SISTERS IN SCIENCE
How Four Women Physicists Escaped Nazi Germany and Made Scientific History
By: Olivia Campbell
Published: December 31, 2024
Publisher: Park Row
Non-Fiction/Biography
SISTERS IN SCIENCE details the lives of Hedwig Kohn, Lise Meitner, Hertha Sponer, and Hildegard Stücklen, four women who were forced to leave their homes, their research and livelihoods due to Hitler’s regime. It wasn’t enough that these four intelligent physicists were already facing sexism and working below their educated talents, but now with Hitler’s takeover, they were also being discriminated against because they were Jewish.
Many scientists and foundations from all over the world had to band together to get these four women to safety and it wasn’t easy. At times, this book reads like a thrilling novel as you are taken along on Lise’s train ride to Sweden or Hedwig’s numerous roadblocks to her leaving Germany. However, as thrilling as it was in spots, it does take a bit to get into this story.
Since I am the farthest thing from a scientist, I have to admit that a lot of the physics conversations in the book went WAY over my head. I didn’t understand much of what these women were working on, but what I did understand was the constant sexism and semitism that they faced as well as the fear and uncertainty that each of them had if they couldn’t find a way out of Germany. Unfortunately, these are things people are still facing in the workplace today nearly 100 years later. These scientists were paid drastically less, weren’t allowed to be professors (only high school teachers), and couldn’t have their own labs (they had to work under a male scientist). But, without their research and perseverance to continue their work, many scientific problems would not be answered today.
“‘What will our soldiers think when they return to the university and find that they are required to learn at the feet of a woman?’ the faculty demanded.”
Aside from the story of the women’s lives, WWI and eventually WWII are raging in the background. The author creates a timeline of sorts of Hitler’s regime and the creation of the various concentration camps interspersed with the lives of these female scientists to create an urgency to their situation. While trying to save these scientists seemed like such a monumental task, male Jewish scientists like Einstein were easily transported to safer places like the US. Especially, when these women were coming up with solutions to just as important problems as the men were, sometimes alongside them.
“Just as the goal of the darkness is to snuff out the light, the goal of the Nazis was to snuff out anyone who wasn’t a straight, able-bodied member of their invented master race-as well as anyone who stood in the way of that goal…The Nazis considered your ancestry in their calculations of intolerance, not your religious practices. So, while making scientific history, Lise was also frantically searching for a way to make it out of Nazi Germany alive.”
Olivia Campbell’s extensive research and attention to detail make sure that the lives of these women and their struggles are remembered and honored. Her extensive bibliography and end notes are proof of her diligent fact-checking which must have taken years to collect and write. I think these women would be proud to know another woman took the time and effort to record their history.
These four brilliant scientists never lost hope even when they were forced to rely on friends, acquaintances, strangers, and other countries to save them. Each of their situations was desperate and if not for the monetary interventions and monumental plans to save them, they would not have made it out of Germany alive. I won’t try to explain their contributions to science but know that their discoveries made a huge difference. If you can wade through the extensive scientific details, this is a fascinating book.
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