Ernst Abrahamsohn

Ernst Abrahamsohn (born December 26, 1905 in Berlin , † December 18, 1958 in the USA ) was a German scholar of antiquity, for whom there was no professional future in Germany during the time of National Socialism due to his Jewish descent. He first emigrated to Italy and from there to the USA, where he taught at several universities.

Childhood and school

Ernst Abrahamsohn was the son of the Justice Council Dr. Emil Abrahamsohn and his wife Elli. Elli Abrahamsohn was close friends with the mother of Paul Oskar Kristeller , which is why the two children knew each other from an early age, even if they later attended different high schools. Ernst Abrahamsohn and Paul Oskar Kristeller were linked by a lifelong friendship and pen friendship, into which Ernst Moritz Manasse was later integrated. Ernst Abrahamsohn passed the Abitur examination at the Friedrichs-Werderschen-Gymnasium in 1923. Heinrich Kahane had passed his Abitur here a year earlier . Both later taught at the rural school in Florence .

Education

Abrahamsohn began studying law in Berlin and Freiburg before he enrolled in philology in 1924 - still in Berlin - and then moved to Heidelberg for the 1925 summer semester. His studies extended to the subjects of classical philology, archeology, philosophy, Romance studies and art history. In autumn 1926 he withdrew from the university in order to travel to southern Italy (Naples, Capri) for a longer period of time. In 1927 Abrahamsohn returned to Heidelberg University and married at the end of July 1928. But already at the end of 1929 there were insurmountable marital disputes and Abrahamsohn left Heidelberg again in 1930. He lived in Paris for a few months before the divorce was initiated in September 1930, which resulted in a final divorce two years later. In the winter semester 1930/1931 Abrahamsohn moved from Heidelberg to Göttingen and from then on studied art history. However, his studies at that time were not very focused and indicated a certain lack of orientation. Nevertheless, at the end of January 1934, he tried to persuade his longstanding academic teacher, Otto Regenbogen , to accept his dissertation. When he insisted on extensive revisions, Abrahamsohn submitted his dissertation unchanged to Theodor Hopfner at the German University in Prague. The work, which was never printed, entitled Interpretations of Sappho's Love Poems , was accepted and, after taking the oral exams, Abrahamsohn received his doctorate in early February 1935.

Waiting room Europe

After his doctorate, Abrahamsohn returned to Berlin with no prospect of professional prospects. The hope of being able to take on Kristeller's position at the Florence rural school center was also dashed, as it was already intended for their mutual friend Ernst Moritz Manasse. Together with a friend he made an extensive trip to the Danube and the Balkans and pursued several unsuccessful plans to gain a professional foothold in France or England. Meanwhile, Kristeller continued to try to get Abraham's son a job at the rural school home in Florence. These efforts led to success in July 1936: Abrahamsohn was offered a half-job as a music teacher. At the beginning of the school year 1936/37 he took up this position and met friends from his Heidelberg days: Ernst Moritz Manasse and Heinrich Kahane, and his friend Kristeller, who was no longer teaching at the Landschulheim, lived nearby.

As Ernst Moritz Manasse wrote to Kristeller at the end of November 1936, Abrahamsohn had evidently integrated quickly and well into life at the Landschulheim and enjoyed the recognition of his colleagues and students. It is all the more surprising that, for no apparent reason, he prematurely terminated his work before the end of the 1937/38 school year.

Abrahamsohn went to France and found a job at the "bildungscole Normale d'Instituteurs" teacher training center in Chârlons-sur-Marne. However, the conditions were very modest, because his teaching obligation was only three hours and was compensated for without further payment only through room and board. He improved his financial situation through private lessons.

Abrahamsohn had already found supporters in the USA before his time at the rural school home in Florence, including Erwin Panofsky , who had already been appointed to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (New Jersey) . These supporters in America continued their efforts to enable Abraham's son to stay in the United States. It was they who applied for funding from the Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars (EC), which enabled Abrahamsohn to enter the country in January 1939 on a six-month (until July 19, 1939) visiting visa. At the same time, he managed the entry of his long-term friend Edith Rodler and the conversion of his temporary visa into an unlimited one, which made it necessary to leave Havana again at short notice. On August 21, 1939, he returned from Havana to New York with a permanent visa, and with a few complications, Edith Rodler, with whom he had been friends since his time in Prague, was able to enter the USA via Mexico, where she and Abraham's son married on February 10, 1940.

