Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Jewish women physicians in central europe in the early twentieth century

  • Published:
Contemporary Jewry Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Jewish women physicians made up roughly one-fifth of the female physicians in Central Europe in the early twentieth century. To become medical doctors, these women had to overcome educational obstacles, family opposition, misogynism and anti-Semitism. As physicians, Jewish women achieved personal self-fulfilment, economic independence and had a chance to help others, while combining marriage, family and career. Female Jewish physicians successfully practiced medicine in a variety of fields in Central Europe before the Nazi era, and, in many cases, after emigration as well.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Albisetti, James C. 1988.Schooling German Girls and Women. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ——. 1991. “Female Education in German-Speaking Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, 1866–1914.” Conference on Women in Austria, Minneapolis, MN.

    Google Scholar 

  • Batzdorff, Susanne M. 1984. Reflections in a Rearview Mirror. Unpublished memoir, Santa Rosa, CA.

  • Boedeker, Elisabeth, ed. 1939.25 Jahre Frauenstudium in Deutschland. Hannover: C. Trute. Vol. IV.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boedeker, Elisabeth and Maria Meyer-Plath. 1974.50 Jahre Habituation von Frauen in Deutschland. Göttingen.

  • Bonner, Thomas Neville. 1992.To the Ends of the Earth: Women’s Search for Education in Medicine. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brinkschulte, Eva, ed. 1993.Weibliche ärzte. Berlin: Hentrich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohors-Fresenborg, Barbara. 1989. Frau Onkel Doktor. Münster: Lit Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davie, Maurice R. 1947.Refugees in America. New York: Harper.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deutsch, Hetene Rosenbach. 1973.Confrontations with Myself. New York: WW. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Deutsche Hochschulstatistik. 1928 and 1932.

  • Dewey, Barbara. 1949. Biography: Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner. Unpublished paper. Medical College of Pennsylvania Archives, MS127.

  • Dickstein, Leah J. and Carol C. Nadelson. 1986.Women Physicians in Leadership Roles. Washington: American Psychiatric Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ehrenfried, Lydia. Aus meinem Leben. Unpublished memoir, Leo Baeck Institute, ME 820.

  • Eckelmann, Christine. 1992.ärztinnen in der Weimarer Zeit und im Nationalsozialismus. Wermelskirchen: WFT Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frankenthal, Käte. 1981.Der dreifache Fluch: Jüdin, Intellektuelle, Sozialistin. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freidenreich, Harriet Pass. 1995. “Jewish Identity and the ‘New Woman’: Central European Jewish University Women in the Early Twentieth Century.” Pp. 113–122 inGender and Judaism, edited by T. M. Rudavsky. New York: New York University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glaser, Edith. 1992.Hindernisse, Umwege, Sackgassen: Die Anfänge des Frauenstudiums in Tübingen 1904–1934. Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grossmann, Atina. 1986. “Berliner ärztinnen und Volksgesundheit in der Weimarer Republic: Zwischen Sexualreform und Eugenik.” Pp. 183–217 inUnter alien Umständen: Frauengeschichte(n) in Berlin, edited by Christiane Eifert and Susanne Rouette. Berlin.

  • ——. 1993. “German Women Doctors from Berlin to New York: Maternity and Modernity in Weimar and in Exile.”Feminist Studies 19/1: 65–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ——. 1995.Reforming Sex. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heindl, Waltraud and Marina Tichy, eds. 1990.“Durch Erkenntnis zu Freiheit und Glück”: Frauen an der Universität Wien. Vienna: WUV- Universitätsverlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heindl, Waltraud and Rudolf Wytek. 1988. “Die jüdischen Studentinnen an der Universität Wien 1897–1938.” Pp. 139–150 inDer Wiener Stadttempel, Die Wiener Juden. Vienna: J&V Edition.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heitcamp, Reinhard. 1987.Hilde Bruch (1904–1984), Leben und Werk. Unpublished dissertation, Medical Faculty, University of Köln.

  • Hirsch, Max. 1920.über das Frauenstudium. Leipzig: Curt Kabitzsch.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hubenstorf, Michael. “österreichischeärzteemigration1934–1945: Zwischen neuem Tätigkeitsgebiet und organisierten Rückkehrplänen.”Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 7: 85–107.

  • Huerkamp, Claudia. 1988. “Frauen, Universitäten und Bildungsbürger-tum. Zur Lage studierender Frauen 1900–1933.” Pp. 200–222 in H.Bürgerliche Berufe, edited by H.Siegrist. Göttingen.

  • ——. 1993. “Jüdische Akademikerinnen in Deutschland, 1900–1938.”Geschichte und Gesellschaft. 19: 311–331.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ingrisch, Doris. 1992.“Alles war das Institut!” Vienna: Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobs, Aletta H. 1996.Memories, edited by Harriet Feinberg. New York: Feminist Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, Marion A. 1991.The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Imperial Germany. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kern, Elsa. (ed.). 1930.Führende Frauen Europas. Munich. Vol. II.

