Philipp Rezek

Philipp Raphael Rezek (born August 23, 1894 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary , † June 23, 1963 in Miami Beach , Florida , United States ) was an Austrian-American doctor , pathologist and university professor .

Life

Philipp Rezek was born on August 23, 1894, the son of the Prague merchant Adolf Rezek (1857–1928) and his wife Gisella Rezek (née Goldstein; 1867–1948) in Vienna. He received his education at the kk Staatsrealschule in Schüttelstrasse in the 2nd district of Vienna Leopoldstadt , where Rezek excelled as a pianist in the so-called student academy. During the First World War he did his military service from 1914 to 1917 in the Austro-Hungarian army , where he initially served at the front before he became head of a hospital for epidemic diseases in what is now Albania . Before the end of the war he returned to his homeland and enrolled in the winter semester 1917/18 - initially as an extraordinary student - to study medicine at the University of Vienna . On 26 July 1921 his doctorate he attended the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna Dr. med. and was subsequently employed as an assistant doctor at the I. Medical University Clinic.

In the year of his graduation, he married his fellow student Anna "Annie" Bunzl (1895–1974) in the city ​​temple , Vienna's main synagogue , with whom he had two daughters, Esther Mendelsohn Bunzl (1923–2019), who later became an art historian, and Susanne Rezek Lindau ( 1926–2016), who later became a medical technician. His wife's father was the wealthy industrialist Ludwig Bunzl (1857–1928), who was a partner in the Austrian paper company Bunzl & Biach . From 1929 to 1932 Rezek was also a private lecturer in neuropathology at his alma mater . For a long time, the doctor of internal medicine researched liver diseases in British India . In December 1934 Rezek published the film Palestine 1934 , which was shown in the cinema. In November 1936 he released another film, Ceylon, Land and People . At the beginning of the following year he brought out the film India, Land and People and also gave lectures on his travels through Ceylon and India. In April 1937 he lectured and screened films entitled A Journey to Palestine . In the year of his escape, the film Ceylon, Land and People in Austria was shown.

After the annexation of Austria and the beginning of the systematic exclusion of Jews, Rezek fled with his family to the United States. On July 14, 1942, for racist reasons, he - as well as his wife - was stripped of his doctoral degree from the University of Vienna, since under National Socialism he was “considered unworthy of a degree at a German university as a Jew”. The following year Rezek became a citizen of the United States . Shortly after his emigration, he worked from 1938 until his death in 1963 at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami in the US state of Florida. Until 1953 he headed the laboratories at the third largest public hospital in the United States and then the department of pathological anatomy.

Rezek can be described as the first "full-time pathologist" in Miami. As such, it introduced teaching and training programs for pathology and clinical pathology, i.e. pathology in the living world, and in 1947 set up a separate course for medical technicians. In 1954 he was promoted to head the newly established Department of Pathological Anatomy and became a professor of pathology at the 1952 founded and oldest medical school in Florida, which the University of Miami belonging Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine . At the same time he also took up his work as a pathologist at Kendall Hospital in South Miami and at Victoria Hospital in Miami. He was also engaged in cancer research and was a member of numerous medical associations. During his life he published numerous scientific articles in domestic and foreign medical journals.

Rezek also worked as a consultant for the Lago Oil and Transport Company in Aruba , which at that time was still part of the now defunct Netherlands Antilles , and was visiting professor in pathology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem . About 13 years after his doctorate was withdrawn and about ten years after the end of National Socialism, his title was granted again on May 15, 1955, or the withdrawal was declared “void from the start”. Along with his wife, he was an active and leading member of Miami's cultural community.

On June 23, 1963, Rezek died in Miami Beach at the age of 68, leaving behind his wife and two daughters and families. The Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries of Vanderbilt University keep parts of the estate Rezeks, including many documents and documents from the period 1938-1941, of which a large part in German language written is. Some of the letters were written by Rezek from right to left in order to get through the censors of the National Socialists.

literature

• Susanne Blumesberger , Michael Doppelhofer , Gabriele Mauthe : Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century . Volume 2: J – R, Register. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , pp. 1118-1119.

Web links

• Philipp Rezek in the memorial book for the victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna in 1938

Individual evidence

1. ^ Theater, art, music. - Student academy. In:  Reichspost , June 20, 1911, p. 9 (online at ANNO ).
2. ^ Theater, art, music. - Student academy. In:  Reichspost , June 20, 1912, p. 8 (online at ANNO ).
3. ↑ ^{a b} parts of Ludwing Bunzl. In:  Neue Freie Presse , May 1, 1928, p. 24 (online at ANNO ).
4. ^ A Viennese doctor in British India. In:  Der Wiener Tag , October 9, 1932, p. 7 (online at ANNO ).
5. ^ Youth-free films in December 1934. In:  Österreichische Film-Zeitung , 11 January 1935, p. 6 (online at ANNO ).
6. ↑ Youth-free films - short-tone films, comedies :. In:  Das Kino-Journal , January 12, 1935, p. 6 (online at ANNO ).
7. ↑ From the Volksheim Week - Events :. In:  Gerechtigkeit , November 26, 1936, p. 12 (online at ANNO ).
8. ↑ Lectures and events. In:  Der Wiener Tag , November 29, 1936, p. 4 (online at ANNO ).
9. ^ Lectures and events. In:  Der Wiener Tag , January 6, 1937, p. 10 (online at ANNO ).
10. ^ Ceylon lecture by Dr. Philipp Rezek .. In:  Der Wiener Tag , February 13, 1937, p. 8 (online at ANNO ).
11. ↑ From the Volksheim Week. In:  Gerechtigkeit , April 8, 1937, p. 12 (online at ANNO ).
12. ↑ (Presentations from today.). In:  Neues Wiener Journal , April 10, 1937, p. 9 (online at ANNO ).
13. ↑ THEATER. In:  Neues Wiener Journal , April 10, 1937, p. 16 (online at ANNO ).
14. ↑ Lectures and events. In:  Der Wiener Tag , January 23, 1938, p. 6 (online at ANNO ).
15. ↑ ^{a b} OBITUARY - Susanne Rezek Lindau (English), accessed on November 4, 2019
16. ↑ ^{a b} Philipp Rezek Papers on the official website of the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries , accessed on November 5, 2019