Dr. Philipp Raphael Rezek

Philipp Raphael Rezek was born in Vienna into a Jewish family, the legitimate son of Adolf Rezek, a merchant from Prague, and his wife Gisella, née Goldstein. After elementary school, he attended the k.k. Staatsrealschule in Schüttelstraße in Vienna's 2nd district, where he distinguished himself as a pianist in the so-called 'Schülerakademie'. With the outbreak of the First World War, he was drafted in 1914 and was initially deployed at the front before becoming head of a hospital for epidemic diseases in what is now Albania. He returned to his home country before the end of the war and enrolled at the University of Vienna in the winter semester of 1917/18, initially as an associate student, to study medicine.

As a student, he experienced the defeat of Austria-Hungary, the break-up of the dual monarchy and the expulsion of the House of Habsburg. On July 26, 1921, he was awarded his doctorate in medicine. He graduated on the same day as his future wife Anna Bunzl, whom he married a month later, on August 15, 1921, and subsequently became the father of two daughters. In 1928, he joins the Future Lodge of the Grand Lodge of Vienna, but leaves again in 1934 'because of incompatibility of conscious Judaism with Freemasonry'.

After completing his doctorate, Philipp Rezek worked as an assistant physician at the First Medical University Clinic and was also a private lecturer in neuropathology at his alma mater from 1929 to 1932. He spent a long time in British India researching liver diseases. In December 1934, Philipp Rezek released the cine film 'Palestine 1934', which was shown in cinemas. In November 1936, he released another film, 'Ceylon, Land and People'. At the beginning of the following year, he released the film 'India, Land and People' and also gave lectures on his travels through Ceylon and India. In April 1937, he gave lectures with film screenings entitled 'A Journey to Palestine'.

On March 12, 1938, Philipp Rezek witnessed the demise of free and independent Austria with the invasion of the German Wehrmacht. With the occupation of Austria, German legislation was adopted and with it the 'Nuremberg Race Laws', according to which Philipp Rezek was considered a 'full Jew'.

Philipp Rezek had been preparing a research and lecture tour of the USA for some time and so, with a lecture visa dated March 19, 1938, he was able to emigrate to the USA on May 27, 1938 on the SS Britannic from LeHavre/France, arriving in New York, NY/USA on June 5, 1938. His wife Anna Rezek and their two daughters also had to flee Vienna and were later able to emigrate to the USA: the later art historian Esther Mendelsohn Bunzl and the later medical technician Susanne Lindau.

As early as 1941, he and his wife were stripped of their German citizenship for 'racist reasons' and on 14 July 1942, both were stripped of their 1921 German citizenship. On July 14, 1942, both were stripped of the doctorate they had earned at the University of Vienna in 1921 for 'racist reasons', as both were considered 'unworthy of an academic degree from a German university as Jews' under National Socialism.

In 1943, Philipp Rezek was granted citizenship of the United States of America. Philipp Rezek worked at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami from 1938 until his death in 1963, heading the laboratories there until 1953 and then the Department of Pathological Anatomy. He introduced teaching and training programs for pathology and clinical pathology as well as a course for medical technicians in 1947. From 1954, he was head of the newly founded Department of Pathological Anatomy and Professor of Pathology at the Medical School of the University of Miami, as well as simultaneously teaching pathology at Kendall Hospital in South Miami and Victoria Hospital in Miami. He also worked as a consultant for the Lago Oil and Transportation Company in Aruba [part of the Netherlands Antilles until 1986] and as a visiting lecturer in pathology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem/Israel.

Philipp Rezek died at the age of 68 in Miami Beach, Florida.