  • Klausner (Cronheim), Irma. 1929. “Dornenweg der Medizinerin.”Vossische Zeitung, December 25, 1929.

  • Kheneberger-Nobel, Emmy. 1977.Pionierleistungen für die Medizinische Mikrobiologie: Lebenserinnerungen. Stuttgart: Gustav Fischer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kramer-Freund, Edith. 1982. Autobiographical Sketch. Unpublished manuscript. Leo Baeck Institute Memoir Collection, ME-283.

  • Kröner, Hans-Peter. 1988. “Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner 1933–1945.”Exilforschuung: Ein internationales Jahrbuch, 6: 83–98

    Google Scholar 

  • Kroner, Hans-Peter. 1989. “Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner hn Nationalsozialismus.”BerichtezurWissenschaftsgeschichte 12 Sonderheft.

  • Langer, Marie. 1986.Von Wien bis Managua. Frankfurt: Kore.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mahler, Margaret Schoenberger. 1988.The Memoirs of Margaret S. Mahler. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch. 1993.Nobel Prize Women in Science. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mertens, Lothar. 1991.Vernachlässigte Töchter der Alma Mater. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.

    Google Scholar 

  • Muhlleiter, Elke. 1992.Biographisches Lexikon der Psychoanalyse. Tübingen: Diskord.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nathorff, Hertha. 1987.Das Tagebuch derHertha Nathorff. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Necheles, Henriette (Henny) Magnus. 1939. My Life in Germany. Unpublished manuscript, Houghton Library, Boston, bMS Ger 93, #163.

  • Neumann, Daniela. 1987.Studentinnen aus dem Russischen Reich in der Schweiz. Zurich: Hans Rohr.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peters, Uwe Henrik. 1992.Psychiatrie im Exil. Düsseldorf: Kupka. Pross.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christian and Rolf Winau, eds. 1984.Nicht misshandeln: Das Krankenhaus Moabit. Berlin: Hentrich.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rohner, Hanny. 1972.Die ersten 30 Jahren des medizmischen Frauenstudiums an der Universität Zürich, 1867–1897. Zurich.

  • Sablik, K. 1968. “Zum Beginn des Frauenstudiums an der Wiener Medizmischen Fakuhät.”Wiener Medizinische Wochenschrift 118/40: 817–819.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schlüter, Anne, ed. 1992.Pionierinnen, Feministinnen, Karrierefrauen? Zur Geschichte des Frauenstudiums in Deutschland. Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmelzkopf, Christiane. 1988. “Rahel Straus.” Pp. 471–480 inJuden in Karlsruhe, edited by Heinz Schmitt. Karlsruhe: Badenia Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sillem, Dorothee. 1994. Deutschsprachige ärztmnen im amerikanischen Exil 1933–1945. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Freie Universitat Berlin.

  • Stelzner, Helenefriderike. 1912. “Der weiblkhe Arzt.”Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift. 38/26: 1243–1244.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stites, Richard. 1978.The Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Straus, Rahel. 1961.Wir lebten in Deutschland. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlag-Anstalt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tobias, Paula. 1939. My Life in Germany. Unpublished manuscript, Houghton Library, Boston, bMS Ger 93, #235.

  • Tuve, Jeanette E. 1984.The First Russian Women Physicians. Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners.

    Google Scholar 

  • Usbome, Cornelie. 1992.The Politics of the Body in Weimar Germany. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Varon, Benno Weiser. 1992.Professions of a Lucky Jew. New York: Cornwall Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Voswinkel, Peter. 1990. “Selma Meyer—erste Professorin fur Kinderheilkunde.”ärztin 1/1990: 11–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wehl, Yaakov and Hadassah. 1987.House Calls to Eternity: The Story of Dr. Selma Wehl. Brooklyn: Mesorah Publications.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weidemann, Doris. 1988.Leben und Werk von Therese Benedek. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolff, Charlotte. 1980.Hindsight. London: Quartet Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ziegeler, Beate. 1993.Weibliche ärzte und Krankenkassen. Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Temple University, USA

    Harriet Pass Freidenreich

Authors
  1. Harriet Pass Freidenreich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

This article is a substantially revised and expanded version of a paper detivered at the Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies in Boston, December 12, 1993. An abridged vosion of flut paper appeared in the catalogue for the special eidiibit on “Jews and Medicine” in June, 1993 atBeth Hatefutsoth, Ramat Aviv, Israel. I would like to thank Margaret Marsh and Monis Vogel, as well as an anonymous referee of this journal, for their helpful suggestions for revising this paper.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Freidenreich, H.P. Jewish women physicians in central europe in the early twentieth century. Cont Jewry 17, 79–105 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02965407

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02965407

Keywords

Search

Navigation