Edith Székely

Stumbling block for Edith Székely in Heidelberg

Edith Sophie Székely , b. Sussmanowitz (born April 24, 1909 in Zeiskam ; died September 21, 2012 in Stockholm ), was a Swedish psychoanalyst of German-Jewish origin. As a student, she was a board member of the student group Revolutionary Socialists in Heidelberg . As a Jew and a socialist, she was twice subjected to persecution by the National Socialists and therefore constantly on the run from 1934 to 1944. Eventually she found a new and safe home in Sweden. There she worked as a psychoanalyst from 1950 and became an honorary member of the German Psychoanalytic Association . In 1957 she passed her exams in Swedish forensic medicine and started a medical practice.

Life

Childhood and youth

The second child of the so-called “workers doctor” Isaak Sussmanowitz was Edith Sophie Székely, b. Sussmanowitz, born in the Palatinate in 1909. Together with her one year older brother Ernst, Edith grew up as a well-protected child in the house on the corner of Wormser Strasse and Große Greifengasse in Speyer . Thanks to the father's medical practice, the family quickly became acquainted and settled in quickly. Nevertheless, Edith was already as a young girl, long before Hitler , the anti-Semitism to be felt. Two boys lived near their parents 'house who shouted after Edith and her brother things like “Dirty Jew” or “Jud, Jud, sch… in die Tut', don't make it so full, sunk kriggscht e protocol!”. She had to feel early on that as a child of a Jew you would never really belong there.

In Speyer, Edith Székely went to the Jewish class at the Roßmarktschule. From 1917 she attended the secondary school on Siebertplatz in Speyer for six years as one of the first three girls. From 1925 she went to secondary school on Bismarckstrasse in Ludwigshafen until she graduated from high school .

Education

After graduating from high school, Edith began studying medicine in Heidelberg in 1928 , with the aim of later becoming a pediatrician. Her brother Ernst also studied medicine there. In 1929 her father suffered a heart attack and gave up his practice in Speyer. He went to Heidelberg with his wife Laura, where the parents and their children moved into an apartment in Heidelberg's Weststadt, Zähringer Strasse 8. The family is attested there until 1930.

Like her brother Ernst, Edith sympathized with socialism . From 1930 she was a board member of the student group Revolutionary Socialists. The red student group wanted to prevent Hitler through their thought work. Due to a new regulation for Jewish students at Heidelberg University, Edith was unable to take her exams in Heidelberg. Her de-registration on May 10, 1933 was recorded in her matriculation file. The notes "Cleansing the universities" and " COMMUNIST " can also be read in their file . As a Jew and a socialist, Edith had no two chances in her own homeland. Edith then tried to enroll at the university in Cologne , where her childhood friend Lilo Weil also studied. However, the university did not accept any more Jews. Then she decided to go to Switzerland . In 1933 she moved to the University of Basel , where she received her doctorate on January 9, 1934.

Escape

Edith had already met her future husband Lajos Székely at a concert in 1932. Lajos Székely was born in Budapest . Because of the prevailing anti-Semitism there, he emigrated to Frankfurt after receiving his doctorate in 1930 . In 1931 he got a job at the Psychiatric-Neurological Clinic in Heidelberg.

Lajos Székely could not and did not want to stay in Germany. He went to Amsterdam , where he accepted an assistantship at the Calvinist Free University . Edith's brother Ernst Sussmanowitz also left Germany. After he was threatened by a group of former fellow students in Mannheim in 1933 , he too decided to go to the Netherlands with his wife Irene . Edith also came to Amsterdam a little later. She didn't feel welcome there and found it humiliating to have to beg for help. Edith and Lajos married in 1935. From 1934 to 1936 Edith worked for no fee at a university institute in Amsterdam.

In Holland, the couple Székely and Ernst Sussmanowitz learned that the American aid organization Joint Distribution Committee was planning to send some Jewish doctors to the Soviet Union to remedy the acute shortage of doctors. Sussmanowitz volunteered and from 1936 worked in a hospital near Simferopol in the Crimea . The Székely couple followed to the USSR in 1937 . This decision saved the family's life, because from 1940 there was no longer any possibility for Jews to flee Holland. They were warmly received in the Soviet Union. Lajos Székely took over the management of the psychological laboratory at the Bechterew'schen Institute in Leningrad and Edith worked in an institute for blood transfusion. Edith's first daughter Miriam was born in 1937. In September 1937, her brother Ernst Sussmanowitz was arrested as a victim of the Stalin purges . He disappeared as if from the earth, never again a sign of life came from him. His wife Irene believed that her husband's arrest was a mistake and waited her life for his return. A long time later it was learned that Ernst Max Sussmanowitz had been shot in Simferopol on November 1, 1938 at the age of 30.

