A 102-year-old woman has received her doctorate from a German university , nearly 80 years after the Nazis prevented her from sitting the final exam to officially obtain it.
Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport who is an expert in children’s infections, was presented with her PhD title by Hamburg’s UKE University Medical Centre on Tuesday despite having completed her thesis on diphtheria in 1938.
She had studied medicine in the northern port city and worked at its Israelite Hospital from 1937 to 1938 when she wrote her doctoral dissertation on Diphtheria.
By then Hitler’s regime had imposed racially motivated legal restrictions which barred her from being allowed to sit her oral exam and obtain her title because of her Jewish descent.
Her professor in 1938 had issued a certificate stating he would have passed her thesis at the time if it had been legally possible to do so, she said.
Ms Syllm-Rapoport finally successfully sat her oral test in May, the Hamburg university said in a statement, adding she was probably the oldest person in the world to receive a doctorate.
Three professors from Hamburg University’s medical faculty travelled to her sitting room in East Berlin where the test was held according to Euronews.
Burkhard Goeke, the UKE’s medical director and chairman, said they were gratified at being able to restore “a piece of justice”.
“We can’t make the injustice that occurred undone, but our insights into the past shape our perspectives for the future,” he said in a statement.
