| Born: | 06-20-1917 |
| Faculty: | Philosophical School |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Herta FOERSTER (later: Harriett H. Forster), born on June 20th, 1917 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), daughter of Samuel Foerster (unemployed, former haberdasher) and Olga (née Frankfurter), lived in Vienna's 2nd district, Grosse Mohrengasse 38/14, was enrolled finally in the fall term 1937/38 at the Philosophical School in the 3rd year of her studies and took courses in physics and mathematics.
From age 14 onward, she tutored children to supplement her family’s income. After the "Anschluss" in March 1938, she was forced to leave the university for racist reason and could not finish her studies at the University of Vienna.
Her younger brother Erich, then a pupil, could escape to England in 1939, but was interned as "enemy alien" in Australia for a year and only then could return to Europe where he survived the war. Hertha Foerster could escape 1939 with a "Nanny-Visa" to Glasgow/Scotland, got a short education at a nursery school and took care of little children as a nanny. Soon she could emigrate to the USA and arrived in New York in 1940, and found again work as a nanny and in a bakery. In 1941 she married the physicist Kurt Engelberg, who was a fellow student in Vienna, the last jewish physics student that could graduate, only day before the "Anschluss" took place in March 1938 and he had to flee via France to the USA.
Her parents Samuel (born 1884, hashdasher) and Olga (née Frankfurter, born 1889) Förster could not escape from Vienna and were deported to Izbica on May 15th, 1942 and soon after murdered in a German death camp in Poland (Belzec or Treblinka). In 1943, Harriet H. Forster-Engelberg and her husband moved to California. He served in the U.S. Army and was based at California as a military meteorologist and Harriet H. Forster restarted her studies in physics at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, earning her doctorate (PhD) in physics in 1948. In fall 1948 she started as young nuclear physicist at the renowned private University of Southern California Los Angeles (USC) in Dornsife.
In 1952 the couple got divorced.
She became full professor of physics in 1964, served as chair from 1962 to 1964, heading the department’s Nuclear Accelerator Program for several years - one of only a few women in her profession. An accomplished physicist specializing in nuclear physics, her subatomic particle research garnered the physics department international acclaim later focused on undergraduate teaching in the classroom and her duties as the department’s director of undergraduate affairs in physics and astronomy. She was in contact with some of the (later) Nobelprice laureates like Murray Gell-Mann (1969, physics), Richard Feynman (1965, physics) und Gerhard Herzberg (1971, chemistry).
In 1977, Prof. Harriet H. Forster married the physicist Prof. em. George “John” Frederick Garlick, former dean of the Institute of Physics at the University of Hull/Great Britain after his becoming emeritus, and he moved to her to California/USA.
She published 62 papers in nuclear physics, was fellow of the American Physical Society and was granted the Founders Fellowship of the American Association of University Women (1956-57), that she used for a year of research at the University in in Rome/Italy. 1981 she was granted the Women of Achievement Award. She retired in 1987 and was awarded the USC Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award in 1988 - this honor recognizes eminent careers and notable contributions to the university, the profession and the community.
She died on September 28th, 2014 in Los Angeles/USA, aged 97.
Lit.: information from her nephew Dr. Frank A. Forster, 08/2018; obituary der USC; Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, University of Southern California, Interview 14622 (April 24, 1996, West Los Angeles/CA, USA, Interviewer: Sidney Burke), 2 tapes 00:48:36).
Herbert Posch
