| Born: | 03-08-1919 |
| Faculty: | Philosophical School |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Doris OPPENHEIM (married: LIFFMANN), born on March 8th, 1919 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), daughter of Dr. David Ernst Oppenheim (1881-1943, secondary school professor, classical philologist, individual psychologist) and Dr. Amalie Oppenheim (mathematician, physicist), lived in Vienna's 2nd district, Krafftgasse 3. In 1937, she successfully passed her school-leaving examination (Matura) at the Mädchenrealgymnasium Wien VIII and then began studying at the Philosophical School of the University of Vienna - she was last enrolled in the spring term of 1938 in the 1st year of her studies and took courses in History, German Studies and Art History.
Her memories of the Anschluss in 1938:
"That's why March 12 was such a shock. Vienna showed itself to me as jubilant anti-Semites. Not convinced, but hysterically cheering. Everything came out. That was the big shock... of my life. How the boy stopped me: 'Miss, are you Jewish?' 'Yes.' 'Come with me! Wash the windows!' There were other people there too. I tried to wash the windows. I wasn't very good at it. After half an hour: 'Go away! ...Nothing happened to me. A lot happened to me. I went home and said I wasn't staying in Vienna." (quoted from: GAISBAUER 1996, 60)
Doris Oppenheim was able to emigrate to London/England in September 1938, where she worked as a housemaid with a temporary residence permit:
"I ran away from Vienna, ran away. I couldn't and didn't want to stay in Vienna any longer. I first went to England, but I didn't feel at home there. Or where I felt somehow strange. Not only because I had to live in a household... What depressed me was that all my friends and acquaintances - including the older generation - suddenly had to work as housemaids and housekeepers. ... When I arrived in Australia, I was in a different world. And I wanted to be in a different world. That's what Australia really offered me ..." (quoted from: GAISBAUER 1996, 62)
At the end of 1938, she received an entry permit for Australia and traveled from Southampton, Hampshire, England, to her sister Cora Oppenheim Singer (1907-2000) in Melbourne, VIC, on January 6, 1939, where she arrived on February 27, 1939. She found employment as a typist and interpreter with the freight forwarding company Mullay & Byrnes, where in May 1939 she met the German emigrant Herbert Liffmann (1908-1989), who had used the services of the freight forwarding company to transport his furniture from Germany. They became a couple. When shipping with Germany was discontinued in September 1939 with the start of the war, Doris Oppenheim lost her job at the shipping agency and then worked under the name "Pauline Dorette" as a demonstrator of cosmetics in large department stores, later as a sales assistant in a confectionery, in glove production and as a secretary in a customs agency.
After Doris Oppenheim became engaged to Herbert Liffmann in 1941, the couple married in Victoria on March 13th, 1942, and they were granted Australian citizenship on March 16th, 1945. Doris Liffmann worked as a social worker in the 1960s, and their son Michael Liffmann was born in 1966. The surname was later shortened to "Liffman" by one "n".
Doris Oppenheim's parents were unable to emigrate from Vienna in time and were deported to Theresienstadt [Terezín/Czech Republic] on October 21st, 1942, where her father died in 1943. Their mother survived and followed her daughters to Australia in August 1946.
Doris Liffman, née Oppenheim, is commemorated at the University of Vienna on the "Memorial to the Excluded, Emigrated and Murdered of the Department of Art History" (2008), in the "Memorial Book for the Victims of National Socialism at the University of Vienna in 1938" (2009) and at the "Memorial to the History Students and Teachers of the University of Vienna Expelled under National Socialism | When Names Shine" (2022).
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") PHIL 1937–1938; Volker Elis PILGRIM, Doris LIFFMAN u. Herbert LIFFMAN, Hg., Fremde Freiheit. Jüdische Emigration nach Australien. Briefe 1938-1940, Reinbek b. Hamburg 1992; Adolf GAISBAUER, "…von Eurem treuen Vater David" David Ernst Oppenheim in seinen Briefen 1938-1942 (unter Mitarbeit von Doris Oppenheim-Liffman), Wien/Köln/Weimar 1996; Peter SINGER, Mein Großvater. Die Tragödie der Juden von Wien, Hamburg/Wien 2005; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 445; Memorial/Exhibition "Wiener Kunstgeschichte gesichtet" 2008; Exhibition "Ausgegrenzt, Vertrieben, Ermordet" 2010; POSCH/FUCHS 2022, 132-134.
Katharina Kniefacz
