| Born: | 09-07-1919 |
| Faculty: | Philosophical School |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Susanne SCHLESINGER, born on September 7th, 1919 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), daughter of Emanuel Schlesinger (1896–1968, merchant, art collector) and Nelly Schlesinger, née. Engelmann (1900–1964), lived in Vienna's 7th district, Neubaugasse 36. In the summer of 1937, she had passed the school-leaving examination (Matura) at the Mädchen-Realgymnasium Wien 8., Albertgasse 38, and subsequently began to study chemistry at the University of Vienna in fall term of 1937/38. She was last enrolled in the spring term of 1938 at the Philosophical School in the 1st year of her studies and attended lectures in in chemistry and physics.
She was forced to discontinue her studies under National Socialism after the "Anschluss" for racist reasons. In the spring term of 1938, she still tried to apply for continued studies under the newly introduced 2% numerus clausus for Jewish students, but this was rejected. She had to leave the University of Vienna.
Her parents had already left the Jewish Community in 1923 shortly before the birth of her younger sister Eva Greenwood Grunwald, geb. Schlesinger (1923–1967), but were nevertheless persecuted, expelled and robbed as Jews under National Socialism in 1938. Her father's hat factory and sales business, Damenhuterzeugnung und Handel S. Engelmann in Vienna's 7th district, Neubaugasse 36, were expropriated ("Aryanized") as was much of his art collection. He was a well-known collector of modern art and a friend of Oskar Kokoschka and other artists of his time, who were also represented in his collection of around 2,000 works of art. He was only able to save part of the collection by emigrating to England or India.
After the Anschluss, the entire family had to flee; father Emanuel had made arrangements for his wife Nelly and his two daughters Susanne and Eva Schlesinger to escape to London, England, in time, and he himself was able to flee via Switzerland to Italy and from there to obtain ship passage to Shanghai/China in 1939, whereby he was able to obtain a visa for British India on the ship with the help of the Jewish Relief Association in Bombay and disembarked already in Bombay/India. Initially interned after the beginning of the war in 1939, soon after his release he founded the company Indo-Pharma Pharmaceutical works Private Ltd. (INDON) in Dada, Bombay with the emigrated Viennese pharmacist Hans Blaskopf (1903-1974). After the rapid economic and financial success he also continued his art collection and became, among others, the promoter of the Progressive Artist's Group (PAG) in India and was friends with leading artists such as Sayed Haider Raza, Maqbool Fida Husain. He could not see his family in England until 1947, became estranged and built a new family in India after another marriage.
Susanne Schlesinger did not stay long in England, the motherland of the British Empire, but emigrated further to Australia with the SS Otranto where she arrived in Fremantle on April 11th and in Melbourne on April 18th, 1939. She then settled in Lindfield (Sydney)/NSW, where she also became an Australian citizen on November 17th, 1944 (her mother became a British citizen and lived in Manchester, England, where she died in 1964, as did her sister Eva Greenwood, née Schlesinger, in 1967).
For the time being, little is known about Susanne Schlesinger's further life in Australia.
Lit: Archives of the University of Vienna/National PHIL 1937–1938; Vienna City and Provincial Archives WStLA/1.3.2.119.A41-VEAV-1947-C330/7. Bez., 1.3.2.119.A41-VEAV-1947- 449/7. Bez., 1.3.2.119.A41-VEAV-1947- 908/7.Bez.; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/E-uReang/VVSt/VA 28610, OeStA/AdR/E-uReang/FLD 7197 and 10619; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 487; Yashodhara DALMIA, The Making of Modern Indian Art: The Progressives, Oxford 2001, 64f.; Margit FRANZ, Exile meets Avantgarde: ExilantInnen-Kunstnetzwerke in Bombay, in: Margit Franz & Heimo Halbrainer, eds, Going East - Going South. Österreichisches Exil in Asien und Afrika, Graz 2014, 403-431; Margit FRANZ, Gateway India: Deutschsprachiges Exil in Indien zwischen britischer Kolonialherrschaft, Maharajas und Gandhi, Graz 2015, 288-302; Margit FRANZ, From Dinner Parties to Galleries: The Langhammer-Leyden-Schlesinger Circle in Bombay – 1940s through the 1950s, in: Burcu Dogramaci u.a., eds, Arrival Cities: Migrating Artists and New Metropolitan Topographies in the 20th Century, Graz 2020, 73–90 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv16qk3nf.6]; www.genteam.at; www.myheritege.at; www.ancestry.de; information courtesy by Susanne Grimm-Bursch, Vienna 08/2023.
Herbert Posch
