Philipp Rezek

Born:	08-23-1894
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Philipp REZEK (born on August 23^rd, 1894 in Vienna), was the son of Adolf Rezek (1857-1928), merchant from Prague, Bohemia/Austro-Hungaria [Czech Republic], and his wife Gisella Goldstein (1867-1948). During World War I he served in the Austrian-Hungarian Army, first in the frontline, later as director of a hospital for epidemic diseases un Albania. In fall term 1917/18 he began to study medicine at the University of Vienna - first as an extraordinary student. He graduated at the Medical School at the University of Vienna  on July 26^th, 1921 with the academic degree 'Dr. med.'. Subsequently he worked as a trainee physician ("Hilfsarzt") at the First Medical University Clinic and from 1929 to 1932 as a lecturer ("Privatdozent") of neuropathology at the University of Vienna. He prolonged a visit in to India for researches in liver diseases.

In times of Nazism Philipp Rezek was able to emigrate to the USA together with his wife (married in 1921) Anna Rezek, née Bunzl (1895-1974), and their two daughters - future art historian Esther Mendelsohn Bunzl (born in 1923), and future medical technician Susanne Lindau (born in 1926).
He - like his wife - was deprived of his academic degree on July 14th, 1942 with the racist argument, that he as a Jew was not considered dignified an academic degree of a German university ('eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwuerdig'). It took 13 years since the deprivation – and a very long time since the end of Nazism – until the regranting of the doctorate took finally place on May 15^th, 1955. Rezek was from 1938 until his death in 1963 staff member at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, and director of the labs until 1953, then head of the Department of pathological Anatomy. In 1943 he received the US-citizenship. He established teaching and training programs in pathology and clinical pathology and in 1947 a school for medical technicians. From 1954 he was head of the new founded Department of Pathological Anatomy and professor of pathology at the University of Miami, School of Medicine, and concurring pathologist at Kendall Hospital in South Miami and at Victoria Hospital in Miami. He also worked as consultant for Lago Oil and Transportation Company in Aruba [until 1986 part of the Netherlands Antilles] and as a visiting lecturer in pathology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem/Israel. Philipp Rezek died on June 23rd, 1963 in Miami, Florida/USA.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/geraduation registry (" Promotionsprotokoll ") MED XI (1919–1923) Nr. 740, rectorate GZ 118 ex 1941/42, Nr. 110, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 Nr. 15; Deutscher Reichsanzeiger Nr. 242 from October 16, 1941; RÖDER 1983, 565; BLUMESBERGER 2002, 1118f.; POSCH 2009, 464; GAUGUSCH 2011, 367; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2022; www.genteam.at; passenger-database Ellis Island; information from Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 05/2020.

Katharina Kniefacz, Herbert Posch