Hilda Berdach Fleischl (nee Barber)

2 June 1910 – 16 November 1961

Class of 1942

This biography is based on secondary material. Hilda’s grandson, Peter Jr., and granddaughter, Juliet Fleischl, have supplied the photos, sources to some of the secondary material, and have kindly read this biography. It has been collated by Rennae Taylor.

Family Background and First Marriage

Hilda Fleischl was born in Vienna, Austria, on 2 June 1910 to Rosalie (nee Freund) and Arnold Barber. She had one brother, Heinrich, born two years later. She grew up during the dark days of World War I and its aftermath. (1)

Hilda’s father was born in Leipzig in 1879, and he and his family moved to Vienna when he was four years old. He apprenticed as a builder and served in World War I as an officer on the Russian front. Arnold was recognized as a city builder and specialized in renovations. Hilda’s brother Heinrich became an architect and worked with his father. We were unable to locate information on Rosalie’s background, but Hilda’s son, Peter, reported that the family were secular Jews and lived in a lovely old home with a large garden acquired before World War I. (2)

Fifteen-year-old Hilda met a young man, Karl Berdach, at the Grinzinger Bad, a lovely swimming pool in the vineyards of Grinzing on the north-east coast of Italy, which was a popular holiday destination. He found her quite beautiful, and young Hilda was very attracted to him. A teenage holiday romance eventuated in an unplanned teenage pregnancy. On the advice of the family paediatrician, who was also a psychoanalyst, they married and lived with his parents, and Karl recalls the months leading up to the birth went well. They went swimming until the day before the day of birth of their only son, Peter, on 5 August 1926. Hilda was sixteen, and Karl was twenty years of age at the time of Peter’s birth. (3)

In 1927, Karl developed poliomyelitis and lost all movement except in one arm. He kept up with his university studies and was eventually able to walk with a cane. However, their marriage did not survive, and they divorced in 1928. In later years, Karl recalls it took him a long time to overcome the shock of the separation from Hilda, but in time, they had a friendly relationship, and he recalls her and her second husband visiting him and his second wife in Cleveland many years later. (3)

Young Peter lived with his father and his paternal grandparents, Hugo and Toni Berdach, in Vienna for the first ten years of his life. Karl was a law student and eventually obtained his doctorate in 1936. Peter described this secular Jewish family as multilingual and cultured. Karl’s older sister and her family, as well as his younger brother, also lived in the family home during this time. Peter recalls it being a happy and harmonious household, and he enjoyed his three slightly younger cousins. (3)

University Years and Second Marriage

Hilda took her Arts degree in Vienna, followed by her medical degree. Her university years were overshadowed by the growing influence of Nazism and the increasing presence of antisemitism. (4) Her son, Peter, came to live in his mother’s home in 1936 while she was still doing her medical degree. Karl felt this was a sensible move as his own father, who had suffered a stroke, was irritable and harder to get along with. Hilda had “reached a certain maturity,” and Peter was requesting this change. (3)

Following the Nazi occupation of Austria on 13 March 1938, which was referred to as the “Anschluss”, Peter recalls that the local SA (Sturmabteilung) “hoodlums” came to their home and confiscated valuables and installed an unsuccessful builder in his maternal grandfather’s business. His grandfather was deported to Dachau but was released in 1939 on the condition they left Vienna within two weeks. (3) Hilda’s parents, Arnold and Rosalie, emigrated to Palestine, where her sister had lived since 1906. Peter recounted his grandfather was a broken man after the war, and both his grandparents died in 1949. (3) Hilda’s brother Heinrich was able to emigrate to Portland, Oregon and used the name Henry Barber thereafter. He married Evelyn and became a successful businessman in that city. Hilda’s granddaughter Juliet remembers him visiting NZ when she was very young.

Peter recalls his paternal grandparents had to leave their lovely home (which became the headquarters for the Gestapo in the district of Döbling in Vienna) and move into a Jewish apartment, where they lived until their deportation in 1942 to the ghetto-labour camp of Theresienstadt. His grandfather died two weeks later. His grandmother was deported to Auschwitz six months later and was gassed within hours of her arrival. Several other members of their wider family were also killed in the concentration camps. His own father, Karl, was taken in by the SS (Schutzstaffel), which ran the network of concentration camps, but was released due to his lameness from poliomyelitis and was told, “You are no use to us”. He married his long-term friend after the “Anschluss,” left for the United States at the end of 1938, (3) and died in Florida in 1975 at the age of 69 years. (5)

