Prof. Paul WEINDLING wird im Rahmen des Josephim-Seminars einen Vortrag zum Thema „Austrian Medical Refugees and the Modernisation of British Medicine, 1930s-50s“ halten.

Ort: Lesesaal des Josephinum, (Währinger Straße 25, A – 1090 Wien)
Zeit: 29. Mai 2008, 19.00 c.t.
Kontakt: sammlungen@meduniwien.ac.at
++43/ 1/ 40160/ 26000

Late in 1938 Britain instituted a concessionary scheme to admit 50 Austrian Doctors and 40 Austrian Dental Surgeons to allow them to
re-qualify. Fortunately, many more Austrian doctors, dental surgeons, psychotherapists and scientists in medically related areas found
refuge in Britain. A few – like Sigmund Freud – came as eminent figures. Another category consisted of high flying young research
scientists like Max Perutz. Most came under modest and often difficult circumstances as domestic servants and nurses.
This paper adopts a “whole population” approach and considers the cohort of (former) Austrian nationals and holders of Austrian
university degrees in medicine and medically related subjects who arrived in Britain. Within this framework, individual life histories
gain in significance. Moreover, cohorts by birth, gender, and subsequent career can be identified.
My contention is that the numbers of “Austrians” in the medical category amounts to nearly 500 individuals. This indicates that
the Austrians were the third largest national cohort of medical refugees in Britain, following the Poles and the Germans.
The paper will analyse the specialisms and occupations (as nursing) which Austrian medical refugees engaged in while in Britain.

Paul Weindling is Wellcome Trust Research Professor in the History of Medicine, Oxford Brookes University. His publications include Health, Race and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism/ (1989), Epidemics and Genocide in Eastern Europe 1890-1945 (2000), and Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials: From Medical War Crimes to Informed Consent 1945-55 (2004). He has also developed a reference collection on over 5200 medical refugees who came to Britain as a result of National Socialism or fascism.