Kurt Schön (später Schoen)

Born:	08-17-1915
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled student

Kurt SCHÖN (later SCHOEN, born on August 17th, 1915 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), son of Arnold Schön (merchant), lived in Wien 20, Brigittenauer Lände 28. He graduated from high school ('Realgymnasium') in Wien 20, Unterbergergasse, with the “Matura” in 1934. He first enrolled at the Medical School of the University of Vienna in fall term 1934/35.
He remembers the day before the “Anschluss”, March 11th 1938:
“…it was on Friday afternoon I had… I went to the lecture in pharmacology and it supposed to be at two o’clock we were sitting there in the classroom and the professor didn’t show up. At about thirty or forty minutes his assistant came and said,”Professor Pick is unable to lecture today, the class is dismissed.” So I knew something is not right and from there I went to my fiancée’s house and she lived in Lazarettgasse in 9th district. [...] I had a strange feeling something like before the storm you know the clouds before the storm. And then when I came up to her, and we looked down the window we saw, it was about five o’clock in the afternoon, from across of the street from a yard of the came out a truck and men in SA uniforms with the swastika flag that was before you heard anything official.“ (Interview AHC, 1996) Kurt Schön was finally enrolled in spring term 1938 at the Medical School in the 4th year of his studies (Leaving Certificate ('Abgangszeugnis') was issued on September 23rd, 1938). In spring term 1938 Kurt Schön could continue his studies in the context of the Numerus clausus of Jewish Students until the end of the term, but did not do anything practical in his studies: "As my father had fought as a soldier in the Austrian army and had got several commendations, I was included in the contingent reserved for Jewish students. This, however, was anything but study! The week-long seminar at the obstetric clinic was just ridiculous. I was not allowed to touch Arian patients. The lectures I attended were torture, rather than study." (Letter, 2009) Kurt Schön received his passport on August 27th and emigrated from Austria on September 8th 1938, together with his fiancée Erika Terner, who was also expelled from the Vienna University as student at the Medical School, and her family. They went by train to Koeln/Germany and took a Rhine-cruiser to Rotterdam/Netherlands. His fiancée already had her visa for America and the ticket for the ship “New Amsterdam” and left for the USA.
In Amsterdam Kurt Schön had to wait for his visa for the States and was arrested, taken to the German border and turned over to the Gestapo. He was arrested in a prison in Anrath near Krefeld/Germany for three weeks. The Gestapo brought him to the Dutch border and told him to cross illegally. With the help of the Jewish community he could wait in Nijmwegen until he got his visa to the states at the American consulate in Rotterdam. End of October 1938 he left Amsterdam by ship and arrived in New York on the 4th of November, where his fiancée and his brother already waited. On the 18th of November, 1938 he married Erika Terner in New York. In 1944 he obtained the citizenship of the United States. Only a few days after his arrival in New York he got a job as chemist in a leather good factory, and later on worked in company on men’s belts, where he worked himself up, became manager after a few years and stayed until end of 1949. Then he decided to try to finish his medical studies. American universities gave him credit for his studies at the Vienna University, so he needed only one year to finish his studies, but no medical school took him for only the last year.
“Vienna said they would give me full credit and I could finish my studies there, but I did not want to go back to Vienna. So I went then to Zurich and they gave me credit also for the four years and I had to take one more year. So we packed up then. I had a little money. We rented out our apartment here and the four of us, my wife, my two boys, and I we went to Zurich. I rented an apartment there and I went to the medical school there. It was tough after so many years being out of it. It was twelve years since I had taken the last course. But it would have worked it was very expensive, living there, very expensive, money ran out very fast. And then just before the year was over an American commission came there, [...] they said we [...] cannot only take the examination for foreigners, they would not recognize it in the States. We have to take the full domestic course, [...] and that would have taken another year and half.” (Interview AHC, 1996) He went back to the USA and took then a job in a medical laboratory, and later bought a lab and worked there together with his wife, until he retired and sold it in 1981.
Today Kurt Schoen lives in New York/USA.

Lit.: Information from Kurt Schoen, New York (letter from July 8, 2009); Interview at Austrian Heritage Collection at Leo Baeck Institute, New York, December 1996 [AHC 29]; USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, University of Southern California [Interview 24260]; KNIEFACZ/POSCH 2017c.

Katharina Kniefacz and Herbert Posch