Hans Abels

Hans ABELS (born on February 18^th, 1873 in Vienna) was private lecturer ("Privatdozent") in pediatrics at the Medical School of the University of Vienna.
He was persecuted under National Socialism for racist reasons as a Jew and was dismissed from his post on April 22^nd, 1938, his venia legendi was revoked and he was expelled from the University of Vienna.

Hans Abels (until 1902: Abeles), son of Bernhard Abeles and Anna Abeles, née Kassowitz, graduated from the grammar school in Meran on June 25^th, 1891, then began his medical studies at the University of Vienna in 1892, where he graduated on July 27^th, 1897. He then worked clinically at various institutions, including Max Kassowitz's Children's Institute in Vienna.
From 1898 he worked for four years as a secondary physician at the Karolinen Children's Hospital and from 1909 as a pediatrician at the maternity home of the Cooperative Hospital (Vienna Women's Hospice) and from 1905 lived in Vienna's 18^th district, Sternwartestrasse 33, where he also ran a pediatric practice.

In the meantime, he also worked as a ship's doctor for Austrian Lloyd and traveled through Africa, India and Japan from 1903 to 1904, studying tropical infectious and nutritional diseases in children.
In autumn 1907, at the suggestion of Dr. Federn, he was also a short-term member of Sigmund Freud's Psychological Wednesday Society, whose lecture in the fall term of 1907/08 he attended as one of only four listeners (Freud presented his ideas on the interpretation of dreams at the time). He was also head of department at the Mariahilfer Ambulatorium and a member of the Society of Physicians in Vienna. During the First World War, he worked at the Karolinen Children's Hospital again for three years and was awarded the Red Cross Medal of Honor with the war decoration.

In 1925, at the age of 52, he habilitated at the Medical School of the University of Vienna with a thesis on "Scorbutic Dysergy" and became a private lecturer in pediatrics.

His scientific work includes numerous publications, including: Über Nachempfindungen im Gebiete des kinästhetischen und statischen Sinnes: Ein Beitrag zur Lehre vom Bewegungsschwindel (Drehschwindel), in: Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 1907, vol. 43; On urinary bladder diseases in little girls caused by foreign bodies that have not been considered so far, in: Wiener klinische Wochenschrift 1912, 46, 1833-1835; Über die Rolle der Infekte beim Skorbut der Kinder und Säuglinge (Möller-Barlowsche Krankheit), in: Medizinische Klinik 1919, 15, 1084-1086; Über Hemmungsbildungen an einem Neugeborenen durch Röntgeneinwirkungen in früher Fötalperiode. Vienna 1924; Birth weight and nutrition of the mother, in: Medizinische Klinik 1925, 7, 234-237; On the development of the symptom picture in gastric diseases, in: Wiener klinische Rundschau 1925, 38, 1027-1030; Growing pains, in: Wiener klinische Wochenschrift 1936, 86, 736f.; Über die Entstehungsweise des sogenannten angeborenen Schiefhalses, seine konstitutions- und erbpathologische Beziehungen: die unmittelbaren Entstehungsbedingungen, in: Annales Paediatrici 1938, 152, 4-34.

He had married Dr. Else Löwenhek (born May 23^rd, 1906 in Vienna, graduated from the University of Vienna on June 15^th, 1932), 33 years his junior, in the synagogue in Vienna-Brigittenau in 1934 and lost not only his employment and practice in 1938, but also his apartment and had to move to Vienna's 19^th district, Dionysius-Andrassy-Strasse 1/6/7 from the beginning of November 1938 until May 1939 and again to Vienna's 18^th district, Waehringer Strasse 123/8 until he was finally able to leave the country in July 1939.

He left for London, Great Britain, with his wife Else on July 3^rd, 1939, and they then spent a few months in Oxford. They managed to obtain U.S. visas in London on November 27^th, 1939 and emigrated from Liverpool on the SS Georgic to the USA on December 23^rd, 1939, arriving in New York on January 3^rd, 1940. He listed his sister "Liza" (Fanny Luise) Abels (1882-1942, retired secondary school professor in Vienna 18, was deported from Vienna to Riga in 1942 and murdered) as his next of kin, and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Löwenhek/Lowenback, who already lived in Brooklyn, as his contact person in the USA.

Dr. Hans Abels, who was already 67 years old when he arrived in New York, died after several years - the literature gives various dates between November 1942 and July 1946 - on 26 November 26^th, 1942 in Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, New York, NY/USA and was buried on November 28^th, 1942 at Fresh Pond Crematory in Queens, New York, NY/USA.

His widow Else Abels was granted U.S. citizenship in 1945 and continued to live and work as a doctor in the state and city of New York. She married the musician Carl Ziegler (1904-1981) in the late 1960s. Else A. Ziegler died on August 14^th, 1995 and was buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery in Queens.

As part of the Nazi art looting process, 42 ethnographic objects from his estate were identified in the Vienna Ethnographic Museum (Weltmuseum) in 2007 and restituted to his heirs: The restitution notice dated June 1^st, 2007 stated, "Dr. Hans Abels and his wife Else were persecuted by the Nazi rulers because of their ancestry and had to emigrate in July 1939. Dr. Abels had already given the ethnographic objects to the Museum für Völkerkunde 'as a donation' on October 25^th, 1938. He had presumably collected them on his travels as a ship's doctor. All but one of them are still in the Ethnographic Museum's depot today.
In view of the facts described above, there can be no doubt that this donation [...] was null and void. It can be assumed with certainty that the donated objects would have had to be returned."

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/Senate S 304.3, MED PA 948, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") MED 1929-1941 No. 818; Austrian State Archives, OeStA/Archive of the Republic AdR/06-Finances/E-uReang/VVSt/VA 30575 Hans ABELS; Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna /Historical Central Registration of Viennese inhabitants; FISCHER 1938; MERINSKY 1980, 1-2; MÜHLBERGER 1993, 18;  UB MedUni Wien/van Swieten Blog; FISCHER und VOSWINCKEL, Biographisches Lexikon der hervorragenden Ärzte der letzten fünfzig Jahre, Bd. 3, S. 5f. (A 740/3); Elke MÜHLLEITNER, Biographisches Lexikon der Psychoanalyse, 1992; FEIKES 1999; Gabriele ANDERL, Provenienzforschung am Museum für Völkerkunde Wien, in: Archiv für Völkerkunde 59–60, 2009, 29–31; Christine DIERCKS at psyalphy.net 2012; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2024; passenger database Ellis Island; www.genteam.at; information from Mag. Emmanuel Maria Dammerer, Vienna 10/2020 and from Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 10/2020.

Herbert Posch