Felicitas Roth (geb. Harnik)

Born:	02-28-1897
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Felicitas Eleonore ROTH (née Feige Elke vel Fanni Eleonor HARNIK) (born on February 28^th, 1897 in Radautz, Bukovina/Austro-Hungarian Empire [Rădăuți/Romania]), daughter of Nachmann Harnik (1864-?) and Beile-Bertha Harnik, née Jurgrau (1877-1940), had graduated on March 17^th, 1922 from the Medical School at the University of Vienna with the academic degree Dr. med. (M.D.) - the change of her first names from Feige Elke vel Fanni Eleonore to Felictas Eleonore was officially recorded in Rădăuți in 1915. After the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy, she had not opted for Romanian citizenship, but for German-Austrian citizenship in 1921, so she wanted to stay in Vienna, and was therefore able to open a practice as a general practitioner and pediatrician after receiving her doctorate in 1922, initially in Vienna's 18^th district, Schulgasse 13, and later in Vienna's 2^nd district, Ausstellungsstrasse 71 (2-4). In 1931 she married Maximilian Roth in the Tempelgasse synagogue, which made her a Czechoslovak citizen and she soon stopped working as a doctor. She also owned the apartment building in Vienna's 9^th, Schubertgasse 18/4, where she later lived. She got divorced before 1938. After the Anschluss in 1938, Felicitas Eleonore Roth-Harnik was still able to leave Austria unhindered as a Czechoslovak citizen and left for Italy, where she settled in Abbazzia [Opatija/Croatia]. She had already filled in the form "declaration of assets of Jews" in Abbazzia on June 28th, 1938, and was still living in Villa Harnik there in mid-1942 when the German Reich revoked her citizenship. She was then deported to a camp as a stateless person, place unknown, where she soon died. As a result of the deprivation of her citizenship, on April 1^st, 1943, the University of Vienna - unaware of her presumed death (date of death not exactly known) - deprived her of her academic degree on racist grounds, since under National Socialism she was considered "as a Jew unworthy of an academic degree from a German university" ('eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwuerdig'). It took 12 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 posthumously and the deprivation declared 'null and void from the beginning'.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/graduation register ("Promotionsprotokoll") MED 1919–1923 No. 1031, Rectorate GZ 151 ex 1942/43, GZ 561 ex 1944/45 No. 15; Austrian State Archive (OeStA) / Archives of the Republic (AdR) / E-uReang / VVSt / VA / 12822, OeStA/ AdR/ E-uReang/ FLD 15015; Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna WStLA/ 1.3.2.119.A41 159, Bezirk: 9 Dr.med. Roth-Harnik Felicitas Eleonore; POSCH 2009, 467; DOeW|Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance, database Austrian Victims of the Holocaust; USHMM; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2022; kind reference from Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 12/2021 and from Yossi Yagur, Israel, 12/2021.

Herbert Posch