The long road to a secure existence in the USA

In September 1939 Abrahamsohn began a one-year position as an "Instructor for Romance Language and Latin" at Howard University in Washington, DC . Howard University was a private university for African American students, and shared like his friend Ernst Moritz Manasse, whom he helped to get a position at the North Carolina College for Negroes, which later became North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina He thus the fate of many scientists who emigrated from Europe, who could not, as many hoped, continue their professional future at a university from the Ivy League , but only found access to facilities that had to work under the dictates of strict racial segregation. They fled from the swastika and had to build a new existence for themselves and their families in the face of the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan . His wife, Edith Rodler, a non-Jew from the Sudetenland, was a medical doctor and got a job at a hospital in Washington DC. She later practiced in Annapolis.

Although Abrahamsohn worked hard at Howard University and consolidated his position, he was informed in the spring of 1941 that his contract could not be renewed. He then contacted the " Oberlaender Trust " and drew hopes for a contract extension at Howard University. In mid-1941, however, he received the message that he could not count on further support from the "Oberlaender Trust". At the same time, negotiations with the “Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars” were ongoing, which initially showed no success, despite numerous advocates for Abrahamsohn. There followed a time as a sales representative for books and as a taxi driver in Washington before he found a job as a tutor at St. John's College in Annapolis (Maryland) in the fall of 1942 .

This activity ended in 1949 and Abraham's son had to look for a new job again. Through contacts from the old days of Heidelberg, he got the chance to teach for a year at Washington University in St. Louis, to a certain extent as a substitute candidate for a Canadian who was denied entry to the USA by the FBI because he belonged to a socialist party in Canada . He initially taught French as a Visiting Assistant Professor, was appointed Associate Professor of French in the spring of 1950, and in the summer of 1951 saw the conversion of his previously limited position into a permanent one. In 1957 Abrahamsohn was finally appointed a "full" Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature. He died of a heart attack on December 18, 1958, at the age of 52. In memory of him, friends, colleagues and students published the collection of papers The adventures of Odysseus two years after his death , at the same time as a homage to a university professor, who said “greatly preferred oral to written discourse” and as “tribute to his memory and in recognition of the lasting value of his interpretations of literary texts ".

Fonts

• Interpretations of Sappho's love poem. o. O., 1934, dissertation at the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Prague
• The adventures of Odysseus , Washington University Studies, St. Louis (Missouri), 1960.

literature

• Hans Peter Obermayer: German ancient scholars in American exile. A reconstruction. De Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2014, ISBN 978-3-11-030279-0 .
• Klaus Voigt: Refuge on Revocation. Exile in Italy 1933–1945. First volume, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1989, ISBN 3-608-91487-0 .
• Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb: From Swastika to Jim Crow. Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges. Krieger Publishing Company, Malarbar 1993, ISBN 0-89464-775-X .

Web links

• Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars

Remarks

1. ↑ The original spelling of the surname Abrahamsohn, under which it is still listed in the catalog of the German National Library, has been lost in the USA; Abraham's son became Abrahamson. Since his last place of work was Washington University in St. Louis (Missouri), it can be assumed that he also died here.
2. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile , p. 521.
3. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , pp. 522-523.
4. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 524.
5. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 525.
6. ^ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 527.
7. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 529.
8. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 531.
9. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 533.
10. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 536.
11. ^ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 537.
12. ^ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 538.
13. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 539.
14. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 540.
15. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 535.
16. ^ Emergency Committee in Aid of Displaced Foreign Scholars .
17. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 544
18. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile , p. 542.
19. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 545.
20. ↑ Visas could only be issued by diplomatic missions outside the USA, which is why Ernst Moritz Manasse had to undertake similar entry and exit procedures.
21. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile , p. 547.
22. ↑ This is very well described in: Gabrielle Simon Edgcomb: From Swastika to Jim Crow . Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges . Edgcomb's study is based on the interviews conducted as part of the Refugee Scholars at Black Colleges oral history collection project . The 31 interviews are in the holdings of the "United States Holocaust Memorial Museum" . In 1999 an almost one-hour video documentation was created under the same title and with direct reference to the materials on which the book is based: From Swastika to Jim Crow . There is an informative article about this film in The Seattle Times on February 10, 2001 under the title Exiled Jews found black bridge .
23. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 548.
24. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 531.
25. ^ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 549.
26. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile , p. 550.
27. ^ Gustav Oberlaender and the Oberlaender Trust .
28. ^ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 55.0
29. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 553.
30. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German ancient scholars in American exile , p. 552ff.
31. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German ancient scholars in American exile , p. 556ff.
32. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile , p. 558.
33. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile , p. 559.
34. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German ancient scholars in American exile , pp. 559–56.0
35. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Antiquities Scientists in American Exile , p. 560.
36. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile , p. 561.
37. ↑ Hans Peter Obermayer: German Classical Scientists in American Exile , p. 561.
38. ↑ Philipp de Lacy in the afterword to The adventures of Odysseus , p. 75.
39. ↑ The book is available under The adventures of Odysseus and contains on page 75 an afterword with biographical details by Philipp de Lacy, editor of Washington University Studies .