102-year-old woman denied PhD under Nazi rule to receive her degree

In 1938, German PhD student Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport was not permitted to defend her thesis on diphtheria, as the Nazi regime considered her a "first-degree crossbreed." As the daughter of a Jew, she was not an Aryan, and thus unable to complete the steps to earn her degree.

When officials at the University Clinic at Hamburg-Eppendorf heard this story, they immediately invited her, now a 102-year-old retired neonatologist, to finish her doctorate. Syllm-Rapoport is nearly blind, and had to have family and friends help her prepare, but she was successful and will receive her degree on June 9. "With this belated graduation we cannot make up for the injustice that has already occurred, but we can contribute to working through the darkest sides of German history at universities," Prof. Uwe Koch-Gromus, University Clinic's dean, said in a statement.

Syllm-Rapoport left Germany in 1938, and received most of her medical training in the United States. After spending time as a pediatrician at a hospital in Cincinnati, she returned to Germany in 1952 with her husband and became the head of neonatology at East Berlin's Charité hospital; under East German law, she had to retire at 60. She's grateful for finally being able to defend her thesis, she told NBC News, but "this is not about me. This is in commemoration of those who did not make it this far.”

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