Stella Siegmann (verh. Rotenberg)

Born:	03-27-1915
Faculty:	Medical School | Medical University Vienna
Category:	Expelled student

Stella SIEGMANN (married: ROTENBERG), born on March 27th, 1915 in Vienna/Austria (entitled residency ('heimatberechtigt') for Vienna/Austria, Citizenship: Austria), daughter of Bernhard Siegmann (merchant), lived in Vienna 20th district, Hannovergasse 17, was enrolled finally in spring term 1938 at the Medical School of the University of Vienna in the 3rd year of her studies. Her older brother Erwin Siegmann, who studied at the Medical School, too, was also expelled from the University of Vienna.

After the "Anschluss" 1938 she was able to emigrate via the Netherlands to Great Britain on March 14th, 1939, where she worked also in a hospital for mentally ill persons, later as a doctor's receptionist and accountant, but never finished her studies anymore. In 1940 she married Wolf Rotenberg, who was also expelled from the University of Vienna as a student, and began to work as a writer (short prose works and poetry in German language).
Her parents and many other relatives perished in the Shoah.

In 1946 she received the British citizenship and moved to Leeds together with her husband in 1948, where she worked as a writer and lyricist and he completed his clinical internship.
Stella Rotenberg was awarded the book prize of the Austrian Ministry of Education and Art for her book "Scherben sind endlicher Hort" in 1992 and was honoured with the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, 1st class in 1996, with the Theodor Kramer-Award for writing in resistance and exile in 2001 and with an honorary doctorate in Literature by the University Leeds in 2002.

Stella Rotenberg died on July 3rd, 2013 in Leeds.
Lit.: Interview with Stella ROTENBERG in Vienna on April 24th, 2001, Interviewer: Werner Lausecker and Herbert Posch; BOLBECHER/KAISER 2000, 553f.; Doris GRUBER, Das Exil als Schreiberfahrung und literarisches Thema im Werk von Ilse Losa, Stella Rotenberg, und Ruth Tassoni, ungedr. phil. Dipl. Univ. Wien, Wien 1998.; Erich HACKL, Leben im Wort. Anläßlich der Preisverleihung des Theodor-Kramer-Preises an die Schriftstellerin Stella Rotenberg: eine Würdigung, in: Der Standard, vom 21. April 2001, 5; PEN-Zentrum deutschsprachiger Autoren im Ausland; ROTENBERG 1997; ROTENBERG 2003; Armin A. WALLAS, Stella Rotenberg und Tamar Radzyner - Von der Unerträglichkeit der Erinnerung, in: Meine wahre Heimat | My true Homeland, Klagenfurt 1999, 7-13.

Katharina Kniefacz