Alexander Baum

Born:	08-31-1910
Faculty:	Philosophical School
Category:	Expelled student

Alexander BAUM, born on August 31^st, 1910 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), son of Arthur Baum (civil servant) and Roselie Baum (née Paski), seamstress, lived in Wien 9, Hahngasse 3, studied Chemistry at the University of Vienna beginning in fall of 1933/34 and finally enrolled at the Philosophical School in the 5^th year of his studies in the fall term 1937/38. Before he was able to finish his studies he was forced to leave the university in March 1938. In July 1938 he published his first paper, written together with Engelbert Broda: "The Adsorbability of Chain Molecules" in Transactions of the Faraday Society London, 34, 797-799. Alexander Baum escaped from Vienna travelling through Italy and Switzerland to Paris. There he was hidden in a TB hospital by a friendly doctor for almost a year, until he could enter Great Britain just days before the Second World War started. Alex Baum was one of the founders of Camphill in Aberdeenshire, Scotland (together with the Viennese physician, Dr. Karl König, the Viennese photographer Alix Roth, three medical students, also expelled from Vienna University in 1938, Peter Roth, Thomas Weihs and Marie Blitz-Korach, the dancer Anke Weihs and the Viennese artist Carlo Pietzner as well as other young Viennese). He lived and worked with children who needed special care in the Sheiling School, Ringwood in south England beginning in 1957. He married Therese von Gierke in Scotland, and the marriage was blessed with four children. Alex Baum died in Munich, Germany, on November 4^th, 1975, at the age of 65. He never returned to Vienna. Lit.: information from his son John Baum, Oslo/Norway, 2012; BOCK 2004.

Herbert Posch