Dina Engelberg, recte Gottesmann, verh. Bunzl

Born:	08-26-1914
Faculty:	Philosophical School
Category:	Expelled student

Dina ENGELBERG, recte GOTTESMANN, married BUNZL, born on August 26^th, 1914 in Stary Sambor, Galicia/Austro-Hungarian Empire [later Poland, today: Staryj Sambir/Ukraine] (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), daughter of Majer Leib/Leopold Engelberg, recte Gottesmann (1875–1942, merchant, wholesale wood trade) and Chajes Sarah Engelberg, recte Gottesmann (1876–1936), lived in Vienna's 9^th district, Bleichergasse 14/18. She had already moved with her family - parents and six siblings – from Galicia to Vienna as a one-year-old at the beginning of the First World War in 1915. In Vienna she completed her entire school education and passed the school-leaving examination (Matura) with good results in 1934 at the Realgymnasium des Vereins für realgymnasialen Maedchenunterricht in Vienna's 8^th district, Albertgasse 38.
Subsequently, she had begun to study biology at the University of Vienna in the fall term of 1934/35, and was enrolled at the School of Philosophy in the 4^th and last year of her studies and took courses in Botany and Zoology. She registered for the viva on November 10^th, 1937 and also passed the first viva ("Rigorosum") with distinction on December 3^rd, 1937, under the pedagogue Richard Meister and the philosopher Robert Reiniger. However, the examination procedure was then interrupted before she could complete and submit her planned dissertation on "Geschichtliche Entwicklung der Begriffe Blüte und Frucht" (Historical Development of the Concepts of Flower and Fruit) and take the two-hour viva with the botanist Fritz Knoll (illegal National Socialist, from March 1938: Rector). In 1938, after the takeover of power of National-Socialism she was forced to quit her studies for racist reasons and to leave the University of Vienna.

On July 15^th, 1938, Dina Engelberg had a confirmation issued by the Faculté des Sciences de Paris that her previous studies were at least equivalent to a baccalaureate (which did not exist in Austrian study law at the time), because she had to flee Austria and managed to emigrate to Brussels [Bruxelles] in Belgium in mid-September, where she received a residence permit until the end of July 1939, before the expiration of which she continued to emigrate to England/Great Britain on May 22^nd, 1939.

On December 6^th, 1939, she was exempted from internment as an enemy alien, lived initially in Essex, later in London, where she was also able to attend Radcliff College. In 1941 she became involved in the London Austria Center and the Free Austrian Movement, and after the initial one-year ban on work, she was slowly able to find work in her specialized field, for example in 1942 as an employee in a London pharmacy. In 1943/44 she met Viktor Bunzl (1917–2000), an Austrian who was also forced to emigrate from Vienna; they married in England on May 6^th, 1944, and in 1945 their son John was born in London, and later their daughter Kitty, née Weinberger.

One of her sisters had also emigrated to England (London), two others to the USA (among them Dr. Adele Engelberg, who had been expelled from the University of Vienna in 1938 as an assistant doctor), another to Palestine [Israel], a brother to France; one sister and her father remained in Vienna and before the planned departure to the USA or Cuba could be finalized, Majer Leib/Leopold Engelberg was deported on July 28^th, 1942 from Vienna's 2^nd distrit, Nestroygasse 1/9, to Theresienstadt [Terezín/Czech Republic] and later murdered and Charlotte Engelberg on August 17^th, 1942 from Vienna to Maly Trostinec [Poland] and murdered there; her brother Dr. Heinrch Engelberg was interned in the French camp in Drancy after the German occupation of France and deported to the German concentration and extermination camp in Auschwitz [Oświęcim/Poland] in August 1942 and murdered.

At the end of 1946, Dina Bunzl returned to Austria with her husband and son via Switzerland. They lived in Ortmann near Pernitz, Lower Austria, where the property of her husband's family ("Bunzl & Biach") that had been looted ("Aryanized") under National Socialism was restituted after 1945.

Dina Bunzl, née Engelberg recte Gottesmann, died on August 20^th, 1983 in Vienna and is buried at the cemetery in Vienna-Doebling.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") PHIL 1937-1938; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 379; Ruth Jolanda & Peter WEINBERGER, Sechs Schwestern auf der Flucht vor den Nationalsozialisten, Weissenkirchen 2021, 131–166; information from Dina Bunzl's granddaughter Dr. Ruth Jolanda Weinberger, New York 12/2021; www.ancestry.de; www.doew.at.

Herbert Posch