| Born: | 01-15-1919 |
| Faculty: | Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Elfriede WERTHEIMER, born on January 15th, 1919 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Stockerau/Lower Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), daughter of physician Dr. Max (1879-1941) and Rosa Wertheimer, née Wallisch (1886-1943). In 1938 she lived in Vienna's 2nd district, Obere Donaustrasse 45a/II/1/20.
She had attended grammar school and high school in Stockerau, where her father was the community physician 1920-1934 ("Gemeindearzt") and a general practitioner until the "Anschluss", and graduated from high school in 1936. Elfriede Wertheimer was enrolled finally in the spring term 1938 at the Medical School in the 2nd year of her studies, but was not allowed to finish her studies for racist reason (Leaving Certificate ("Abgangszeugnis") was issued on July 18th, 1938).
She had to flee from Vienna and could achieve a visa for the USA, but she did not use it because she was not able to also get visas for her parents. So the whole family stayed in Austria, they were forced to move to Vienna into a so called "Judenwohnung" and lived for a time in Viennas' 8th district, Pfeilgasse 8. Her father Dr. Max Wertheimer has already been deported on February 15th, 1941 to the camp Opole, a small town south of Lublin and presumably murdered there. The next year Elfriede and her mother Rosa Wertheimer were deported on October 1, 1942 from Vienna's 2nd district, Rembrandtstrasse 14/14 to Theresienstadt [Terezín/Czech Republic] and on to the concentration camp Auschwitz [Oświęcim/Poland] on January 23rd, 1943 and were murdered there.
The "Dr. Max Wertheimer Gasse" in Stockerau was named after his father in 1970, and memorial stones in front of the family's former home at Schießstattgasse 3 in Stockerau today commemorate Elfriede Wertheimer and her parents.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1936–1938; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 499; DÖW 2001; www.yadvashem.org [März 2006]; INSTITUT THERESIENSTÄDTER INITIATIVE/DÖW 2005, 413; Arnberger/Kuretsidis-Haider 2011, 284; lettertothestars; Günter Sellinger, Das schwere Los der Familie „Wertheimer“, in: unsere Stadt Stockerau, 2009 Nov, 2; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2023; information courtesy by Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 2016 (Project "Medical Doctors in Austria 1938-1945. Deprivation of Rights, Expulsion, Murder"
Herbert Posch
