Dr. Anna Rezek (geb. Bunzl)

Anna Bunzl was born in Vienna into a Jewish family as the legitimate daughter of paper factory owner Ludwig Bunzl and his wife Julia 'Dolly', née Porges. After finishing school, she enrolled in medicine at the University of Vienna, where she received her doctorate in medicine on July 26, 1921. She graduates on the same day as her future husband Philipp Rezek, who marries her a month later on August 15, 1921. She went on to become the mother of two daughters.

On March 12, 1938, Anna Rezek witnessed the end of a 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 Racial Laws', according to which she was considered a 'full Jew'.

Her husband had already emigrated to the United States of America on a lecture visa on June 27, 1938. Anna Rezek and her two children arrived in New York City on November 23, 1938 on board the SS Veendam - according to another source on the SS Statendam - after a month-long crossing from Southampton. From New York, the family traveled to Philipp Rezek in Miami Beach, Florida.

Her husband worked as a doctor in Miami Beach. As early as 1941, she and her husband were stripped of their German citizenship for 'racist reasons' and 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, Anna Rezek was granted citizenship of the United States of America. In the United States, Anna Rezek witnessed the liberation of Austria and the re-establishment of the Republic in April and May 1945. The family decided not to return to Austria. In 1955, the property confiscated by the National Socialists was restituted - the well-known Villa Rezek - but the family immediately sold the building.

Anna Rezek died in Miami Beach at the age of 78.