Penina Gottfried

Born:	08-15-1897
Faculty:	Philosophical School
Category:	Expelled student

Penina GOTTFRIED, born on August 15^th, 1897 in Buczacz, Galicia/Austro-Hungarian Empire [later: Poland, today: Butschatsch|Бучач/Ukraine] (citizenship 1938: Poland), had passed her school-leaving examination (Matura) at the State Examination Commission at the Vienna Regional School Board in Vienna's 8th district on October 7th, 1915. Eleven years later she began to study History and Ancient History at the University of Vienna. She lived in Vienna's 2^nd district, Taborstrasse 38/27, and was enrolled at the School of Philosophy from the fall term of 1926/27 to the spring term of 1930. She had been in the final examinations stage since 1937. She had registered for the final examinations ("viva voce") in history on July 23^rd, 1937 , and submitted her dissertation "The last years of the reign of Maria Theresia. Conflicts between the Empress Maria Theresa and the Emperor Joseph II in the last years of her co-regency" (supervisors: Wolfgang Bauer and Otto Brunner), which had been approved on September 27^th, 1937. She had passed the first viva ("Philosophicum") on December 15^th, 1937, After the Anschluss and the seizure of power by National Socialism, she was still able to sit for the second viva on July 1^st, 1938, as a foreigner, but had to rehearse with one of the three examiners, Prof. Otto Brunner, and was only able to sit for the repetition on October 26^th, 1938, which she then passed. Thus, after a long period of uncertainty, she was able to complete her studies and obtain her doctorate on October 31^st, 1938, , but only under numerous symbolic discriminations in the context of a "non-Aryan graduation", and at the same time she was banned from working in the entire German Reich. She lived with Dr. phil. Abraham Gottfried (1883-1938), insurance agent, and Rebekka Henia Gottfried (1885-1942) in Vienna's 2^nd district, Taborstrasse 38/2/3/27. Abraham Gottfried was arrested after the November pogroms on November 12^th, 1938, and was sent with over 2,000 other Jews to the Notarrest in Vienna's 7^th district, Kenyongasse 4 (dissolved monastery school). According to a report by the Vienna police chief Karl Vitzthum to Gauleiter Josef Buerckel, one of the SS men on guard there, Otto Seethaler of the SS-Standarte "Der Fuehrer", shot him in the head, allegedly in response to an attempt to grab his bayonet. Penina and Rebeka Gottfried continued to live in their old apartment until November 1940, then until the end of May 1942 in Vienna's 8^th district, Schloesselgasse 26/3/18. Although the National Council of Jewish Women in Baltimore, MD/USA had already made a deposit for both of them to enable them to emigrate to the USA, both were arrested and imprisoned in Vienna's 2^nd district, Kleine Sperlgasse 2a and deported on June 16^th, 1942 - not to Izbica as originally planned, but directly from the Vienna Aspang train station to the German extermination camp Sobibór in occupied Poland. Penina Gottfried and Rebekka Gottfried did not survive.

Lit.: Archive of the University of Vienna/enrollment forms ("Nationale") PHIL 1937-1938, final examination file and registry ("Rigorosenakt und -protokoll") PHIL 13707, graduation registry ("Promotionsprotokoll") PHIL 1931-19142 Nr. 2864; Austrian State Archives OeStA, VVST VA 1166; POSCH 2009, 367; Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance|DOEW R 9535 and DOEW database Austrian Victims of the Holocaust; Yad Vashem Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names; American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC)/Einzahlungskarten des Jewish Transmigration Bureau 1939-1954; www.ancestry.de.

Herbert Posch