthilf, 186 Self-fulfillment, 17, 41, 45, 231n13 Self-sufficiency: desire for, 17, 26, 32, 41, 53, 83, 109; lack of, 49–51, 67, 87–88, 113 Semitic languages: study of, 60 Senckenburg Museum, Frankfurt, 67, 174 Sender, Toni: as rebel, 26, 36, 226n27, 229n82; personal life of, 26, 111, 155, 253n80; photo of, 103; as politician, 156–158; emigration of, 178; grave of, 194 Sex, pre-marital, 253nn79,81 Sex reform, campaign for, 83, 84, 85, 148, 150, 154–155 Sexual harassment. See Discrimination against women Sexuality: not discussed, 30; ambivalence concerning, 30–32; attitudes toward, 111–112; writing about, 146, 153–154 Shyness, 29, 44, 45 Siblings: variations among, 27–29; relationships between, 29 Sichel, Frieda Gotthelft, 20, 147 Siemsen-Vollenweider, Anna, 255n18 Silberpfennig, Henda. See Silving-Ryu, Helen Silberpfennig, Ida, 194, 234n55, 257n41 Silving-Ryu, Helen: as observant Jew, 140, 229n88, 233n43; marriage of, 140–141, 245n39, 249n31; grave of, 140–141, 194; as émigré, 184, 185–186; education of, 233n45 Simmel, Georg, 155, 253n81 Simon, Helene, 63, 156, 226n36 Simultanschulen, 69 Single women: as teachers, 3, 69, 71, 113, 243n19; family responsibilities of, 22, 173, 183, 189; their decision not to marry, 26, 109–112, 157–158; in academia, 75, 113, 189, 239n27; as physicians, 83, 85; proportion of, 110; “Former Jews” as, 110–111; as mothers, 129–131, 155, 201, 253n81; as aunts, 131–132, 247n76; friendships of, 131, 132, 151; as volunteers, 147; emigration of, 171, 175 Sisters: resentment of, 23, 29, 31; relationships between, 28–29 Skript-Campos, Eva Cohn, 187 Smoking, 10, 44, 82, 83 Sobel, Amalie, 238n16 Social awkwardness, 18, 30–31 Social circles: Jewish, 39, 143–144; socialist, 160 Social conventions: defiance of, xvii, 18, 41, 111–112, 136, 140, 155, 197, 246n52 Social Democratic Party, Germany (SPD), 152, 156, 159 Social Democratic Workers’ Party, Austria (SDAP), 152–153, 158, 159–160 Social Democrats: university women as, 26, 28–29, 31, 72, 76–77, 83, 152–153, 159–160
Social justice: concern for, 63, 148, 157 Social reform, 63, 148–150, 152–153 Social sciences: study of, by Jewish women, 52, 62–63; as field of study, 62, 236n91; research in, 63, 78, 116, 149–150, 190, 198, 240nn38,39; academic appointments for women in, 65, 73, 77–79, 189, 240n38 Social workers, 22, 68, 78, 80, 147, 149; within Jewish community, 147, 163, 170, 173; in emigration, 182, 184, 186, 187, 188 Socialists, 63, 120, 134, 156–160, 229n82; as elected representatives, 26, 83, 133, 156–158; in Vienna, 36, 152–153, 158, 159–160, 254nn96,97, 261n43; defiance of norms by, 111; as feminists, 152–153; underground activities of, 153, 162, 172, 178–179; during Nazi era, 163, 178–179; after World War II, 192, 261n43 Society for Granting Interest-Free Loans, 150 Sociology. See Social sciences Soroptimist Club, 150 Soviet Union, 159, 178, 179, 185, 192, 196, 254n92, 257n56, 258n63 Soziale Frauenschule, Berlin, 78, 149, 151, 194–195 Spanish Civil War, 179, 193 Special students: women as, 9, 22, 26, 223n48 Spemann, Hans, 61–62 Sperling, Melitta, 260n27 Spiegel-Adolf, Anna, 239n30 Spiel, Hilde, 12, 185, 230n95, 244n37, 248n10 Sponer, Hertha, 255n18 Stang, Fanny Knesbach, 33, 42, 55, 56–57, 225n10, 226n21, 228n68, 235n74 State certification: examinations for, 64; completion of, 66, 69, 114, 