Oldest German doctorate recipient who fled Nazis dies

Syllm-Rapoport, who waited 77 years for her doctorate after the Nazis refused to give it to her, has died.

Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport, who became Germany’s oldest recipient of a doctorate almost 80 years after fleeing the Nazis, has died. She was 104.

A specialist in newborn care, Syllm-Rapoport was widely cheered when she passed her oral exam with flying colors at the University of Hamburg at the age of 102 in 2015, correcting an injustice committed by the Nazi regime 77 years earlier.

Syllm-Rapoport, whose mother was Jewish, was not allowed to defend her doctoral thesis by the Nazis’ race laws. She moved to the US in 1938.

Her thesis supervisor, Rudolf Degkwitz, attested he would have accepted Rapoport’s thesis “if it was not for the existing racial laws.”

She finished her degree in Philadelphia and returned to Berlin in 1952, becoming the first head of neonatology at East Germany’s prestigious Charite hospital and retired in 1973.

Tom Rapoport said Monday his mother died Thursday in Berlin. She is survived by four children, nine grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren.

By: AP and World Israel News Staff

GermanyHolocaustNazis