Woman, 102, receives PhD after 77 years

A 102-year-old woman received her doctorate 77 years after finishing her dissertation in a ceremony at Hamburg University.

The woman, Ingeborg Syllm-Rapoport, was awarded the PHD after she finished her dissertation on diphtheria in 1938.

As a Jew she was not allowed to sit the final oral exam, under Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic race laws at the time, and could therefore not receive her diploma.

Last year the paediatrician’s son approached Hamburg University asking them if they would consider giving her the degree.

The university agreed on the condition she sit the oral examination.

Syllm-Rapoport spent months studying developments in the field of diphtheria and subsequently passed the examination, thereby becoming the world’s oldest person to receive a doctoral degree.

She is well described in school as an ambitious person who was open-minded and tremendously modest.

Before World War Two, Syllm-Rapoport emigrated to the United States where she qualified as a paediatrician before moving back to Germany in 1950.

By Linah Wangari