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circa 1930-1990 |
| PH Collection No.: | 679 |
| Creator: | Birnbaum, Zygmunt William, 1903- |
| Title: | Zygmunt William Birnbaum Photograph Collection |
| Date Span: | circa 1930-1990 |
| Quantity: | 59 photographs |
| 2 slides | |
| (1 box) | |
| Location: | K0194 |
| Languages: | Collection materials are in English and Polish. |
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| Zygmunt William Birnbaum, left, with his wife, Hilde Birnbaum, and another unidentified man in classroom, 1991. Special Collections, UW Libraries, UW23998z |
Zygmunt William Birnbaum was born in Lwów, Austria-Hungary, on October 18, 1903, to Ignacy and Lina Birnbaum. He attended grade and high school (gymnasium) in Lwów and Vienna, and obtained a law degree from the University of Lwów in 1925. Shortly thereafter, he resumed his studies and obtained a Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1929 from the University of Lwów. Dr. Birnbaum then pursued postdoctoral studies at the University of Göttingen in Germany from 1929-1931. It was during this time that political events began to portend an uncertain future for Germany with few academic opportunities for Dr. Birnbaum. He obtained an actuarial certificate from Göttingen and worked as a life insurance actuary, later chief actuary, for the Phoenix Life Insurance Company in both Vienna and Lwów.
After Phoenix Insurance went bankrupt in 1936, due in great part to the worsening economic and political conditions in Germany, Dr. Birnbaum decided to try to emigrate to the United States. Although the quotas were full for years to come, he was able to secure employment as a foreign correspondent for a major Polish newspaper. This enabled him to go to New York in June 1937 on a visitor's visa obtained for him by a relative, newspaper editor Ludwik Rubel.
Shortly after his arrival in New York, he accepted a research assistantship in biometrics at New York University, where he worked until early 1939, when he was hired by the University of Washington Department of Mathematics. His application was supported by letters of recommendation from Richard Courant, Edmund Landau, and Albert Einstein. Thus began his long and distinguished career of over 60 years in the Seattle area, extending well beyond his university retirement in 1974. Dr. Birnbaum became a naturalized United States citizen in 1943.
In Seattle, Birnbaum met and married Hilde Merzbach while both of them were involved in assisting Jewish refugees arriving from Europe. Throughout World War II, Dr. Birnbaum remained in contact with his cousins and good friends, Rita and Jakob Berger, who had immigrated to England prior to the Soviet occupation of Lwów. Birnbaum assisted the Bergers in immigrating to New York in 1940 and continued to correspond with them for many years. Both Rita and Jakob Berger's families, as well as Birnbaum's parents and sister, were in Lwów during the war. Despite exhaustive efforts, Birnbaum could not rescue his mother, father, and sister before they were taken prisoner by the Germans and transported to Bergen-Belsen. They, along with the Bergers' families, eventually perished in Auschwitz. Birnbaum succeeded, however, in helping others come to the United States, among them several talented scientists. This group included Henry Schaerf in 1946, who was working in Switzerland during the war. Birnbaum also corresponded with another good friend from Lwów who survived World War II, Ala Manelska. Manelska was sent to prison in Siberia by the Soviets for six years after the takeover of Lwów.
During his long association with the University of Washington, Dr. Birnbaum's academic contributions included teaching and service as well as research in the theory and applications of mathematics and statistics. He published original material in several areas of mathematics, statistics, and computation and made pioneering studies in reliability and life testing. Throughout his career and even after his retirement from the University of Washington in 1974, Dr. Birnbaum edited scholarly journals and received Fullbright and Guggenheim awards. He was also awarded the prestigious S.S. Wilks Medal of the American Statistical Association for "his theoretical research, wide applications, leadership, inspiration and teaching."
Dr. Birnbaum's service to his university and professional colleagues, as well as to society at large, went beyond his teaching and research endeavors. He contributed his expertise in organizing the university's retirement system and fought segregation at Institute of Mathematics Statistics meetings. As a plaintiff during 1962-1963 in the Washington State loyalty oath suit (Baggett v. Bullitt), he was the only witness whose testimony was cited in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision.
Dr. Birnbaum was an avid hiker and outdoor enthusiast in his earlier Seattle years. Dr. and Mrs. Birnbaum had two children, Ann Birnbaum, born 1941, and Richard Birnbaum, born 1945. Zygmunt William Birnbaum died in December of 2000.
Black-and-white images, unless otherwise noted, of Dr. Birnbaum in his professional life at various national and international business meetings. The collection also contains images of his European relatives and friends, including Jakob, Rita, and Vivian Berger and Ala Manelska. English or Polish handwriting is found on the back of some photographs.
Organized into three series: I) Z.W. Birnbaum, which contains images of Birnbaum, mostly in his professional life, and is arranged in chronological order; II) Relatives and Friends from Lwów, which contains images of others and is arranged in alphabetical order by last name; and III) Nature, which includes one aerial view of the Tatra Mountains.
View selections from the collection in digital format.
The collection is open to the public.
Restrictions might exist on reproduction, quotation, or publication. Contact the repository for details.
Donor: Ann Birnbaum, received July 19, 2001.
Processed by Toby Harris, 2005.
The photographs were relocated from the Zygmunt William Birnbaum Papers, University Archives Record Group No. 19.14.5266, Accession 5266-1, in the repository in 2005.
These images form part of the Zygmunt William Birnbaum Papers, University Archives Record Group No. 19.14.5266, Accession 5266-1, which are described in A Guide to the Zygmunt William Birnbaum Papers, 1920-2000.
