| Born: | 06-01-1916 |
| Faculty: | Philosophical School |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Kurt HABERFELD, born on June 1st, 1916 in Baden/Lower Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Baden, citizenship 1938: Austria), as son of Otto Haberfeld (1870-1925, pharmacist) and Ida Haberfeld, née Lindner (1885-1934), lived in Vienna's 9th district, Waehringer Strasse 66/II and studied pharmacy at the University of Vienna since fall term 1935/36. He was last enrolled in the spring term 1938 at the Philosophical School in the 3rd year of his studies and took courses in pharmaceutics and chemistry.
In 1938 he was forced to quit his studies and to leave the University of Vienna for racist reason after the takeover of power of National-Socialism.
He had to flee Vienna and was able to emigrate with his younger brother Heinz Fritz Haberfeld (1920-1990) in September 1938 via Trieste on the SS Neptunia to Argentina, where they arrived in Buenos Aires on October 10th, 1938. In 1938, he and his brother had owned their father's pharmacy in Baden, but it had already been expropriated ("Aryanized") in July 1938 by the former tenant of the Linden Pharmacy in Seitenstetten, Mag. Alois Brinke and Dr. Rita Lanzdorf.
In the beginning, the brothers lived in Argentina from selling the books they had taken with them, and his brother Heinz, as a messenger for a German delicatessen, delivered food by bicycle with a trailer in order to finance the bare necessities of life. They studied Spanish intensively and lived for years together in a 15m² room without sanitary facilities. Kurt Haberfeld was unable to continue his pharmacy studies in Argentina.
After the end of National Socialism, the restitution of the pharmacy was won in a process-intensive procedure by lawyer Dr. Kurt Regner, and on July 7th, 1948, it was restituted to the rightful owners Kurt and Heinz Haberfeld, who, however, did not continue to lease it to the expropriators, but until 1960 to the pre-war provisor of the pharmacy, Mag. Adolf Ehler.
In 1953, his brother Heinz briefly returned to Austria, married, but soon returned to Argentina, as the nationalization of the pharmacy by the Soviet occupation was imminent. With his children Heinz (1957) and Susanne (1959) he finally returned to Austria in March 1961 where he also took over the pharmacy, which his descendants still run today. Kurt Haberfeld did never return to Austria but remained in emigration.
Kurt Haberfeld died on October 23rd, 1966 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, his name is mentioned on the family grave at the Helenen cemetery in Baden.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") PHIL 1935-1938, Ph 66.3, No. 1085, final examination registr (Rigorosenprotokoll) Pharmaceutics; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 398; Kurt RYSLAVY, Materialien zur Geschichte der Apotheken und Apotheker Niederösterreichs, Vienna 1991, 36-38; Heinz PUSITZ, Die Landschaftsapotheke in Baden seit 1661, Baden 2005; Alfred FEHRINGER, Arisierung und Rückstellung von Apotheken in Österreich, Göttingen u. Wien 2013, 319f.; https://www.baden.apo.or.at/de/aktuelles/aelteste-apotheke-badens/ [2023]; information by courtesy of Dr. Nina Knieling, Vienna 10/2023..
Herbert Posch
