Gertrud Seidmann
| Born: |
09-16-1919 |
| Faculty: |
Philosophical School |
| Category: |
Expelled student |
Gertrud SEIDMANN, born on September 16
th, 1919 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), daughter of Ludwig Seidmann (merchant), lived in Vienna's 9
th district, Gussenbauergasse 1. After she had graduated from high school ("Maedchen-Realgymnasium") in Vienna's 8
th district, Albertgasse 38 in 1937, she gained a State license for teaching music ("Staatspruefung fuer Musik") and enrolled finally in fall term 1937/38 at the Philosophical School in the 1
st year of her studies and took courses in German and English language and literature Studies and in Musicology.
1938 she was forced to quit her studies for racist reason and to leave the University and Vienna.
She and was able to flee and to emigrate to England. Later she enrolled at the University of Belfast (BA Hons 1
st Class, MA). Later Gertrud Seidmann taught at schools in London and at the Universities of Southampton and Oxford. She founded the British Association of Teachers of German and worked in the field of applied linguistics, whereat she especially dealt with educational material for German classes. She wrote articles für newspapers and scientific publications, several schoolbooks and readers for German classes and edited works of Erich Kaestner, Heinrich Boell and others for teaching purposes.
In 1979 she retired prematurely from her teaching position at the University of Southampton to dedicate herself to jewellery history and Glyptology (study of engraved gems). In several articles she wrote about this topic. In Oxford she was co-organisator of exhibitions in the Ashmolean Museum and assisted John Boardman, Lincoln Professor in Classical Archaelogy, in Catalogizing the Collections of Jewellery. From 1990 on Gertrud Seidmann was Research Associate of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Oxford.
She was awarded the Goethe-Medaille in 1968 and was appointed member of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1986. In 1999 the book: Martin Henig and Dimitris Plantzos eds.,
Classicism to Neo-classicism. Essays dedicated to Gertrud Seidmann (Oxford 1999), was published in her honor.
Gertrud Seidmann died on February 15
th, 2013 in Oxford.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna, enrollment forms ("Nationale") PHIL 1938-1939; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 473; Susanne Blumesberger in biographia.
Herbert Posch
