High school mates in Vienna who had not seen or known of the other’s whereabouts after having parted in Austria as teenagers almost a half century ago have been reunited by correspondence as a result of a news article in Jewish media that originated with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency here and appeared in American and Australian newspapers.
The JTA prepared and distributed the article that reported Karlsruhe University’s Geodetic Institute in Germany on Aug. 29 had awarded an honorary doctorate in engineering for the first time in its 100-year history to a woman and a Jew–Mrs. Irene Fischer, a geodesist at the Department of Defense mapping agency. The JTA article was published among other places in Melbourne’s Jewish newspaper where it was seen by Mrs. Grace Togget of East St. Kilds, a Melbourne suburb.
Mrs. Toggett, now a widow who also happens to be general secretary of Australia’s WIZO, mailed a copy of the article to Mrs. Fischer in care of Temple Israel in Silver Spring, Md. Mrs. Fischer and her husband, Dr. Eric Fischer, are members of that congregation which was mentioned in the article. The temple forwarded the article to the Fischer home in neighboring Takoma Park, Md., and a happy reunion followed–by mail.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
