| Born: | 01-26-1916 |
| Faculty: | Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Hans (Ludwig) DIAMANT, born on January 26th, 1916 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), son of Dr. med. Siegfried Diamant (1884-1958, physician) and Lili Diamant, née Ornstein and Vienna's 2nd district, Rotensterngasse 13. The family had moved with the father, who worked as a district physician in Bosnia before and after the First World War from 1924 definitely to Vienna, where the father worked as a general practitioner as well as a doctor in the Central Vienna Hosptal (AKH). Hans Diamant graduated from the Academic Gymnasium in Vienna’s 1st district, where he also passed the final examination (“Reifepruefung”/”Matura”) in 1935, then began to study medicine at the University of Vienna and was finally enrolled in the spring term 1938 at the Medical School in the 3rd year of his studies.
He was forced to discontinue his studies and leave the University of Vienna under National Socialism after the "Anschluss" for racist reasons (leaving certificate dated May 17th, 1938).
Hans Ludwig Diamant resigned from the Jewish Community of Vienna in August 1938 and was baptized a Roman Catholic in the parish of St. Stephen. As a Jew, his father lost his professional license as a doctor, but from September 1938 he was at least still licensed as a "health care provider for Jews". He was able to leave for Yugoslavia in September 1939 and lived and practiced in Zagreb from then on.
Hans Ludwig Diamant also had to flee Vienna and, together with his father and his brother Robert Heinz Diamant (b. 1919), was able to leave Austria for Yugoslavia [Kraljevina Jugoslavija] in time. In Yugoslavia his Austrian high school graduation certificate (“Reifepruefungszeugnis”) was not recognized as a university entrance qualification and he also lacked the material means to continue his studies and worked in Zagreb as a civil servant.
After the end of the war in the new Yugoslavian State – Demokratska Federativna Jugoslavija respectively Federativna Narodna Republika Jugoslavija – he was able to resume his studies at the University of Zagreb - with recognition of the semesters and examinations he had already completed in Vienna and with the granting of study concessions for the eight years he had missed - and received his doctorate in July 1947 in Zagreb. He also completed a one-year internship at the university hospital there before he was able to start working as a district or community doctor in the vicinity of Zagreb in August 1948: He was a district doctor in Jastrebarsko for three years, then one year in Dvor na Uni and two years as a community doctor in Desinić then three years in Bistra.
He married Mira Obmarith while still in Yugoslavia in 1957, before finally returning to Vienna/Austria in November 1957, where he was granted Austrian citizenship again on February 7th, 1958, which also allowed him to have his Zagreb doctorate nostrified and to work as a doctor in Austria again.
In May 1958 he was living in Vienna’s 3rd district, Hintere Zollamtsstrasse 15/3/8, and was granted a victim's identity card for having been forced to abandon his studies in Austria for racist reasons. He later worked as a general practitioner in Vienna’s 10th district, Oberlaaer Strasse 39.
Dr. Hans Diamant died on January 23rd, 1990 in Vienna and is buried at the cemetery in Vienna-Oberlaa.
Lit.: Archives of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1937-1938; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 374; REITER-ZATLOUKAL/SAUER 2022; www.genteam.at; www.friedhoefewien.at; www.ancestry.de; kind reference from Johann Kapsamer, Vienna 07/2022 and Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 08/2022.
Herbert Posch