165; revocation of, 165; in emigration, 182, 184, 186–188 Stein, Edith: family of, 29, 225n6, 226n36; baptism of, 29, 137, 229n81; as student, 59, 237n103; search for academic appointment, 72, 235n80; photo of, 90, 99; as Catholic saint, 179, 195 Stein, Erna: family of, 29, 123, 225n6, 226n36; as physician, 82, 123, 251n59; photo of, 90, 105 Steinmetz, Selma, 258n63, 261n43 Stereotypes: of women students, 10–11, 43–44; nonconformity with, 44–45, 77, 83 Stern, Lillian, 10, 15, 72, 225n7, 250n49 Stern Pensionat, Vienna, 72 Stern-Anders, Günther, 140 Stern-Täubler, Selma: aspirations of, 45, 60, 74; photo of, 94, 107; marriage of, 112–113, 121, 239n24, 243n18; career of, 121, 191, 201, 245n40; research of, 145, 191; as émigré, 191; recognition of, 195; education of, 224n54; appearance of 231n8
294
| Index
Stoeltzner, Helene Ziegelroth, 28, 137, 139, 227n44, 232n30, 234nn54,55, 258n57; photo of, 100 Straus, Rahel Goitein: as valedictorian, 2; as pioneer, 9, 11, 48, 53; her mother as role model, 21; as observant Jew, 40–41, 128, 144, 146, 233n43; as Zionist, 40–41, 146, 181–182, 249n34; as founder of women’s student organization, 48; influence of uncle, 50, 226n22; as tutor, 50; as medical student, 53–54; career of, 84, 129; photo of, 94; marriage of, 112, 128–129; as mother, 128–129; Jewish identity of, 134, 144; as feminist, 146, 154, 166, 250n49, 252n76; as apolitical, 159; as émigré, 182; as role model, 199; family of, 226n36, 227n43 Strauss, Bertel Wertheim, 243n16, 244n25 Strauss, Rosa Welt, 8–9 Stross, Josephine, 260n27 Student life, 46–49 Student organizations: for men, 48; exclusion of Jews from, 48, 66; and Jewish women, 48–49, 232n29; Zionist, 48–49, 138; socialist, 49, 160; Orthodox, 49, 232n29 Study population, xix, 220n15, 238n21, 244n24, 254n96, 254–255n2 Stuttgart, 19, 173 Suffrage, woman’s, 3, 63, 155; in Jewish community, 135, 147; supporters of, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 250n49 Suicide, 118, 173, 176, 189, 246n55, 254n92, 258n70 Support network, for professional women, 150–151, 166 Switzerland: Jewish women students in, xv, xix, 7, 8, 28; leaving home to study in, 8, 19; admission of women to university in, 8; Russian women students in, 8, 10–11, 21, 44; Austrian women students in, 8; as refuge, 173, 178, 191, 259n6 Synagogue: attendance, 36, 134, 135, 138; marriage in, 37, 38, 138, 142; on High Holy Days, 37–38, 135, 142–143; negative attitude toward, 37–38; as social occasion, 38 Tandler, Julius, 54–55, 56–57 Täubler, Eugen, 121, 191, 239n24 Taussky-Todd, Olga, 226n27, 227nn39,43 Teacher training, 12, 58, 69–70 Teachers: as role models, 11–12, 185; opposition to becoming, 22, 25, 50; stereotypes of, 43; dismissal of, 165, 167, 168; as émigrés, 182, 184–185, 238nn10,14 Teachers, secondary school: Jewish women as, 28, 69–73, 183, 238nn18,19; women as, 67, 69; difficulties finding jobs as, 69–70, 169; marital status of, 113 Teaching: as career for Christian women, 12, 58, 69; as career for Jewish women, 12–13, 52,
