Edith Rabl

Edith RABL, born on February 3^rd, 1916 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), daughter of Dr. Felix Rabl (1875-1958, director Austrian Federal Railways|OeBB) and Josefine Rabl (1893-1970), lived in Vienna's 9^th district, Latschkagasse 9.. After attending secondary school, she had passed the school-leaving examination (Matura) at the Realgymnasium in Vienna's 9^th district in 1934 and was enrolled at the Philosophical School for one year in order to be able to take the Latin supplementary examination, before she was able to take up law studies from the spring term of 1935 and was last enrolled at the Law School in the 4^th and last year of studies in the spring term of 1938.

Under National Socialism, she was forced to discontinue her studies for racist reasons after the Anschluss - she had still been admitted to continue her studies until the end of spring term of 1938 as part of the 2% numerus clausus for Jewish students, but had to leave the University of Vienna for good after a few weeks.

She was able to flee Austria in time and emigrated to Great Britain in 1938, where she lived with her parents in the household of Robert G. Routh in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, England, at the time of the census in September 1939, with her mother working as a cook and herself as a nurse. After the outbreak of war, Edith Rabl was exempted from interning German refugees as potential enemy aliens while working as a nurse at Battersea General Hospital in November 1939 ("present occupation: Nurse; normal occupation: Student of Law") and then worked as an Agricultural Research Worker.

She returned to Vienna with her parents from Great Britain after the end of National Socialism and completed her studies at the Law School of the University of Vienna on December 20^th, 1947 with the doctorate "Dr. iur." She lived with her parents in Vienna's 18^th district, Weimarer Strasse 7 and became a civil servant and diplomat in the Austrian Foreign Ministry. In the winter of 1966, Dr. Edith Rabl was a delegate to the 21^st UN General Assembly in New York (along with Foreign Minister Lujo Tončić-Sorinj, Member of Parliament Hertha Firnberg and Austrian Ambassador Kurt Waldheim) and, together with Prof. Dr. Stephan Verosta and Attaché Dr. Helmut Türk, formed the working committee of the Commission for International Law Issues of the Austrian delegation. Negotiations at that time included the South Tyrol question, but also Korea, Palestine refugees, South Africa's apartheid policy, the nuclear issue and the relocation of the UNIDO headquarters to Vienna. From 1971 to 1978 she was ambassador to Ireland.

Dr. Edith Rabl died on August 11^th, 1994 and was buried in the grave of her parents at the cemetery in Vienna, Neustift am Walde.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") IUR 1935–1938, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") IUR 1939–1959, No. 1033; BRANDSTETTER 2007, 140; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 453; Rudolf AGSTNER, Gertrude ENDERLE-BURCEL u. Michaela FOLLNER, Österreichs Spitzendiplomaten zwischen Kaiser und Kreisky, Vienna 2009, 618; find a grave in Vienna; www.ancestry.de;  www.genteam.at; www.myheritage.com; information courtesy by Charlotte Lugmayr-Frantz, Vienna 2014.

Herbert Posch