After her brother was arrested, Edith Székely wanted to leave the Soviet Union as soon as possible. Since Lajos had a Hungarian passport, the family had the opportunity to travel to Poland , Finland or Hungary . With a lot of luck they managed to flee to Helsinki , where they got a three-month residence permit. The family received little financial support from the “Joint” organization. In Finland, Jewish doctors were not given work permits, which is why Lajos briefly worked in a Jewish cemetery and in a printing company. From 1942 Edith and Lajos were no longer allowed to live in the capital; they were given quarters in a sparsely populated area about 100 km from Helsinki. A little later, Lajos was sent to the "Northern Finland Labor Camp".

In Finland Edith learned that her parents had been transported to a camp in Gurs in October 1940 . Isaak Sussmanowitz died there on November 20, 1940, the day of his 70th birthday, lying on the bare floor.

In 1944 the Székely couple made the decision to move to north-west Finland because the situation of the Jews in Finland was precarious. The couple originally planned to cross the ice to Sweden illegally from there . That could have cost the family their lives. They got a radio. They also heard that the Americans had installed a refugee commissioner in Sweden to collect the persecuted Jews and bring them to safety. The Székely family wrote him a message and received an answer and a visa for Sweden within three days.

Stockholm

In Stockholm the family was picked up by a representative of the Jewish community. Within a short time, the couple received help from a Hungarian doctor who found them work. Edith got a job at the state bacteriological institute. Edith's mother Laura survived the two southern French camps Noé and Montauban after Gurs. After the liberation of Montauban in 1944, she was cared for in the local hospice for a few months and on September 26, 1945 she was able to fly to her daughter in Sweden. Laura Sussmanowitz never spoke to her two grandchildren about her camp experience or Heidelberg. In April 1946 Edith gave birth to their second daughter Vera. The family lived with five people in a two-room apartment.

The municipality of Nacka on the east beach of Stockholm became the new home of the Székelys. In 1951 they came to a house with the help of a friend. Lajos Székely had a great practice, spoke at many congresses and wrote in scientific papers on psychoanalytic topics until old age. He was successful and well respected. Edith Székely worked as a psychoanalyst from 1950 . She stayed in England for two summers , where she attended seminars given by Anna Freud . In 1957 she passed the exam in Swedish forensic medicine and started a medical practice. Lajos Székely died in 1995 at the age of 90. Edith Székely still worked as a reduced psychoanalyst at the age of 89. From her 100th birthday, she lived in a Jewish home in Stockholm. Edith Sophie Székely died on September 21, 2012 with her family.

In an interview as part of a psychological study at the University of Gothenburg , the results of which were published in 2019, Lajos and Edith Székely said that the years as refugees shaped them for the rest of their lives. They could never forget the persecution. Edith Székely asked herself: “What have we as Jews done to deserve to be persecuted wherever we are?” Compared to what they had experienced, they found their home in Nacka to be “paradise on earth” . But even in Sweden they sometimes faced hostility towards Jews.

Honors

Edith and Lajos Székely were members of the Swedish Psychoanalytic Association (Svenska Psykoanalytiska Föreningen) and became honorary members of the German Psychoanalytic Association .

On November 20, 2014, five stumbling blocks were laid in Goethestrasse 12 in Heidelberg's Weststadt . There are stumbling blocks for Ernst Max Sussmanowitz, Isaak Sussmanowitz, Laura Sussmanowitz, Edith Székely and Lajos Székely. Isaak and Laura Sussmanowitz lived at Goethestrasse 12 from 1935 to 1938.

Web links

Edith Szekely . In: Brigitte Nölleke: Psychoanalysts. Biographical Lexicon, Psychoanalysts in Scandinavia

