Justin Peacock and Dr. Robert B McFarland, Germanic and Slavic Languages
When one hears about the Jewish scholars who fled the German Third Reich during the Nazi’s reign of terror, one often hears of Einstein, Freud and others; however, a little known fact is that many scholars in pre-Nazi Germany were Jewish women. These Jewish women were at the forefront of their gender, struggling to be among the first women to gain a secondary education and doctorates to teach at the universities. Many of these scholars’ stories have gone untold through the years because of their gender and because of their race, which the Nazis sought to destroy. Many of their lives, their friendships, their careers, their publications and their opportunities were suppressed and ultimately destroyed by the Nazi regime. The efforts of my research was to uncover these women’s stories, publish their work and stories from their lives on the BYU German Department’s “Sophie” website; thereby helping others to see the work that particularly the German Jewish women scientists had performed and how their lives were affected by the Third Reich.
In order to perform this research I utilized the Harold B. Lee Library on the BYU campus. First of all, I sought books dealing with the subject of my research and gathered names of these female scientists. This list included Lise Meitner, Gerta von Ubisch, Clara Immerwahr, Rahel Hirsch, and others. I then searched through the scientific journals from that time period for articles that they published. The articles that contained research by these women, which predated the copyright date, were copied down and inserted into the “Sophie” website. The other postcopyright date research was noted as belonging to each researcher. I then gathered information about the life histories of these women and began contacting universities in Germany whose archives contained pertinent information about these women. Unfortunately, I came in contact with the University of Heidelberg’s archives which contain the writings and the autobiography of Gerta von Ubisch. I created timelines for many of the women, with accomplishments, research and annotated bibliographies of the materials I had found; these were also put on the “Sophie” website. I had hoped to go to Germany this summer to gather copies of the original documents from the German archives, but was unable to do so. I also submitted an essay in German on the tragic story of Lise Meitner to be published on the “Sophie” website.
The women that were researched in this project led absolutely fascinating lives, which were completely destroyed with the onslaught of Nazi hatred and repression. These women such as Lise Meitner were among the first women to gain a secondary education, and those such as Gerta von Ubisch were among the first women to get doctorate degrees from their universities and begin teaching at the university setting. These accomplishments did not come easily; Lise Meitner had to work in the basement makeshift lab of her Institute and listen to lectures from outside the lecture halls; Clara Immerwahr was never allowed to continue her pursuit of knowledge once she was married to the renowned Dr. Haber; Rahel Hirsch was forced by her father to first earn a degree in tutoring French, then take the university placement tests on her own (only with a tutor) before getting her college degrees. Each of these women, in the end, triumphed in my eyes. Lise Meitner went on to become first person to come up with the ideas and theories of nuclear fission, for which her German male counterpart, Otto Hahn, received the Nobel Prize. Immerwahr established a class for educating Karlsruhe’s women in the basics of “kitchen chemistry”. Gerta von Ubisch, a plant biologist and one of the first geneticists, is still known today for her discovery and work with Ubisch bodies on the underside of many plant leaves. Rahel Hirsch is known in medical circles for her work with women’s health; she researched a body mechanism now known as the “Hirsch Effect”, which deals with the body’s digestive system.
Even with all of these accomplishments, these women still faced large difficulties Meitner’s gender, her race and the politics among the Swedes prevented her from ever receiving the Nobel Prize even though she received countless nominations for it. Gerta von Ubisch was forced into exile due to protests and boycotts of the pro-Nazi students. She never recovered from this blow; she was denied a position at her University when she returned, and was even denied a pension for her services. Meitner also fled into exile, where she had to leave her precious research to her male colleague, Otto Hahn, who received the benefits of her continued intellectual contact with him (i.e. discovery of nuclear fission). Hirsch died a depressed and lonely woman in England, separated from her research, due to her forced emigration. Immerwahr committed suicide before the Nazi’s reign as an act of protest against Germany’s use of toxic nerve gases in World War I, as well as freeing herself from the bondage she felt.
All of the women I researched were bright, capable, well versed in their respective fields, and well-cultured women whose lives were destroyed by the reign of Nazi terror. They were not killed, but their lives, their research, their contributions to society were cut to a dramatic stop, and they were never the same after that happened. This joy, their purpose in life was taken away. I was grateful to be able to reveal some aspects of their lives, their stories and their accomplishments, hopefully I was able to in some way bring back some meaning and purpose to what they did, and tell the world their untold stories. I plan on going to Germany next summer to bring back photocopies of Heidelberg’s archive’s records on Gerta von Ubisch for the “Sophie” website, which are, as of yet, unpublished. This website is a forum for many untold stories, unheard voices of Germanic women throughout history.