Pauline (Paula) Tune
| Born: |
12-16-1914 |
| Faculty: |
Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: |
Expelled student |
Pauline (Paula) TUNE, born on December 16
th, 1914 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship 1938: Austria), daughter of Mates/Mathias Tune (merchant) and Ruchel/Roza Tune, née Mischel, who had immigrated to Vienna from Galicia before World War I, lived in Vienna's 9
th district, Schulz-Strassnitzki-Gasse 5. She had passed her school-leaving examination (Matura) at the Realgymnasium VIII (Vienna 8, Lange Gasse) in 1933 and subsequently began studying medicine at the University of Vienna from the fall term of 1933/34. She was last enrolled in the 5
th and and final year of her studies at the Medical School in the spring term of 1938 and had already successfully passed the first two viva voce examinations.
She was forced to discontinue her studies and leave the University of Vienna under National Socialism after the "Anschluss" for racist reasons (leaving certificate dated September 15, 1938). As her last impressions of the University of Vienna, the pathology class with
Prof. Friedrich Reuter (1875–1959) she shared in 2002:
"In 1938, when Hitler came to Austria, I was thrown out of the University. The last lecture I tried attend was in pathology. The lecture room was filled with students. When the professor appeared, the students shouted 'Jews out'. The professor said to stop and he would lecture or he would leave and there would not be any lecture. They kept yelling and the professor went out.
That was the last time I was at the University".
The family had to flee Vienna after her father was arrested in 1938 and released only on the condition that he and his family leave Austria within three months. But since they had no quota number (chance to leave legally) and no place to go, the family - Pauline her younger sister Blanka and the parents - decided in December 1938 to leave illegally via Cologne/Germany and Amsterdam/Netherlands on foot and by train. They were picked up by the Dutch police in Arnhem on their way to Amsterdam, but were not sent back but helped them to get to Antwerp in Belgium.
In September 1939, Pauline and Blanka Tune obtained a visa for the USA at the American Embassy in Belgium and sailed on the SS Volendam from Antwerp, Belgium to the USA, arriving in New York City, NY/USA on September 21, 1939 where they were met by a cousin of their mother and stayed for three weeks. They then travel by bus from coast to coast to Los Angeles, CA.
The parents remained in Antwerp for the time being and were arrested by the Germans during the occupation of Belgium by the German Wehrmacht in 1940, but were later able to leave for the USA via Lyon/France as well.
Pauline Tune applied for U.S. citizenship, and for the time being found work as a counselor at a summer camp for girls. The attempt to complete her almost finished studies in the USA failed for the time being: "
women with a foreign education and Jewish had no chance to enter medical school," she recalls in 2002. She tried to become a laboratory technician, did an internship in a clinical laboratory, passed the exams and began to work there. She obtained U.S. citizenship in November 1944, shortening her first name to "Paula." With the help of some physician friends, Paula was able to resume her studies at UCLA Medical School, and after four more years of study (the five years in Vienna were not recognized) and a one-year internship at Los Angeles County Hospital, she was able to earn her doctorate and open a private practice in Los Angeles in 1950, which she maintained until her retirement in 1996. She remained unmarried and in 2001 moved to a retirement home in Rancho Mirage where her sister also lived.
Paula Tune, M.D., died on May 27
th, 2013, and is buried with her sister Blanca Shorr, née Tune (1920-2006), in Cathedral City, Riverside County, CA/USA.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1937–1938; Archive Forum Contemporary History of the University of Vienna/Letter from Paula TUNE from October 21st, 2002; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 491; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2021, information from Ernst Strouhal, Vienna 03/2022.
Herbert Posch
