In 1938 Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport completed her PhD thesis in neonatology – the care of newborns – and submitted it to the university of Hamburg. She was never awarded her doctorate, because by the time she completed her thesis the Nazi’s race laws had excluded Jewish citizens from schools and universities.
Yesterday, almost 80 years later, Syllm-Rapoport was finally awarded the degree denied her by a history of racial discrimination. She is now 102 years old, making her Germany’s oldest ever recipient of a doctorate degree.
To be awarded the prestigious degree in Germany, applicants must complete their thesis and then defend its significance in an oral presentation. Syllm-Rapoport completed the thesis 80 years ago, but was banned from speaking in front of the university because she is part Jewish. Her PhD supervisor and a member of the National Socialist Party, Rudolf Degkwitz, said at the time that the Nazi’s race laws “make it impossible to allow Miss Syllm’s admission for the doctorate.”
After waiting almost a century, she was finally given the opportunity to defend her thesis last month in Hamburg and was officially awarded the PhD she conceptualised so many years ago yesterday.
Hamburg University’s medical director spoke of restoring justice when he awarded the degree to Syllm-Rapoport.
“After almost 80 years, it was possible to restore some extent of justice,” he said during his remarks.
“We cannot undo injustices that have been committed, but our insights into the past shape our perspective for the future.”
Syllm-Rapoport herself said the degree was useless to her – at 102 years old – but was symbolic of a world moving on from a tragic past.
“For me personally, the degree didn’t mean anything, but to support the great goal of coming to terms with history — I wanted to be part of that,” she said.
“I didn’t want to defend my thesis for my own sake. After all, at the age of 102, all of this wasn’t exactly easy for me. I did it for the victims.”
Syllm-Rapoport fled Germany in 1938 without a degree despite years of work towards one, and had to re-train in the United States. She worked as a pediatrician in the US for a time and in 1952 returned to Germany with her husband, after the pair were persecuted for their socialist philosophy. In Berlin, Syllm-Rapoport became the first person to lead the neonatology department at the Charite Hospital. She held this role until she retired in 1973.
When asked how Syllm-Rapoport performed during her oral presentation of her thesis yesterday, the university’s medical dean said he was “impressed with her intellectual alertness” and “left speechless by her expertise – also with regard to modern medicine”.
“She was brilliant, and not only for her age,” he said.
Syllm-Rapoport will receive her official doctoral certificate on June 9, just a few months shy of her 103rd birthday.