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l Ria Krampitz, Ferdinand Schlickel: Holland, Soviet Union, Finland, Sweden…. The fate of a Speyer Jewess - she lives, 90 years old, near Stockholm . In: The Rhine Palatinate . No. 243, 1998.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e Ria Krampitz: Looking back on a long life. (PDF) Retrieved May 7, 2020 .
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Ferdinand Schlickel: Ria Krampitz visits Edith Székely . In: Verkehrsverein Speyer (Hrsg.): Speyer: The quarterly magazine of the Verkehrsverein in cooperation with the city administration . 2003, p. 37–42 ( speyer.de [PDF; accessed May 7, 2020]).
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t ^u ^v ^w ^x ^y ^z ^aa Schlickel, Ferdinand: Dr. Edith Székely - a Speyer Jew in Stockholm. "Zwä Speyerer Brezle and Spargle" . In: The Rheinpfalz , Speyerer Rundschau . No. 15, 2003.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t ^u ^v ^w ^x ^y ^z ^aa ^from the Sussmanowitz / Székely family. (PDF) In: stolpersteine-heidelberg.de. Retrieved July 5, 2020 .
↑ Juliane Lepsius: It reappears in dreams. Fates since 1933 , Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1991, ISBN 978-3-7700-0939-8 , p. 100
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d Ria Krampitz, Ferdinand Schlickel: Dr. Edith Székely. Fateful years of a Speyer Jewess . In: The Rhine Palatinate . No. 98, 2009.
↑ Carola Tischler: Escape into pursuit. German emigrants in Soviet exile, 1933 to 1945 , Lit Verlag, Münster 1996, ISBN 978-3-8258-3034-2 , p. 70.
↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Ria Krampitz, Ferdinand Schlickel: Idealism paid dearly - disappointment spreads. The difficult fate of the refugee Jewish fellow citizens abroad - fear of Russians and Germans. In: The Rhine Palatinate . No. 244, 1998.
↑ Magnus Johannson, Elisabeth Punzi: Jewishness and psychoanalysis - the relationship to identity, trauma and exile. An interview study (including interviews with Lajos and Edith Székely), in: Jewish Culture and History , 2019, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 140–152, doi: 10.1080 / 1462169X.2019.1574429 .
^ German Psychoanalytic Association, honorary members

personal data
SURNAME	Székely, Edith
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Székely, Edith Sophie; Sussmanowitz, Edith Sophie (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German-Jewish psychoanalyst
DATE OF BIRTH	April 24, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH	Zeiskam
DATE OF DEATH	September 21, 2012
Place of death	Stockholm

[:0-1] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l Ria Krampitz, Ferdinand Schlickel: Holland, Soviet Union, Finland, Sweden…. The fate of a Speyer Jewess - she lives, 90 years old, near Stockholm . In: The Rhine Palatinate . No. 243, 1998.

[:2-2] Ria Krampitz: Looking back on a long life. (PDF) Retrieved May 7, 2020 .

[:3-3] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Ferdinand Schlickel: Ria Krampitz visits Edith Székely . In: Verkehrsverein Speyer (Hrsg.): Speyer: The quarterly magazine of the Verkehrsverein in cooperation with the city administration . 2003, p. 37–42 ( speyer.de [PDF; accessed May 7, 2020]).

[:1-4] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t ^u ^v ^w ^x ^y ^z ^aa Schlickel, Ferdinand: Dr. Edith Székely - a Speyer Jew in Stockholm. "Zwä Speyerer Brezle and Spargle" . In: The Rheinpfalz , Speyerer Rundschau . No. 15, 2003.

[:4-5] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o ^p ^q ^r ^s ^t ^u ^v ^w ^x ^y ^z ^aa ^from the Sussmanowitz / Székely family. (PDF) In: stolpersteine-heidelberg.de. Retrieved July 5, 2020 .

[6] Juliane Lepsius: It reappears in dreams. Fates since 1933 , Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1991, ISBN 978-3-7700-0939-8 , p. 100

[:5-7] Ria Krampitz, Ferdinand Schlickel: Dr. Edith Székely. Fateful years of a Speyer Jewess . In: The Rhine Palatinate . No. 98, 2009.

[8] Carola Tischler: Escape into pursuit. German emigrants in Soviet exile, 1933 to 1945 , Lit Verlag, Münster 1996, ISBN 978-3-8258-3034-2 , p. 70.

[:6-9] ↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g Ria Krampitz, Ferdinand Schlickel: Idealism paid dearly - disappointment spreads. The difficult fate of the refugee Jewish fellow citizens abroad - fear of Russians and Germans. In: The Rhine Palatinate . No. 244, 1998.

[10] Magnus Johannson, Elisabeth Punzi: Jewishness and psychoanalysis - the relationship to identity, trauma and exile. An interview study (including interviews with Lajos and Edith Székely), in: Jewish Culture and History , 2019, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 140–152, doi: 10.1080 / 1462169X.2019.1574429 .

[11] German Psychoanalytic Association, honorary members