Isak Arditti

Born:	04-20-1872
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Deprivation of academic degree

Isak ARDITTI, born on April 20, 1872 in Rustschuk, Ottoman Empire [Русе, България, Ruse/Bulgaria], (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Lundenburg/Czechoslovakia [Břeclav/Czech Republic], citizenship 1938: Czechoslovakia) as son of Abraham Josef Arditti and Aftalion Mazal Arditi, had studied medicine in Vienna and had graduated at the Medical School at the University of Vienna on May 19th, 1899 with the academic degree "Dr. med." (M.D.). He had married Anna (Buca) Canetti on June 7, 1903 in the Sephardic Synagogue and they had zei daughters: Sophie Arditi (1907-1988) and Renée Rachel Blatt (née Arditi, 1909-2010) and lived in Vienna 13, Wattmanngasse 29 and he worked as a doctor and director of a health resort. After the "Anschluss", he was forced to flee Austria and was able to leave in time with his wife and a daughter to Zurich, Switzerland, where they were able to obtain visas for the United States in June 1938 and emigrated to the United States via Le Havre, France, arriving on the SS Normandie in New York City, NY on October 10^th, 1938.
He quickly opened a private hospital and lived at 4420 Cayuga Ave, Bronx, New York City, NY/USA. In times of Nazism , on February 13^th, 1942, he was deprived of the citizenship of the occuoied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia by the Third Reich for racist reasons and as a result, on July 22^nd, 1943, he was also deprived of his academic degree by the University of Vienna, as he was considered by the National Socialists "as a Jew unworthy of an academic degree from a German university". It took 12 years since the deprivation - and a very long time since the end of Nazism - until the regranting of the doctorate (or the declaration of the deprivation as "null and void from the beginning") took finally place on May 15th, 1955, but without informing him about it. Isac Arditti had already applied for U.S. citizenship at the end of 1938 and was naturalized on June 8^th, 1944, and continued to work as a physician and director of the private hospital in The Bronx, New York City. Isac Arditti died at the age of 90 on January 3^rd, 1963 in The Bronx, New York City, NY, USA.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna, graduatuin Registry ("Promotionsprotokoll")  MED 1898-1904 Nr. 132, Rectorate GZ 118/138 ex 1941/42, GZ 561/15 ex 1944/45; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/E-uReang VVSt/VA/50522, ÖStA/AdR/E-uReang/FLD 4250; POSCH 2009, 387; www.genteam.at, www.ancestry.de.

Herbert Posch