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A Ph.D Thesis Defense Delayed By Injustice 77 Years
Taco Cowboy writes: A story about a 102-year old lady doing her PhD thesis defense is not that common, but when the thesis defense was delayed by a whopping 77 years, that gotta raise some eyebrows. Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport studied diphtheria at the University of Hamburg in Germany and in 1938, the 25-year old Protestant-raised, German-born Ingeborg submitted for her doctorate thesis defense. She was denied her chance for her defense because her mother was of the Jewish ancestry, making her an official "cross-breed". As such the Nazi regime forbid the university from proceeding with her defense, for "racial reasons".
She became one of the thousands of scholars and researchers banished from German academe, which at the time included many of the world's most prestigious research institutions, because of Jewish ancestry or opposition to Nazi policies. Many of them ended up suffering or dying in concentration camps. Rudolf Degkwitz, Syllm's professor, was imprisoned for objecting to euthanizing children. Syllm, however, was able to reach the United States and earned her medical degree from the old Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Eventually she married a fellow physician named Samuel Mitja Rapoport, had a family, and moved back to Germany in the 1950s, where she achieved prominence in neonatology. Syllm-Rapoport, who is now 102 years old, might have remained just a doctor (if a very accomplished one) had not the present dean of the Hamburg medical school, Uwe Koch-Gromus, heard her story from a colleague of her son, Tom Rapoport, a Harvard cell biologist.
Determined to do what he could to mitigate this wrong, Koch-Gromus arranged Syllm-Rapoport's long-delayed defense. Despite failing eyesight, she brushed up on decades of developments in diphtheria research with the help of friends and the Internet. Koch-Gromus called the 45-minute oral exam given by him and two colleagues on 13 May in her Berlin living room "a very good test. Frau Rapoport has gathered notable knowledge about what's happened since then. Particularly given her age, she was brilliant."
She became one of the thousands of scholars and researchers banished from German academe, which at the time included many of the world's most prestigious research institutions, because of Jewish ancestry or opposition to Nazi policies. Many of them ended up suffering or dying in concentration camps. Rudolf Degkwitz, Syllm's professor, was imprisoned for objecting to euthanizing children. Syllm, however, was able to reach the United States and earned her medical degree from the old Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Eventually she married a fellow physician named Samuel Mitja Rapoport, had a family, and moved back to Germany in the 1950s, where she achieved prominence in neonatology. Syllm-Rapoport, who is now 102 years old, might have remained just a doctor (if a very accomplished one) had not the present dean of the Hamburg medical school, Uwe Koch-Gromus, heard her story from a colleague of her son, Tom Rapoport, a Harvard cell biologist.
Determined to do what he could to mitigate this wrong, Koch-Gromus arranged Syllm-Rapoport's long-delayed defense. Despite failing eyesight, she brushed up on decades of developments in diphtheria research with the help of friends and the Internet. Koch-Gromus called the 45-minute oral exam given by him and two colleagues on 13 May in her Berlin living room "a very good test. Frau Rapoport has gathered notable knowledge about what's happened since then. Particularly given her age, she was brilliant."
That's not a Godwin.
You have to accuse someone of being a nazi to Godwin. If the story is explicitly about nazis, that's different.
for arranging this. It might be largely symbolic, but I heartily approve of what he has done. Something bright & positive, better than the trials of ancient concentration camp officials.
what are you, some sort of comment nazi?
She might have remained just a doctor, but now she's... a doctor doctor!
( huh? )
But seriously, this is awesome.
Also, WTF slashdot... how about linking to the primary source ( Wall Street Journal )
forbid forbade forbidden. It's forbade.
Nah, they're just a Godwin Nazi. :-)
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
In the 50's I would have to see a white man who would apply to go to the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Here's the final sentence from the article that didn't make it into TFS:
At a ceremony on 9 June, Syllm-Rapoport will officially become an M.D.-Ph.D. and, without doubt, the oldest new graduate of this or any other academic year.
And yet you can read online all day long, "Kill all Christians." Why is it wrong to hate on one religion but okay to hate on a different one?
This is his point. These sorts of "injustices" are way too influenced by time and relativism for his taste.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
I...I think we just did have such a person.
No, that was a racist and sexist Slashdoter claiming that claiming reverse discrimination isn't discrimination is racist and sexist.
I still have this nightmare.
I'm back in school 50 years later and have to finish some schoolwork I'd forgotten.
The only variable is whether I'm naked or just in my underwear.
- too bad we don't have some racist and sexist Slashdoter to claim that, even five years after Hitler was in power, a Jewish women could study in a university, while today a White men is denied even to enter because some Black women replace him thanks to racism and sexism...
I...I think we just did have such a person.
Really? That's great! Who is he? Let's make Godwin proud...
Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
She'll be at least 150 years old by the time she's paid off the student loans.
Nullius in verba
When someone starts bombing civilians we have passed pretty clearly by the "ideological" into the "corporeal". I can guarantee you if ISIS / Al Queda were sitting in their corner of the world spouting their ideology at the top of their lungs we really wouldn't care. They are fair game not because of their ideology but because they go beyond having a belief, to trying to force it upon others with violence. It is the latter, and not the former, that absolutely makes it OK to wipe them out entirely. They have literally exclaimed that they will kill us if we don't kill them first, and then acted upon it. See the difference?
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Pedophilia is only bad because society decided it was bad. Before we decided it was bad, it wasn't. There's no proof that there is any psychological damage to children who engage in sexual acts with adults that isn't caused by how such children are treated by other adults, and how sex in general is treated. In other words, children feel violated because they are treated as having been violated. If you convince a child to eat an ice cream cone, we don't consider that abuse, even if they wouldn't have eaten it without your encouragement. It is only because we view sex as requiring some higher level of acquiescence that the idea of statutory rape can exist.
Don't treat children as victims and they won't feel they are victims. Sex is physically-induced pleasure. Like a good massage.