58, 69–73; discrimination against Jews in, 12–13, 58, 61, 234n57; celibacy requirement for women in, 13, 113, 243n19; antisemitism as deterrent against, 69–70 Teaching certification, 12–13, 21, 59–60, 169, 243n16; requirements for, 52, 58–59, 69 Technical institutes, teaching positions at, 65, 78, 79, 121 Technische Hochschule: Dresden, 65, 121; Berlin, 79, 115; Braunschweig, 139 Telephones: in Jewish homes, 20 Thalheimer, Gerda, 112 Theology, faculty of, 52 Theresienstadt, 170, 173, 175, 176, 177, 249n37, 257n56 Tietze, Hans, 125–126; portrait of, 102 Tietze-Conrat, Erica, 125–126, 129, 225n7, 230n95, 244n37, 248n10; portrait of, 102 Theater, 19, 20 Tobias, Paula, 54, 161 Transferring among universities, 45–47, 54 Translators, 174, 179, 185, 192 Tübingen, University of, 46, 56 Tuition costs, 49–50 Turkey, 168, 178, 179, 246n71, 258n65, 260n18 Turnau, Laura, 150 Turnowsky-Pinner, Margarethe, 182, 185, 226n22, 249n34 Tutoring: of Jewish girls, 5, 15; as part-time job, 13, 45, 50, 69, 169, 184; in Jewish subjects, 35, 50 Übisch, Gerta von, 192, 236n100, 239n30, 255n18, 261n44 Uncles: as role models, 17, 24, 52, 226n22; as financial supporters, 50, 53 Unemployment, 113, 164, 169, 172; research on, 63, 190; in emigration, 179, 182–183 United States: Jewish university women in, xiii, xvi, 9–10, 196, 199, 201; higher education for women in, 4, 9; quotas in, 6, 10; emigration to, 9, 122, 130–131, 168, 169, 171, 174, 176, 179, 181, 187, 256n21; academic appointments in, 78, 130–131, 188–190, 227n49, 237n102, 246n71, 247n73, 256n25; women physicians in, 187–188, 257n40 Universities: as masculine institutions, 4–5, 42, 66; as Christian institutions, 4, 9–10, 47; as professional schools, 6, 42, 68; proportion of Jewish women students at, 16; proportion of women students at, 42; choice of, 46–47; faculties within, 52. See also Leaving university; individual universities by city Upsala College, New Jersey, 227n49 Urbanization: of Jews, 2–3, 17, 19, 198 Vaerting, Mathilde, 255n18
Index Varga, Lucie Stern, 179, 225n7, 258n66 Varnhagen von Ense, Rahel Levin, 145 Vassar College, New York, 256n25 Venia legendi, 65, 76, 120 Verband Sozialistischer Mittelschüler, 36 Verein Sozialistischer Ärzten (VSÄ), 150, 154; photo of, 103 Vienna: Jewish population of, 2–3; education of Jewish children in, 6; Jewish women educators in, 12, 69, 72, 238n16; as assimilated Jewish community, 32; Orthodox Jews in, 33; Jewish socialists in, 36–37, 152–153, 158, 159–160, 254nn96,97; as university city, 46; Jewish physicians in, 81, 86–87; marriages in, during Nazi era, 175; return to, 193, 237n13, 254n92, 261nn43,44 Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, 85, 86, 124, 151 Vienna, University of: women with doctorates from, 9, 12, 14, 28–29, 72, 75, 125, 140, 233n45; women as professors at, 14, 65, 77, 121–122; proportion of Jewish women students at, 16, 235n78; women students enrolled at, 42, 58; popularity of, 46; medical school of, 54–55, 56–57; antisemitism at, 55, 56–57, 164 Viragos: fear of, 25; image of, 31 Vogelstein, Rabbi Heinemann, 25 Vogelstein, Julie. See Braun-Vogelstein, Julie Voting rights. See Suffrage, woman’s Waelsch, Heinrich, 189, 260n31 Wälder-Hall, Jenny Pollack, 151, 245n49, 246n50 Waldeyer, Professor of Anatomy, Berlin, 54 Walk, Rosa Cilcer, 258n70 Wallach, Kate, 184 Wandervogel, 32, 38, 230n90 War veterans: men as, 68, 166, 240n46 Warburg, Abby, 155 Washington University, St. Louis, 188 Wehl, Selma Lewin, 187, 233n43 Weiner, Paula Odenheimer, 112–113, 118, 181–182, 249n34 Weingarten, Klara, 261n44 Weiss, Hilda, 32, 230n90 Weiss-Rosmarin, Trude, 38, 60, 249n34 Weisskopf-Joelson, Edith, 23, 40, 112 Welt, Leonore, 8–9, 239n30 Welt, Rosa, 8–9 Welt, Sarah, 8–9 Welt, Sinai, 8 Welt family, Czernowitz, 8, 28 Wheaton College, Massachusetts, 246n71, 261n33 Widows: mothers as, 21, 22, 41, 51, 53, 225nn6,7; university women as, 116, 125, 129–130 Wiener, Sarah Libon, 261n43
