Otto Fleischner (Fleming)

Otto FLEISCHNER (later: FLEMING), born on August 25^th, 1914 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ("heimatberechtigt") for Vienna/Austria, citizenship 1938: Austria), son of Hermann (1881-1944, merchant) and Camilla Fleischner, née Goldmann (1882-1944), lived in Vienna's 13^th district, Wattmanngasse 7. He had attended the humanistic high school in Vienna's 13^th district, Fichtnergasse from 1925 and graduated there in 1933 and started to study medicine in the fall term of 1933/34.
He married his fellow student Hilda Braun on December 17^th, 1937, in the Vienna City Temple and was last enrolled in the 5^th year at the Medical School in the spring term of 1938 and also worked as an intern in the prosecture of the Anatomical Institute.

He had already received the "Absolutorium" on May 9^th, 1938, and could therefore - theoretically - have registered for the final examination ("Rigorosen"), but was no longer admitted in the spring term of 1938 within the framework of the 2% numerus clausus for Jewish students, whereas his wife, who was also in her last year, was. About three weeks later, she applied to resign her admission and transfer it to her husband, which Dean Pernkopf approved on June 26^th, 1938, after consultation with the Nazi student leaders. He was thus still able to continue his studies and his wife received a leaving certificate from the faculty a week later but had to leave the university without a degree. Otto was not allowed to complete his studies in the few weeks he had gained.

Otto Fleischner and his wife understood that in order to survive they would have to flee Vienna. They managed to leave the country with a visa for Shanghai and a permit to enter the British Mandate Territory of Palestine [Israel] where they arrived on July 8^th, 1938. There they worked as masseurs for the next four years, since they were not qualified as medical doctors. In Vienna Otto had still taken courses for bath attendants and masseurs at the Fango-Heilanstalt, as well as courses in chauffeuring and cosmetics to improve his chances for future employment.
His parents were unable to emigrate in time and were deported to Theresienstadt [Terezín/Czech Republic] on October 9^th, 1942, and from there to Auschwitz [Oswiecim/Poland] on October 19^th and 23^rd, 1944, respectively, and murdered.

Otto and Hilda Fleischner lived and worked in Tel Aviv and became citizens of Palestine in May 1941 and in 1942 Otto joined the Roval Army Medical Corps in Palestine and served for four years as a medical orderly, two years of which were spent on a Hospital Ship.
In 1945, towards the end of his military service, he and his wife divorced - his wife first remained in Palestine - and emigrated to Great Britain. Otto attempted to complete his medical studies. After many rejections he was able to study at St. George's Hospital Medical School, Hyde Park Corner, London, but had to repeat half of the clinical studies and retake some exams (was awarded the Begley Prize for the best overall grade in anatomy and physiology). In 1946 he was demobilized from the army, devoted himself fully to his studies and sat for the final examinations at the end of 1948. In January 1949 he was awarded the degree of Doctor, MRCS Eng (Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland) and LRCP Lon (Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians). Immediately thereafter, on February 5^th, 1949, in Kensington, London, he married Dorothy Oppenheimer (1928-2020), a Viennese who had come to England on a Kindertransport in 1939. They later changed the family name to Fleming and had three children, Michael, David (now Magen) and Caroline.

Otto Fleming worked as a house officer in various hospitals until 1951, then as a locum with a general practitioner in Brighton, and from 1952 to 1979 worked as a general practitioner in Mexborough, a mining village in the north of England.
He became a member of the newly formed Royal College of General Practitioners in 1957, studied Health Centers on behalf of the Ministry of Health from 1970, and was also chairman of the Doncaster Division of the British Medical Association, a member of the Local Medical Committee, the Medical Services Committee, and the Disability Committee of the Ministry of Labor, and in 1972 did research on possible links between depression and use of the contraceptive pill.
In 1979 he took over a practice in Sheffield also directed the Drug Dependence Clinic at the University of Sheffield Department of Psychiatry and taught in the Faculty of Medicine there and was elected head (provost) of the Sheffield Faculty of the Royal College of General Practitioners and was Clinical Assistant in the Drug Dependence Clinic at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, 1982 to 1984. In 1987 he retired.

On October 4^th, 1999, he and five other medical students expelled in 1938 were honoured by the University of Vienna and awarded their doctoral degrees - 61 years late - and he gave the following speech:

"First of all I want to say, in my name as well as those of the other honoured graduands, how much we appreciate this honour and the friendly and generous reception.
In 1938 it was quite different. I must describe that because only a few of you were witness of those days, and perhaps had not even been born.
As regards Dr. Shamir and me, we were living a normal middleclass life and were at the threshold of our career as doctors. However, with the Anschluss our world was shattered. The years of our studies were in vain; we were humiliated, boycotted by previous colleagues, we were persecuted, our lives were threatened and we were driven out of·our homeland, without any qualification which would have enabled us to earn a living; being a medical student is not a profession.
It then took many years until we could again lead a normal life. In this regard our fate was not different from that of thousands of other refugees. With one exception: I am sufficiently oldfashioned to regard a university not only as an institution where one studies a subject, which will enable one later to earn a living. I see the university much more as a community of scholars, of students and of researchers. We did not confine ourselves to the study of medicine, but we occasionally attended lectures in other faculties in order to hear other ideas and to broaden our horizon. There existed a tie, that bounded teachers and students, we were all trying to widen and deepen our knowledge. This is, why we were "colleagues". This tie was suddenly severed.
The academic community came under the influence of an ideology which was based only on hate and arrogance, thinly disguised as a pseudoscience.
Suddenly we were declared unworthy to belong to an academic community! We were labeled inferior and excluded from the University; thrown out is perhaps a better term.
This was particularly surprising in the medical faculty, where the biblical, Hippocratic, and humanitarian ethic had always been taken for granted.
This was a further injury which healed only after many years, although we did succeed, after many difficulties, to complete our studies abroad.
What gives us such much pleasure today is not only the extraordinarily kind reception which we have enjoyed here, but also the signs that the University of Vienna, and particularly the Faculty of Medicine, has overcome this unworthy episode and is trying to express its insight and feelings for the injustice that occurred.
It is our wish and hope that the Medical Faculty of Vienna will again resume its respected and worldfamous place in the world."

Dr. Otto Fleming, né Fleischner, died on March 23^rd, 2007 in Sheffield/GB and is buried at Ecclesfield Jewish Cemetery there.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("National") MED 1933-1938, MED GZ 1250 ex 1937/38, Rectorate GZ 722/II ex 1937/38; POSCH/INGRISCH/DRESSEL 2008, 384; USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education, Interview 34938 (August 5, 1997, Sheffield, England/UK, Interviewer: Allan Kassel, 7 tapes 02:54:54); Dr. Otto Fleming in the project "Juden in Hietzing"; obituary; www.geni.com; www.ancestry.de; www.myheritage.at; information by courtesy of son David Magen and granddaughter Neta Magen, Israel, 11/2022.

Herbert Posch