Rapoport-Park
In Memory of a World-Renowned Researcher Couple
Ingeborg Rapoport (1912–2017), née Syllm, was born in what was then the German colony of Cameroon, and grew up in Hamburg where she studied medicine. In 1938 she was denied the right to defend her doctoral thesis as a result of the National Socialist race laws.
With the help of relatives in the USA, she managed to emigrate in September 1938. Since her German degree was not recognized there, she had to study medicine again, from 1940 to 1942, at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. After completing her studies, she specialized in pediatrics. In 1944 Ingeborg Rapoport found a position at the Children’s Hospital of the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, where she met her future husband, Samuel Mitja Rapoport.
Samuel Mitja Rapoport (1912–2004) was born in Wolotschysk, a Russian border town in Volhynia. During the First World War the Jewish family lived in Odessa and fled to Vienna in November 1919. There he studied medicine and chemistry and earned his medical doctorate degree in 1936. He used the offer of a scholarship from the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation in Cincinnati to settle permanently in the USA, where he also earned a PhD in biochemistry. His particular research interest was red blood cells. He discovered a metabolic pathway that was named after him and improved methods of blood preservation.
Samuel Mitja and Ingeborg Rapoport, both members of the Communist Party of the USA, were summoned in June 1950 to appear before the so-called House Committee on Un-American Activities and had to fear arrest. Even before that they had already been subjected to public hostility. After attending a conference in Switzerland, Samuel Mitja Rapoport did not return to the USA. Ingeborg Rapoport followed him to Europe with the children.
In 1952 Samuel Mitja Rapoport received an offer from the GDR. The family moved into a new building in the so-called “Intelligentsia Settlement” on Kuckhoffstrasse 45. He took over the directorship of the Institute of Physiological Chemistry at the Charité of Humboldt University and continued his successful research and teaching career. His textbook of medical biochemistry became the standard work for physicians throughout Germany. Samuel Mitja Rapoport is regarded as one of the most prominent biochemists of his time.
Ingeborg Rapoport initially worked as senior physician at the children’s clinic of the Hufeland Hospital in Berlin-Buch, received her certification as a specialist in pediatrics in 1952, and moved in 1953 to the children’s clinic of the Charité to pursue her habilitation. In 1969 she became the holder of the first European professorship in neonatology (the study of diseases in newborns).
The grave of Samuel Mitja and Ingeborg Rapoport is located in the Honorary Grove of Pankow III Cemetery. In 2025, the green space in the immediate vicinity of their former home, known as “Intelligenzberg,” was renamed Rapoport-Park.
