Trude Schiff-Löwenstein

Trude Schiff-Löwenstein , also Trude Joan Schiff (born May 28, 1907 in Cologne ; died June 11, 2003 in Israel ) was a German-American surgeon . After the National Socialists came to power , she was forced to give up her job at the Frankfurt University Hospital . From 1933 she worked in the only Jewish hospital in Cologne and temporarily headed the surgical department. Shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War , she managed to emigrate first to London and in 1940 to New York , where she worked as a doctor at various hospitals until her retirement.

Life

Trude Lowenstein was the youngest daughter of from Vendersheim originating Jewish born businessman Adolf Loewenstein and his wife Johanna, nee Mayer. After graduating from school in March 1926 at the Kaiserin-Augusta School in Cologne , she began studying medicine at the universities of Bonn , Innsbruck , Vienna and Cologne in July 1926 . In 1928 she passed the medical pre-examination in Cologne. Trude Löwenstein received her doctorate on July 7, 1931 in Cologne with the topic The Quality Diagnosis of Pulmonary Tuberculosis with Congo Red . In July 1932 she received her license to practice medicine . After completing her doctorate, she went to Cologne and initially worked for six months as a trainee at the Lindenburg University Hospital and then with Julius Strasbourg at the Frankfurt University Hospital. After the National Socialists came to power, Strasbourg had to fire the Jewish doctor at the end of April 1933.

She went to the Israelitisches Asylum in Cologne and worked there as a volunteer assistant until 1935 and then until her emigration to Great Britain in July 1939 as first assistant doctor, senior physician and temporarily as head of the surgical department of the Jewish hospital on Ottostrasse. On June 25, 1937, she was licensed as a specialist in surgery. As a result of the fourth ordinance of the Reich Citizenship Act of July 25, 1938, Trude Löwenstein's license to practice medicine was revoked, like all other Jewish doctors. In October 1938, she was the only woman of 17 doctors in Cologne who were licensed as so-called medical practitioners to provide medical care for the Jewish population. In the Israelite Hospital she was responsible for training and examining the nurses. Her Cologne mentor Alfred Roseno , who had already emigrated to the United States in 1936, urged Trude Löwenstein in writing to leave Germany and offered her help with reintegration into the work process in America.

On July 30, 1938, she applied for a visa for the United States at the American consulate in Stuttgart . On September 21, 1938, she married the commercial clerk and photographer Hans Schiff in Cologne-Sülz . With a temporary visa , the couple emigrated to London on July 8, 1939, to which their parents had already fled. While they were waiting here for the visa for the United States, Trude Schiff-Löwenstein was not allowed to work as a doctor and had to go into debt with relatives in order to make a living.

In March 1940, the couple obtained a visa for the United States. After successfully passing the language test in April 1940, the renewed medical examination in September 1940 and admission as a doctor in spring 1941, she opened a general practitioner’s practice in New York because she could not get a job in a clinic. In order to secure a living for herself and her relatives who had emigrated from Germany, she also earned money with nursing and the preparation of excerpts from medical works. At the end of 1945, the Schiff couple was naturalized . Both changed their first names: Trude added the middle name Joan, Hans Schiff became known as a photographer in the United States under the name John D. Schiff .

After the end of the war, Trude Schiff worked as a doctor well into old age, including at Beth David, Manhattan General and Mount Sinai Hospital . Trude Schiff was a member of the Rudolf Virchow Medical Society .

Estate and Commemoration

The extensive estate of the couple Trude and Hans (John) Schiff is kept in the Leo Baeck Institute in New York . In addition to all the testimony documents from the Cologne period and the employment references from the Israelite Asylum, several boxes with documents have been preserved that document the lengthy efforts to emigrate from Germany to America in 1938. In addition, a large part of Hans Schiff's photo archive can be found in the estate, with numerous photographs by Trude Löwenstein-Schiff.

A section of the exhibition Jewish Destiny in Cologne 1918–1945 , conceived by the Cologne National Socialist Documentation Center in 1988, was dedicated to Trude and Hans Schiff and showed numerous original documents and photos from their creative days in Cologne and their emigration to the United States.

Works by Trude Schiff-Löwenstein (selection)

The quality diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis with Congo red
Experiments on phagocytosis in human sputum, mainly in tuberculous sputum
Further experiences with trigeminal neuralgia with radium emanation

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b ^c Markus Schnöpf, Oliver Pohl: Doctors in the Empire. Retrieved November 23, 2018 .
^ ^A ^b John (Hans) and Trude Schiff Collection, 1913-2001: Medical School. Leo Baeck Institute, accessed November 28, 2018 .
↑ Barbara Becker-Jákli: The Jewish hospital in Cologne: the history of the Israelite asylum for the sick and the elderly from 1869 to 1945 . Emons, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89705-350-0 , p. 403 .
↑ ^a ^b Barbara Becker-Jákli: The Jewish hospital in Cologne: the history of the Israelite asylum for the sick and the elderly from 1869 to 1945 . Emons, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89705-350-0 , p. 294 .
^ ^A ^b ^c ^d Center for Jewish History: CJH Digital Collections: John (Hans) and Trude Schiff Collection, 1913–2001. Retrieved November 28, 2018 .
^ Horst Matzerath : Jüdisches Schicksal in Köln, 1918–1945: Exhibition of the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne, NS Documentation Center: November 8, 1988 to January 22, 1989: in the Cologne City Museum, Alte Wache, Zeughausstrasse 1-3, 5000 Cologne 1 : [Catalog] . Ed .: Historical Archive of the City of Cologne, NS Documentation Center. Cologne 1988, p. 252 ff .

personal data
SURNAME	Schiff-Löwenstein, Trude
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Löwenstein, Trude (maiden name); Ship, Trude Joan
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German-American surgeon
DATE OF BIRTH	May 28, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cologne
DATE OF DEATH	June 11, 2003
Place of death	Israel

[:0-1] Markus Schnöpf, Oliver Pohl: Doctors in the Empire. Retrieved November 23, 2018 .

[:1-2] A ^b John (Hans) and Trude Schiff Collection, 1913-2001: Medical School. Leo Baeck Institute, accessed November 28, 2018 .

[3] Barbara Becker-Jákli: The Jewish hospital in Cologne: the history of the Israelite asylum for the sick and the elderly from 1869 to 1945 . Emons, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89705-350-0 , p. 403 .

[:2-4] Barbara Becker-Jákli: The Jewish hospital in Cologne: the history of the Israelite asylum for the sick and the elderly from 1869 to 1945 . Emons, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89705-350-0 , p. 294 .

[:3-5] A ^b ^c ^d Center for Jewish History: CJH Digital Collections: John (Hans) and Trude Schiff Collection, 1913–2001. Retrieved November 28, 2018 .

[6] Horst Matzerath : Jüdisches Schicksal in Köln, 1918–1945: Exhibition of the Historical Archives of the City of Cologne, NS Documentation Center: November 8, 1988 to January 22, 1989: in the Cologne City Museum, Alte Wache, Zeughausstrasse 1-3, 5000 Cologne 1 : [Catalog] . Ed .: Historical Archive of the City of Cologne, NS Documentation Center. Cologne 1988, p. 252 ff .