Gertrud Roth
| Born: |
12-05-1913 |
| Faculty: |
Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: |
Expelled student |
Gertrud ROTH, born on December 5th, 1913 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), daughter of Ing. Alfred Roth (engineer), lived in Vienna 4th district, Brahmsplatz 3 and since 1936/37 in Vienna 8th district, Trautsongasse 6. She was enrolled finally in the spring term 1938 at the Medical School in the 5th year of her studies (Leaving Certificate ('Abgangszeugnis') was issued on July 13th, 1938).
Her maternal grandfather, Max Ritter von Anhauch, a prominent Jewish industrialist in Vienna as well as her parents, Alfred and Harriet Roth, converted to Catholicism sometime in the 1920's. Thus, Gertrud Roth attended Catholic boarding schools (she graduated from "
Maedchen-Realgymnasium der Frauen vom Heiligen Herzen, Sacre-Coeur" in 1933) and registered at the university as Roman Catholic, but nevertheless was expelled from university in 1938 due to racist laws.
Shortly after, her family managed to leave Austria, her parents going to Havana, Cuba as that was where they were able to get entry visas. They eventually settled in Houston, Texas. Gertrud Roth immigrated, alone, to the United States, going first to Iowa City, Iowa, then to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and eventually to Denver, Colorado. She married once in the U.S., a physician from Vienna, who obtained positions on the teaching staffs of medical schools at the universities of these cities. A first daughter was born in Minneapolis in 1943 another in Denver in 1946. Gertrud Roth got divorced in 1949 and remarried another physician in 1950.
She never went back to her medical studies. Her daugther: "
Her expulsion from medical school was a great blow to her and, understandably, she didn't have the courage to re-start the lengthy schooling. She was a very intelligent woman who became a willing, but possibly, frustrated stay-at-home mother, a job she put her whole heart into."
Gertrud Roth died in October 1973, never having returned to Vienna.
Lit.: information from her daughter Pam Ori, 2015; KNIEFACZ/POSCH 2017a.
Herbert Posch
