Rosa Maria Rössler

Rosa Maria Rössler (14 December 1901 in Vienna – 1954 in Istanbul), was a medical doctor of Austrian origin who fled her home country to take up medicine in Turkey. She became a translator of medical texts into the Turkish language.

Early life She was the daughter of Jozef and Maria Wimmer. Rosa Maria Rössler completed her high school education in Gmunden in 1920. She attended the University of Graz and then the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna. She continued her medical education at the University of Innsbruck for her specialization. On July 20, 1927, the entire educational process was completed at the University of Vienna. In 1935, as a result of the purges of the Nazi regime, she was forced to leave Austria. This study considers the physiopathology of diabetes from a very rational point of view. Even if it has been more than 50 years since its first publication, it still retains its value.

In 1951, Rössler published a book in Turkish by her former chief Scwartz, this time about his main branch of pathology; "General and Special Histopathology".

In Turkey, which was on the verge of war, Rösler remained an Austrian at that time, and she had to work with a German passport. In 1940 and 1944, Rössler applied for Turkish citizenship, but her efforts were inconclusive. Rössler worked at rather low salaries at that time. To get a raise, Schwartz wrote a letter to the deanery describing her as “... Dr. Rossler deserves a small salary increase because of her skills, hard work and talent and respectability.The faculty complied with this request. During this period, Rössler continued to send help to her older sister Rosa Miller and sister Inge Fuchs in Salzburg, even while she received little salary.

Recent years On April 4, 1951, Rössler was finally granted Turkish citizenship.

Apart from the information in the university archives, there is little detailed data on Rössler's life. It seems that she was 33 years old when she came to Turkey and that she was divorced. She spent 11 years in Turkey, including the war years. There are contributions made by Turkish medicine during the modernization period with its selfless work. However, besides the great scientists of the period, it is also a fact that her name remains relatively unknown. It is noteworthy that while it is possible for her to continue her working life as a scientist in Turkey, where she started as an assistant, she turned to medical translations and took the lead in this field.

She died at a young age in 1954 due to an illness, having lived alone for 20 years.