Hilda, three months away from graduating with her medical degree in 1938, was no longer able to pursue her medical studies as she was a Jew. She and her son Peter escaped by train to Italy on 26 August 1938, when they were soon joined by Hilda’s long-term partner, Mario Fleischl. Mario (a psychoanalyst who had studied under Anna Freud, a daughter of Sigmund Freud and the founder of child psychoanalysis) was born on 7 March 1905 in Lwow, Poland and had moved to Vienna in 1926 for his university education. (6)

They left Italy after two weeks with a three-week visa to Switzerland. While there, Hilda was accepted by the Medical School in Lausanne and obtained her M.D. in 1939. (3)

Peter recalls the fortuitous meeting with an English woman who assisted with their emigration to NZ. (3)

New Zealand was a very hard country to obtain an immigrant visa and by chance I had become friends with a young English boy in Geneva who on one occasion nearly drowned in the lake where I, being a strong swimmer, was able to pull him to safety. His very distinguished mother happened to be there and later helped us to get the necessary documentation to be able to get to New Zealand where we arrived three weeks before the outbreak of the war.

While in England, Hilda and Mario were married in June 1939, and a year later, with Peter’s father Karl Berdach’s consent, Mario became his adoptive father. Peter recounts his memory of coming to New Zealand and his own career pathway. (3)

Living in New Zealand was like paradise. I loved my schooling and did well. …. I followed my mother’s footsteps and graduated in Medicine in 1948 at the age of 22, later specializing in Internal Medicine, studying abroad for higher qualifications, marrying and having five children and living in Napier, a delightful seaside city in the North Island of New Zealand. In 1980 and 1981 I spent three months each time working for the New Zealand Red Cross in a refugee camp in Malaysia and in 1983 as all my family had grown up and I had become a widower, I spent the next eight years again working for refugees in Southeast Asia and Russia with the International Organization for Migration. On my return at the age of 65 I continued to work as a specialist internist until I turned 80 and I now have the joy of watching the progress of my six children*, eleven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. I have returned to Vienna on several occasions as have all my children and some of my grandchildren, the last time at the invitation of the Jewish Welcome Service two years ago which was a very moving occasion for me.

*Peter and Charmian had five children. He remarried while living in the Philippines, and they adopted a daughter.

New Zealand Medical Career

Hilda, Mario, and Peter arrived in NZ on 16 August 1939, just before the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939.

The NZ British Medical Association branch, by 1936, was becoming anxious about the potential number of refugees who might come to New Zealand. Hilda’s medical qualification was from the continent, not the UK. It is documented that her application “triggered a heated debate on a new three-year qualification”. The requirements for registration were changed from a one-year to a three-year course of study at Otago Medical School for overseas qualified Jewish medical doctor refugees wishing to take their examination to qualify for NZ registration. This three-year course commenced in 1940. (7)

Peter recalls his mother had to pursue the final three years of the Otago Medical School course to re-qualify by special examination in 1942 (8) while his stepfather worked sixteen hours a day to support them. Mario also used this time to become familiar with psychiatric, psychological, and psychoanalytical works in English. The family then moved to Wellington, where Hilda worked at Wellington Hospital as a hospital resident {Wright-St. Clair, 1981 #3}. She finally commenced her work as a general practitioner in 1943 at the age of thirty-three years. (9)

Although her three years at Otago allowed Hilda to become registered to practice in NZ in 1942 by a “Special Exam,” it was not until October 1947 that she was conferred her M.B. Ch.B. from the University of NZ. (10)

Hilda and Mario embraced their new home in Wellington and made a conscious decision to live as New Zealanders. They stopped speaking German in their home. Her first practice was from Northland Centre, close to where they had purchased their first home. (11) A year later she moved to Bowen House in downtown Wellington (12) where she continued to practice for the next seventeen years. Hilda’s practice was mainly among women (4), which probably led to her active participation in the Family Planning Association from 1950 to 1961. (13)

Mario set up his practice as a psychoanalyst and later became a part-time lecturer in abnormal psychology at Victoria University at the invitation of Professor E Beaglehole.

Cultural Interests

Hilda and Mario had wide cultural interests and became patrons of the arts and generously entertained many NZ artists in their Karori home. (14) They ran musical soirees evenings in their drawing room, and Hilda became famous for her goulash cooking skills. (15) They had a wide circle of friends among the émigré European refugees as well as New Zealanders, which included writers, professionals, academics, and artists as well as potters, painters (e.g. Colin McCahon), and musicians (e.g. Turnosky, Farquhar and Lilburn). (16) Colin McCahon gained his first commission from them entitled “Otago Peninsula”, which is now housed in the Museum of NZ Te Papa. (17) He commented on how influential the Fleischl’s support had been for early career artists of the time. “The Fleischl’s…did a hell of a lot to support us in those early days…we couldn’t have done without them.” (11) Music meant much to Hilda. Her son Peter recalls that it took many months for their furniture, books, and piano to arrive from Vienna. (11) In 1949, the NZ composer and professor of music at Victoria University, David Farquhar, wrote “Waltz for Hilda Fleischl”. Following Hilda’s death, Mario married their close friend Margaret Nielsen, a pianist and reader in music at Victoria University. He went on to become a Foundation member of the NZ branch of the British Psychological Society and practised as a psychoanalyst for over thirty years. He died twenty years after Hilda on 20 October 1971. (6)