| 295
Wittgenstein, Anneliese, 168, 236n100, 239n30, 248n10, 256n21 Wittkowski, Margarete, 261n43 Wives, role of, 115–122, 146, 182, 245n41 Wolff, Charlotte: as camouflaged boy, 23; attitude toward synagogues, 37–38; as student, 47–48, 49, 56; as lesbian, 112, 253n80; as birth control advocate, 154; as émigré, 185, 192, 194 Wolff, Emmy, 112, 150, 169 Woman’s movement: role of Jewish women in, 148–150, 222n30; antisemitism within, 148, 149, 155, 166–167 Women: surplus of, 17, 110, 242n5; working with, 63, 68, 78, 79–80, 84, 148–150, 152–153, 198–199, 252n72; as legislators, 156–157 Women students: aspirations of, 2, 8, 41, 45, 60–61; stereotypes of, 10–11, 21, 43–44; dress of, 10, 43–45; obstacles facing, 13–14, 44–45, 53, 61–62; age of, 14, 33, 228n68, 232n30; proportion of, 42; treatment of, 42, 44–45, 53–55. See also Jewish women students Women workers: students as, 50; research on, 63, 78, 152, 153, 198; organizing of, 157 Women’s colleges: in U.S., 4, 9, 189, 261n33; in England, 4 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), 146 Women’s International Zionist Organization (WIZO), 146 Women’s Medical College, Philadelphia, 125 Women’s organizations, involvement in, 135, 146–150, 199 Women’s rights: restrictions on, 3; support for, 147–148, 149–150, 151, 153, 199 Women’s School for Social Welfare, Berlin, 78, 149, 151, 194–195 World War I: patriotism during, 32, 161; women students during, 42; employment opportunities during, 68, 71, 78, 80, 82, 118, 127; mobilization of men during, 68, 71, 81, 118; male veterans of, 68, 166, 240n46; volunteer activities during, 80, 161; impact on marriage market, 110; pacifists during, 157 World War II. See Holocaust Writers, 185–186, 192 Wunderlich, Eva, 227n49, 232n30 Wunderlich, Frieda: career of, 78, 151, 240n39; as politician, 156; family of, 227nn43,49; as émigré, 227n49, 256n21; as older student, 232n30 Wygodzinski, Martha, 85, 150, 171 Yale University, New Haven, 130 Yalow, Rosalyn Sussman, 260n29
296
| Index
Youth movements: socialist, 31, 36, 38; German, 32, 38; Jewish, 38–39, 147 Zaloscer, Erna, 28–29, 137–138, 261n43, 262n44 Zaloscer, Hilde, 28–29, 186, 193–194, 226n21, 235n84, 245n39, 261n44 Zaloscer, Ruth, 28–29, 257n56 Ziegelroth, Helene, 28, 137, 139, 227n44,
232n30, 234nn54,55, 258n57; photo of, 100 Ziegelroth, Nathalie, 28, 137, 225n44; photo of, 100 Ziegelroth family, 28; photo of, 100 Zionism, attitudes toward, 40, 142 Zionists, 29, 38, 40–41, 138, 144, 146, 162; as émigrés, 178, 181–182 Zurich, University of, 8, 12, 78, 158, 233n45
HARRIET PASS FREIDENREICH is a native of Ottawa, Canada. She received her undergraduate education at the University of Toronto and her Ph.D. from Columbia University. As Professor of History at Temple University in Philadelphia, she teaches a wide range of courses in women’s history, Jewish history, and European history. She is the author of The Jews of Yugoslavia, Jewish Politics in Vienna, and various articles on Central European Jewish women in the twentieth century.
