| Born: | 02-15-1910 |
| Faculty: | Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Wilhelm SCHLESINGER, born on February 15th, 1910 in Vienna/Austro-Hungarian empire [Austria] (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), son of Dr. Adolf Schlesinger (1872-1929, ÖBB railway official) and Sofie Schlesinger, née Bernfeld (1871-1942), lived in Vienna's 2nd district, Zirkusgasse 47/33 in 1938. He passed his school-leaving examination (Matura) in Vienna on June 26th, 1930, and began studying medicine at the University of Vienna. He was last enrolled in the spring term of 1938 in the 4th year of his studies at the School of Medicine.
After the Anschluss, the non-denominational student was persecuted as a Jew under National Socialism for racist reasons and forced to abandon his studies and leave the University of Vienna.
He had to flee Vienna and was able to emigrate to France via Switzerland in time, but was arrested by the French police in Chalabre, Dept. Aude, and deported from the Drancy-transition-camp in France to Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland on August 31st, 1942. He survived the concentration camps Auschwitz [Oświęcim], Groß-Rosen and finally Buchenwald from March 1945. He was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp and released on May 5th, 1945, and then spent a year and a half as a "displaced person". He was only able to return to Vienna in 1947, completed his medical studies at the University of Vienna on December 22nd, 1949, with a doctorate ("Dr. med. univ."/"MD") and lived and worked as a doctor in Vienna: First in Vienna's 6th district, Gumpendorferstraße 35/8, then in Vienna's 2nd district, Untere Augartenstraße 35 and finally Vienna's 2nd district, Novaragasse 27. He was married to Marika Helga Staxx and later to Allaine Bodansky.
He had a practice as a general practitioner from 1955 to 1970, but was also a hospital doctor for the Jewish Community of Vienna (IKG), later medical director of the IKG hospital (1971) and finally secondary doctor at the sanatorium in Laab am Walde (1972). He retired in March 1978.
Dr. Wilhelm Schlesinger died on February 9th, 1992 in Vienna and was cremated and buried on February 18th, 1992, in the Simmering Fire Hall at Vienna Central Cemetery.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1937-1938; Vienna City and Provincial Archive WStLA/Ärztekammer Wien/Ärztekartei; Arolsen Archives/Unterlagen KZ Buchenwald; DOEW Vol. 3 1992, 144f. [online at doew.at]; Yad Vashem – The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names, source cited there: Le Memorial de la deportation des juifs de France, Beate et Serge Klarsfeld, Paris 1978; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 467; KNIEFACZ/POSCH 2017c; information by courtesy of Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 04/2024; www.myheritage.at; www.ancestry.de.
Herbert Posch
