| Born: | 08-12-1912 |
| Faculty: | Medical School | Medical University Vienna |
| Category: | Expelled student |
Irma GOLDNER (née REISS), born on August 12th, 1912 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), daughter of Sigmund Reiss (manufacturer, 1880-1942) and Anna Johanna Reiss, née Stejskal, lived in Vienna's 17th disctrict, Braungasse 5 and was enrolled finally in the fall term 1937/38 at the Medical School in the 6th and final year of her studies.
After the "Anschluss" she was forced to leave the university for racist reason and it was not sure, whether she could continue with the final examinations. Finally she succeeded in finishing her medical studies and she graduated as "Irma Goldner" on October 31st, 1938, but only with the discriminating ceremony of a "Nichtarierpromotion", which included at the same time that she was banned from her profession.
She had previously married the merchant Gerhard Goldner (1905-?) in Vienna Mariahilf on July 31, 1938 - at the same time her younger sister Marianne Reiss (1915-1969) married his younger brother Richard Goldner (1908-1991), musician (violist) and inventor. Sister Marianne Reiss-Goldner had also studied at the University of Vienna in 1938, but chemistry at the School of Philosophy, and was expelled from the University of Vienna after the "Anschluss" in the 4th and last year and could not complete her studies.
They had to flee Vienna but the sisters Irma and Marianne Reiss-Goldner and their husbands did not manage to find an exit route to Australia until early 1939 and they arrived with the SS Orama in Sydney, NSW, Australia on March 23rd, 1939. Later, her sisters Alice Schreiner, née Reiss (1913-?) and Margarethe Sinai, née Reiss (1915-1982), as well as her parents-in-law, also managed to emigrate to Australia.
Irma's father was unable to escape in time and was deported from Vienna's 6th district, Ägidigasse 5, to German-occupied Riga, Latvia, on January 11th, 1942, where he was murdered.
Irma's medical studies and academic degree were not recognized in Australia and she could not practice medicine for the time being, nor could her husband and brother-in-law, who was actually a musician, initially find gainful employment in the profession they had learned. Her husband Ger(h)ard and his brother Richard Goldner resorted to the production of leather accessories and costume jewelry as a source of income, as stated in the entry application, and were soon quite successful at it. Soon after Australia's entry into the war, the hobby inventor Richard Goldner, who actually built up the Musica Viva project in Australia in the field of chamber music, became a professional inventor at the suggestion of military circles and designed, among other things, a "field-ready" zipper for the army, the mass production of which secured an upper income for the two Goldner families.
Irma Goldner had to repeat her studies in English in Australia, and she graduated again in March 1955 from the University of Sidney Medical School with a doctorate in medicine. She and her husband were naturalized on June 22nd, 1944 in Cammeray North, NSW, became Australian citizens and had two children.
Dr. Irma Goldner, née Reiss, died on June 24th, 1996, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") MED 1937-1938, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") MED M 33.14, 4162; Austrian State Archives OeStA/AdR/E-uReang/VVSt/VA/26515; National Archives of Australia NAA/SP11/5, GOLDNER Irma, NAA/A12508, 21/1559; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 456; POSCH 2009, 371; Michael LUNARDI, Richard Goldner, in: Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen der NS-Zeit, Hamburg, 2009; www.ancestry.de; www.genteam.at; www.myheritage.at; The Sydney Morning Herald of March 9th, 1956, 19; The Sydney Morning Herald of June 25th, 1996, 38; information from Dr. Barbara Sauer, Vienna 04/2020.
Herbert Posch
