Dr. Else Hirschberg
* 1892

Else Hirschberg, born on 11 Feb. 1892 in Berlin, deported from Hamburg to Auschwitz on 11 July 1942, murdered there

Wiesenstraße 26

Else Mathilde Erna Hirschberg was born in Berlin on 11 Feb. 1892. Her father Ludwig Hirschberg (1857–1920) was a merchant in Berlin, and later a railroad director in Königsberg (today Kaliningrad in Russia). Her mother, Aurelie née Kroner (1868–1936), came from an eminent rabbi family. Else’s sisters Paula (1893–1939), Hertha (1896–1943), and Margot (1900–1942) were also members of the Hirschberg family. Around 1908, the then divorced mother arrived in Rostock with her four daughters. There Else Hirschberg attended a private girls’ secondary school.

At that time, there was no opportunity for girls to take the high school graduation exam (Abitur), and women were not yet admitted to the regular enrollment at the University of Rostock anyway. Thus, Else could only attend courses as a guest auditor. Why she chose chemistry, we do not know. Perhaps the fact that her two uncles Siegfried (1858–1913) and Hugo (1863–1939) Kroner owned the “Gebrüder [Bros.] Kroner” chemical factory in Berlin, which was known for its shoe polish and stain remover, played a role.

Else Hirschberg wrote in the curriculum vitae enclosed with her dissertation that she had “continued to follow the prescribed course of study up to but not including the doctorate” and had produced a major work under the chemist August Michaelis (1847–1916) with which she wished to obtain a doctorate. However, the Schwerin Ministry of Education did not grant an exemption from the provision of Sec. 2 Par. 2a of the doctoral regulations of the Faculty of Philosophy, according to which a high school graduation examination was required.

By this time, Else Hirschberg had already completed a second scientific study, which was published in 1913. This work shows that she had turned increasingly toward medical and pharmacological problems that required chemical knowledge for processing. Until 1917, under the pharmacologist Rudolf Kobert (1854–1918), Else Hirschberg was engaged in research on the ingredients of lily of the valley.

Between 1917 and 1919, a series of further studies were carried out in cooperation with the physiologist Hans Winterstein (1879–1963), in whose institute she was employed as a scientific assistant. After 1919, she worked briefly in industry or for a pharmaceutical plant. Later, she was again employed as a technical assistant, though from 1927 onward, definitely only as a student assistant – always for one semester at a time – at the Rostock Physiological Institute.

The tasks of the “student assistant” Else Hirschberg included working on lectures and courses, managing the library, which she had reorganized, registering the inventory and invoices, and producing chemical solutions for lectures and courses. In particular, she was involved in the reorganization of the physiological-chemical internship.

A major obstacle for the employment as a full assistant was the prerequisite of the Medical Faculty demanding an eleven-semester medical degree. Else Hirschberg had actually begun her medical studies in 1928 as a properly enrolled student, after she had successfully passed a special examination in Berlin, which gave her the opportunity to enroll regularly in the natural sciences and medicine at a Prussian university, but also at the University of Rostock. She mastered the exam successfully and was finally able to obtain a Ph.D. in 1928. In addition to her medical studies, she continued to work as a tutorial assistant and continued her scientific research.

The “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” (“Gesetz zur Wiederherstellung des Berufsbeamtentums”) was enacted on 7 Apr. 1933, but one day before, on 6 Apr. 1933, Else Hirschberg had announced that she felt compelled to absent herself from the institute at the instigation of the leader of the Rostock student body, Werner Trumpf (1910–1971). Granted leave on 1 July 1933, with continuous pay until 30 Sept. 1933, she was then dismissed.

How Else Hirschberg subsequently earned her living is not known to us. After her mother’s death in 1936, she left Rostock. Else Hirschberg received a position as head of the laboratory at the Israelite Hospital in Hamburg. She could no longer do scientific work there, but had to limit herself to carrying out clinical-chemical examinations and training the laboratory assistants. In 1938, there were considerable changes at the hospital, as many doctors and nurses emigrated abroad. Else Hirschberg also tried to find a way to save herself and her sisters, as is evident from her correspondence with Max Bergmann (1886–1944) and William Albert Noyes (1857–1941). Waiting for the allocation of a number for entry to the USA within the quota took a long time, and outside the quota system, this was only possible if an opportunity to work was proven. Bergmann’s letter shows that despite strenuous efforts, it was extremely difficult to find work for the refugees: “All my efforts to find an institution willing to appoint Dr. Hirschberg to a position have so far been in vain. The number of refugees who are attempting to find an opportunity to immigrate outside the quota is, as a consequence of the recent outrages in Germany, so large that it is quite impossible to help them all. I have generally observed that people are rather reluctant to employ chemists from abroad whom they do not know personally.”
However, in Nov. 1939, Noyes announced that he had sent affidavits for Else Hirschberg and her two sisters to the American Consulate in Hamburg. However, they apparently never arrived, and the emigration plans had thus been smashed.

In the deportation lists of the Hamburg Gestapo, the name Else Hirschberg appears for 11 July 1942. This transport went directly to Auschwitz. We do not know whether Else Hirschberg perished already on the transport or in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Today, Stolpersteine in front of her home addresses in Rostock and Hamburg and a memorial plaque at the Hamburg Israelite Hospital commemorate her fate.

Translator: Erwin Fink
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.