| Born: | 04-23-1899 |
| Faculty: | Philosophical School |
| Category: | Deprivation of academic degree |
Katharina (Kaethe, later Kathe) GALLIA (born on April 23rd, 1899 in Vienna), was the daughter of the wealthy merchant Moritz Gallia (1858−1918) and his wife Hermine, nee Hamburger (1870-1936), who was portrayed by Gustav Klimt in 1904.
Together with her twin sister Lene Gallia (1899–1926) she had graduated at the Philosophical School of the University of Vienna in Chemistry on May 19th, 1923 with the academic degree 'Dr. phil.' (dissertation: 'Ueber die Produkte prolongierter tryptischer Verdauung des Caseins ').
After their studies both sisters worked as chemists in a factory in Vienna. After Lene died in 1926 at the ago of 27 years of an unknown disease, their mother suspected poisoning by chemicals at the workplace as cause of death and insisted Kaethe Gallia to leave the factory. She became managing director of the family business "Graetzin-Licht-Gesellschaft", a gas oven seller.
After the "Anschluss" Gallia lost her position as managing director by the end of March 1938 and the business, which she owned by half, was "aryanized" (robbed). Some weeks later her apartment was searched by SS and Gestapo and most of her assets confiscated. She was arrested and questioned several times, because she was suspected to bring assets abroad illegally. She was arrested in the police prison in Vienna 9th district, Hahngasse for seven weeks. By the end of May 1938 she was released, after she had signed a document, which obliged her to give up her properties and to leave the German Reich within three months.
Thanks to their financial position and best contacts Kaethe Gallia, her sister Margarete (Gretl) Gallia (1896-1975) and her niece Anne Gallia, later married Bonyhady (1922−2003) were able to prepare their emigration quickly. In September 1938 they had the necessary documents and visa for the USA and for Australia. They finally chose Australia, because they already had some family members there.
Immediately after the "Reichspogromnacht", on November 12th, 1938 , Gretl and Anne left Vienna for St. Gallen/Switzerland. Kaethe followed them on November 15th, after she had received back her confiscated jewelry with the help of her lawyer. The Gallia family was only allowed to take a part of the art collection into emigration, among it the painting of Klimt, the interior decoration of the family seat by Josef Hoffmann and the painting "Paar am See" by Ernst Stoehr, which was bequeathed Anne Bonyhady and sold to Rudolf Leopold in 1976 and is now part of the collection of the Leopold Museum in Vienna. They had to leave several of their assets behind. From Zurich/Switzerland the three women took a plane to Great Britain and travelled by ship from Southampton to Batavia/Dutch East Indies [Djakarta/Indonesia], where they arrived on Dezember 22nd, 1938. In 1939 they arrived in Sydney/Australia, where they were supported by aid committees. Their brother Erni Gallia, their sister-in-law Mizzi and her mother Anna followed to Australia in 1939 respectively 1940.
In Sydney Kaethe Gallia changed her name in Kathe. Only part of her university studies were recognized in Australia, so she first had to work as a laboratory assistant in a hospital temporarily in March and May 1939. At the beginning of the war in fall 1939 she found a permanent job as a chemist in a factory for pencils and carbon paper, while her sister Gretl worked as a music teacher. In 1944 the women became British citizens.
From 1942 on Kathe Gallia worked as a chemical lab technician and as a technical assistant of Biochemistry at the medical research department of North Shore hospital Krankenhauses in Sydney. The sisters moved to a apartment in Cremorne, a suburb of Sydney.
In times of nazism Kaethe Gallia was deprived of her academic degree on July 14th, 1942 with the racist argument, that she as a Jew was not considered dignified an academic degree of a German university ('eines akademischen Grades einer deutschen Hochschule unwuerdig').
It took 13 years since the deprivation – and a very long time since the end of Nazism – until the regranting of the doctorate took finally place on May 15th, 1955.
Kathe Gallia died in 1976 in Sydney, a year after her sister Gretl. Both sisters were buried in the family grave at the Hietzing cemetery in Vienna 13th district, next to her parents and Kathe's twin sister Lene.
Lit.: POSCH 2009, 416; Tim BONYHADY, Wohllebengasse. Die Geschichte meiner Wiener Familie, Wien 2013; and press reports about its publishing e.g.: Profil; Die Welt.
Katharina Kniefacz
