Edith Feldbau (verh. Rubin)

Born:	09-11-1916
Faculty:	Philosophical School
Category:	Expelled student

Edith FELDBAU (married RUBIN), born on September 11^th, 1916 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), daughter of Josef Feldbau (merchant), lived in Vienna's 4^th district, Schelleingasse 22/9, and had graduated from highschool ("Elisabethgymnasium" in Vienna's 5^th district) on June 12^th, 1935 and enrolled at the Philosophical School of the University of Vienna in fall term 1935/36 and took courses in pharmaceutics and chemistry. After takeover of power of National-Socialism in 1938 - in the spring term 1938 she was in the 3^rd year of her studies (leaving certificate ("Abgangszeugnis") was issued on July 1^st, 1938) - she was forced to quit her studies and to leave the University of Vienna for racist reason. Her older sister Margarete Feldbau (verh. Shenk, 1915-2005), allready registered for her final examination in history and English language and literature, was also forced to leave the university without graduation for racist reason. Their older brother Alfred (1913-1997) had already completed his medical studies shortly before and was able to emigrate with his doctoral degree. All three siblings emigrated - via different routes - to the USA, where an aunt of theirs lived in New York City. Edith Feldbau, while waiting in Vienna for all the formalities for leaving the country to be completed, took various private training courses, whether in cooking or in laboratory assistance for analytical chemistry, in order to improve her chances of finding work in emigration. On July 31^st, 1938, she was able to leave by train for Paris, from where she soon continued her journey to the United States via Le Havre on the Cunard Line (SS Georgic) to New York City (arrival: August 14^th, 1938). On the ship she already met her sister again and in New York City also her brother. In Vienna, her parents' business and apartment were looted ("Aryanized"), but in 1940 they finally managed to emigrate to New York via Great Britain. While her brother Alfred and his wife, both of whom had emigrated from Vienna with medical degrees, were able to work in the U.S. in their profession as doctors/physicians, Edith Feldbau was unable to continue her studies in emigration and worked as a housemaid, nanny and in factories, learning typing and professional English in evening classes at Brooklyn College and later at New York City College. She later found unpaid work ("for free lunch") in a hospital laboratory, where she was able to put her Viennese university studies to use again for the first time, and eventually ended up in the Chemistry Laboratory of Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, whose director, Dr. H. Sobotka was a Viennese chemist. In 1943 Edith Feldbau had married Martin Israel Rubin, MD (1915-2006), a native of Brooklyn, later professor of biochemistry at Georgetown University, and they had four children, Joanne Orleans Frankel, Richard Rubin, Naomi Long, and Deborah Rubin, and lived in Chevy Chase, Montgomery, Maryland/USA. She was a US citizen since January 17^th, 1944. Edith Rubin, née Feldbau, died on August 15^th, 2008 in Montgomery County (Montgomery), Maryland/USA and is buried in King David Memorial Gardens in Fairfax County (Fairfax), Virginia/USA.

Lit.: POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 381; FRITSCH 2007; Archive of the University of Vienna/Nationale PHIL 1935-1938; Austrian Heritage Collection am Leo Baeck Institute New York, AR 10947; Video im USHMM; www.ancestry.de. 

Herbert Posch