102-year-old German woman to get doctorate

Berlin: A 102-year-old German woman is set to become the oldest person to receive a doctorate which will be awarded to her by the Hamburg University next week, 77 years after the Nazis blocked it because she was Jewish.

 

Ingeborg Rapoport has been granted the PhD for a dissertation on diphtheria that she finished in 1938, aged 25. Her exam forms at the time were marked with a yellow stripe because her mother was Jewish, and so she was barred from the viva exam, where candidates are questioned, face to face, by a panel of academics.