Early Demise

Hilda died suddenly from a cerebral bleed at her Karori home on 16 November 1961 at the age of fifty-one. Her health had been a concern during the previous two years, but she was in active practice until the day before her death. Her obituary in the NZ Medical Journal records Hilda’s career in Wellington: (4)

New Zealand and its quiet democracy meant much to her and she served her adopted country faithfully and well. Her patients loved her. Her practice was mainly women and besides being an intelligent and cultured physician, Dr Hilda was a very kind warm hearted woman. Her troubled life, far from hardening her and contracting her sympathies, had rather enlarged and enriched her nature.

Hilda left a lasting legacy to her family, in particular her love of medicine and music. She had six grandchildren of which three became doctors (John a surgeon, Juliet, a nurse with a PhD in public health who worked for the WHO and is now a health consultant, and Peter Jr. a GP), eleven great-grandchildren (William currently a Surgical registrar, Christopher a GP, and Louis a Respiratory registrar) and so far eleven great-great-grandchildren. Her grandson, Peter Jr., a much-loved retired doctor in Taupo, inherited his grandmother’s musical ability and plays in many orchestras and chamber music groups around the country. (18) 

Bibliography

1. Dr Hilda Berdach Fleischl: MyHeritage Ltd; [09.05.2024]. Available from: https://www.geni.com/people/Hilda-Berdach-Fleischl-Dr/6000000030630354149
2. Fleischl P. Lifestory: Peter Flesichl Vienna, Austria: National Fund of the Republic of Austria for Victims of National Socialism; [cited 2024 09.05.2024]. Available from: https://www.nationalfonds.org/peter-fleischl
3. Lives Remembered. “Exile in New Zealand”. 1 ed. Vol. 2. 2022.
4. O’Regan R. Obituary: Hilda Fleischl. New Zealand Medical Journal. 1962:2.
5. Karl Berthold Berdach, Dr. : Geni; [cited 2024 10.05.2024]. Available from: https://www.geni.com/people/Karl-Berdach-Dr/6000000186310079848
6. Obituary: Mario Fleischl. Psychology. 1972;11.
7. Weindling P. Restricted Refuge: Medical Refugees in New Zealand 1933-1945. In: Steinberg SG, A. , editor. Refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe in British overseas territories. London: Brill; 2020. p. 7.
8. Degrees Conferred. Otago Daily Times. 1947 02.10.1947. Available from: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19471002.2.91
9. Professional Announcements. Dominion. 1943 08.05.1943. Available from: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19430508.2.23.1
10. Supplement to the New Zealand Gazette Medical Register [Internet]. Wellington: R.E. Owen, Goverment Printer; 1962.
11. Parkinson M. Fleischl Collection: A Wellington Story Wellington [10.05.2024]. Available from: https://images.dunbarsloane.co.nz/sales/1763/5b0a3bdd-fc33-449d-ab91-286de240122a.pdf
12. Public Notices. Evening Post. 1944 10.11.1944. Available from: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/EP19441110.2.9.6
13. Fleischl, Hilda (Dr), active 1950-1961 History File: NZ Family Planning Association Records History File  [10.05.2024]. Available from: https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22401568
14. Johnson-Lee E. Image: Fleischl house and property in Karori, Wellington Wellington: National Library of New Zealand 1949 [10.05.2024]. Available from: https://digitalnz.org/records/20369429
15. Wolfsberger M. Fleischl Hilda: Doctor Vienna: Institute for Science and Art; [10.05.2024]. Available from: http://biografia.sabiado.at/fleischl-hilda/
16. Jackson PA. The Mind of a Nation: A Philosophical and Historical Critique of Psychology in New Zealand: Massey; 1998.
17. Te Papa Blog [Internet]. Wellington: Museum of New Zealand. 2019 [10.05.2024]. Available from: https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2019/10/31/hon-grant-robertson-on-colin-mccahons-landscapes-they-blew-my-mind/
18. Canning R. Taupō general practitioner Dr Peter Fleischl honoured with Distinguished Fellowship. Rotorua Daily Post. 2021 26.08.2021. Available from: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/taupo-general-practitioner-dr-peter-fleischl-honoured-with-distinguished-fellowship/U3XQE6WQ2WH5UNHUAA52UEOWEY/