Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner

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Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner

Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner (born August 22, 1871 in Kaunas , Russian Empire , as Lydia Rabinowitsch; † August 3, 1935 in Berlin ) was a Russian-German microbiologist .

She was the second woman in Prussia and the first in Berlin to be awarded the title of professor. She was also the first woman to publish the magazine for tuberculosis, a specialist journal, and proved the transmission of tubercle bacilli through infected cow's milk. In 1920 Rabinowitsch-Kempner took over the bacteriological institute at the Moabit Municipal Hospital , but was forced to retire in 1934 due to her Jewish origins.

Live and act

Berlin memorial plaque on the house, Turmstrasse 21, in Berlin-Moabit

Origin and education

Lydia Rabinowitsch was born as the youngest child of the Jewish brewery owner Leo Rabinowitsch and his wife Minna (née Werblunsky) in 1871 in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. She attended the girls' high school in her hometown and was then supposed to study. The father died early, but the family was wealthy enough to allow almost all of the nine children to study. Since women were not allowed to study in the Russian Empire, Rabinowitsch went to Zurich to study natural sciences for three semesters. She then continued her studies in Bern , where she received her doctorate in medicine in 1894 with the thesis Contributions to the history of the development of the fruiting bodies of some gastromyzetes .

After completing her studies, she moved to Berlin to work at Robert Koch's side at the Royal Prussian Institute for Infectious Diseases . There she was the only woman to be given a job - an unpaid assistant position. However, the male-dominated society did not give Rabinowitsch much freedom for scientific work. So in 1896 Rabinowitsch went to Philadelphia as a lecturer at the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania , a medical college for women. She taught bacteriology there for three years and was appointed professor of bacteriology in 1898.

Promotion to tuberculosis expert

During the semester break, she kept returning to Berlin, where she met the doctor Walter Kempner . They decided to continue their work at the Robert Koch Institute together and married in Madrid in 1898 at an international medical congress. Probably because of differences of opinion within the institute, Rabinowitsch-Kempner moved to the Pathological Institute of the Charité in 1903 and worked there as a scientific assistant for sixteen years. During this time she rose to become a well-known and recognized tuberculosis researcher. She pointed tubercle bacilli in 1904 in raw milk by, while Robert Koch without success by the major Berlin dairy Bolle Dairy examined milk delivered. Rabinowitsch-Kempner published numerous works and gave lectures at international congresses, and in 1912 was the first woman in Berlin to be awarded the title of professor. The award was followed by anti-Semitic hostility and despite the professorship (as adjunct professor ) she did not get a job at a university. She was also unable to complete her habilitation as desired , as this only became possible for women after the First World War .

In 1914 Rabinowitsch-Kempner took over the management of the magazine for tuberculosis . During the First World War, the General Staff Doctor of the Reichsheeres used her, along with other scientists, as an advisor for epidemic prevention.

At the age of 49, Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner got her first permanent position with a reasonable salary: in 1920 she was entrusted with the management of the bacteriological institute at the Moabit Municipal Hospital . Her husband died of larynx tuberculosis in the same year. They had three children together: Robert Kempner (1899–1993, lawyer, deputy to the American chief prosecutor Robert H. Jackson at the Nuremberg war crimes trials ) and Walter Kempner (1903–1997, also a doctor, family doctor Stefan Georges and member of the George Circle ). The daughter Nadja (1901–1932) also died of tuberculosis.

Compulsory retirement

Family grave of the Kempners

After the handover of power to the National Socialists , Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner was forced into retirement in 1934 and forced to give up her work on the magazine for tuberculosis . She made it possible for her sons to emigrate, but stayed behind in Berlin, where she died on August 3, 1935 after a serious illness. She was buried in the Kempner family grave in the Lichterfelde park cemetery, which in 1993 also took up the mortal shell of her son Robert Kempner.

Honors

The grave of the Kempners in the Parkfriedhof Lichterfelde in Dept. 4a-2 is today an honorary grave of the State of Berlin. At the hospital Moabit a plaque to honor the Jewish doctors was placed on the well is to find her name. In 2016, the district assembly of Berlin-Mitte named a new street to be built in Europacity after the microbiologist as Lydia-Rabinowitsch-Straße.

literature

Web links

Commons : Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lydia Rabinowitsch-Kempner. In: Ursula Ahrens: Aufbruch. Women's stories from Tiergarten 1850–1950. Weidler, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89693-138-5
  2. ↑ What about the real stories? badische-zeitung.de , April 1, 2017
  3. ↑ Manfred Stürzbecher : Rabinowitsch-Kempner, Lydia. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , p. 1211.
  4. ↑ Harry Balkow-Gölitzer: Celebrities in Berlin-Lichterfelde: and their stories . Berlin Edition, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8148-0164-3 , pp. 55 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  5. ^ Karen Noetzel: District gives new streets in the "Europacity" a name. Berliner Woche, August 2, 2016, accessed on January 8, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Rabinowitsch-Kempner, Lydia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rabinowitsch, Lydia (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German microbiologist
BIRTH DATE August 22, 1871
PLACE OF BIRTH Kaunas
DATE OF DEATH August 3, 1935
PLACE OF DEATH Berlin