Dr. Frederick Reif (z”l)
Frederich (later Frederick) Reif was born in Vienna, Austria in 1927 to Gerschon Reif, a dentist, and Klara (Chaja Lea) Gottfried Reif, a homemaker, who had come to that city after World War I from their native Poland (until the war the province of Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian empire). Along with his younger sister Liane (b.1934), they lived very comfortably near the Prater. Fred received violin lessons, in which he excelled (and which would provide a lifelong solace) and began studies at an academic Gymnasium (high school) at age 10.
With the rise of the Nazi regime, and particularly after the November 1938 Kristalnacht pogrom, their lives changed drastically. Fred’s father committed suicide just prior to their departure on the ill-fated S.S. St. Louis, which was bound for Cuba with 937 Jewish refugees, but forced to return to Europe, where Fred, his mother, and his sister disembarked in France. They lived as refugees supported by international Jewish aid in Loudon where Fred learned French, and when the Germans had occupied northern France in Limoges where he attended Lycée. In September 1941 they managed to secure a visa and passage to emigrate, sponsored by relatives (Klinghoffer family) in New York. They made their way across Spain to Portugal, where they set sail. As a teenager, with his knowledge of French, Fred assumed a fatherly role in making important decisions for the family.
Fred completed Erasmus Hall high school in Brooklyn, New York and began studies at Columbia University, but at age 18 was drafted into the U.S. Army. After basic training he was tasked with strategic language study and sent to Yale to learn Japanese. Upon completing his service, he returned to Columbia (BA 1948) and continued on to Harvard University to study Physics (PhD 1953). Fred’s first faculty position was in the Physics Department at the University of Chicago where he worked with Enrico Fermi (1953 to 1960), then he was hired as a professor of Physics and Education at the University of California at Berkeley (1960 to 1989), and finally he served as a professor of Physics and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University (1989 to 2000). Thereafter he held the status of professor emeritus at both UC Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon.
-Excerpt from obituary written by Fred’s niece Erica Lehrer
More about Fred
Fred Reif’s Story (Video Series)
The Fred and Laura Reif Collection of Inuit Art | Katilvik
In Memoriam | University of California