Ephraim (Efraim) Racker

Born:	06-28-1913
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled student

Efraim RACKER (born on June 28^th, 1913 in Neu-Sandez, Galicia/Austrian-Hungarian Empire [Nowy Sącz/Poland], died September 9^th, 1991 in Syracuse, New York/USA), son of Meier Racker and Ella nee Spira, initially studied at the Acedemy of Arts in Vienna and then changed to the Medical School of the University of Vienna. He wasn't enrolled at the Medical School anymore in 1938, but was preparing for the final exams ('Rigorosen'). He finally finished his studies and graduated on July 21^st, 1938, but only with the discriminating ceremony of a 'Nichtarierpromotion', which included at the same time that he was banned from his profession.
His older brother, later psychoanalyst Dr. phil. Heinrich Racker (1910-1961), who studied at the Medical School, too, was also expelled from the University of Vienna in 1938. Efraim Racker was able to emigrate via Denmark to Great Britain in 1938, where he worked as assistent in biochemistry at Cardiff City Mental Hospital in Wales until and researched on schizophrenia. After the beginning of World War II he was categorized as "enemy alien", lost his position and was interned at the Isle of Man.
He decided to emigrate to the USA, where he arrived in 1941 and became Research Associate at the Physiology Department of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and did Polio researches. In 1942 he changed as Resident Physician at the Harlem Hospital in New York, where he researched on pneumonia. In 1944 Racker became staff member at the Microbiology Department at New York University Medical School, where was promoted associate professor.
Efraim Racker married Franziska Weiss, who also had grown up in Vienna, studied medicine, had been able to finish her medical studies with the discriminating ceremony of a 'Nichtarierpromotion' in 1938 and emigrated to the USA in 1940. Their daughter Ann Myra (married Costello) was born and they became US-citizens in 1947.
In 1952 he became Associate Professor at Yale Medical School in New Haven, but moved back to New York in 1954 to become chief of Nutrition and Physiology Department at the Public Health Research Institute of New York City. In 1966 Efraim Racker was elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences. In the same year, the family moved the last time, when he was appointed Albert Einstein Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He built up an Department of Biochemistry, which he headed until 1970. He was awarded several prizes and honors, e.g. the National Medal of Science in 1976. Efraim Racker died on September 9^th, 1991 in Syracuse of a stroke.

Lit.: POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 125f., 453; POSCH 2009, 239, 370f.; information from her daughter Ann Racker Costello, USA, 2014; Douglas ALLCHIN, Efraim Racker, in: New Dictionary of Scientific Biography (2007) [pdf]; Cornell University Library; Andre T. JAGENDORF, June Fessenden MACDONALD, Peter HINKLE: Efraim Racker (June 28, 1913-September 9, 1991), Cornell University Faculty Memorial Statement, 1991; Peter HINKLE, Efraim Racker, in: Journal of Bioenergetics and Biomembranes 5/24 (1992), 517-519; Chris MILLER, Efraim Racker, in: Journal of Membrane Biology 2/125 (1992), 95-98; Franziska RACKER u. Efraim RACKER: Resolution and Reconstitution. A Dual Autobiographical Scetch. In: Semenza, G. (Hg.), Of Oxygen, Fuels and Living Matter, Part 1. Chichester u.a. 1981, 265-287; obituary in New York Times, September 13th, 1991; Gottfried SCHATZ, Efraim Racker, in: National Academy of Sciences (Ed.), Biographical Memoirs 70 (1996).

Katharina Kniefacz