Marie Jahoda (1907-2001)
Marie Jahoda, sociologist from Austria, died in Sussex last Sunday. From Austria: expelled from Austria, not by the Nazis, but by Austro-Fascism, the so-called “Ständestaat” that Austria was before 1938. Author of the legendary study “Die Arbeitslosen von Marienthal” (1932/33), about the consequences of large-scale unemployment on small-scale communities, and individual lives. Still available. Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1975. The publishers of the original edition feared that the authors’ Jewish names – Marie Jahoda, Paul Lazarsfeld, Hans Zeisel – would attract unwanted attention, which is why they left them unmentioned. Marie Jahoda lived in England, went to the USA after the war, as post-war Austria showed no interest in her or her return, then returned to England. I cannot assess her work as a sociologist, as I haven’t read it. But I hope I will one day (read it). Her memoirs are published in German. ”’Ich habe die Welt nicht verändert’. Lebenserinnerungen einer Pionierin der Sozialforschung.” (Campus Verlag) More informative obituaries are to clutter the pages of significant English-language media soon. Or so one hopes.