| Born: | 10-02-1920 |
| Faculty: | Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Leopold KON (later: Leopold George KOSS), born on October 2nd, 1920 in Langfuhr in Danzig [Wrzeszcz in Gdańsk/Poland] (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Łódź/Poland, citizenship 1938: Poland), son of Avram/Adolf Kon (1888-1942, merchant in Łódź) and Rozia Rosza Kon, née Merenholc (1893-1942), lived in Wien 9, Servitengasse 4/23, lived as a subtenant in Vienna's 9th district, Servitengasse 4/23, was last enrolled at the Medical School in the 1st year of his studies (leaving certificate ("Abgangszeugnis") was issued on June 22nd, 1938).
After the Anschluss, he was forced to drop out of his studies and leave the University of Vienna for racist reasons.
Leopold Kon had to flee Vienna and managed to reach Switzerland in 1942, where he married Anna Palester (born in Bad Ischl/Upper Austria in 1920) in 1944, and where his son Michael Stephen was born in 1945. He was also able to complete his medical studies in Switzerland and lived in Basel at the end of the Second World War. From there he emigrated to the USA with his wife and son via Le Havre/France in May 1947. He arrived in New York City, NY on June 2nd, 1952 with the plan to stay with his father-in-law, Rudolph Palester, who was already living in Forest Hills, NY at the time. The crossing was made possible by the fact that Prof. Meisches, Purque University, had paid for the ship's passage.
Leopold Kon changed his name to Leopold George Koss in the course of the citizenship proceedings and became a U.S. citizen at the end of December 1952 in Brooklyn, New York.
After his divorce from Anna Palester in Montgomery, Alabama in December 1953 - from this marriage came his son Andrew Charles Koss - he married Nina Betty Powell in Texas on July 18th, 1955, with whom he also had a child, and after the divorce of his second marriage he married Lydia Palla, with whom he had a third child.
Leopold George Koss, born Leopold Kon, died on September 11th, 2012 in New York, NY/USA.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1937-1938; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 419; information by courtesy of Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 11/2024; www.geni.com; www.ancestry.de
Herbert Posch
