Walburga von Raffler-Engel

VON RAFFLER-ENGEL
Walburga von Raffler-Engel, PhD, a world-famous linguist who spoke eight languages and fought in the Resistance movement against Hitler, passed away on Saturday, November 28, 2009, at the age of 89. Von Raffler-Engel was born in Munich, Germany and raised in Italy. When Hitler came to power, most of her family members were exterminated in the concentration camps. Von Raffler-Engel, however, fled to the mountains of the Aosta Valley in Northern Italy and joined the Partisans. Her harrowing ordeals doing undercover work in the mountains of Northern Italy are documented at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. After the Allied victory, von Raffler-Engel returned to school and received her doctorate in Classical Greek at the University of Turin, Italy in 1947. She then completed post-doctoral work at the Italian Institute of Archeology at the University of Rome in Italy from 1947-1948. Von Raffler-Engel came to the United States in 1949. She received an MS in library science from Columbia University in 1951 and a PhD in linguistics from Indiana University in 1953. In 1965, von Raffler-Engel accepted an offer from Vanderbilt University, becoming only the second female professor hired there. She built up the linguistics program from scratch and directed that program until her retirement in 1986. After her retirement, von Raffler-Engel was professor of linguistics, emerita, and senior research associate at the Vanderbilt University Institute for Public Policy Studies. She was also continually invited to give lectures all over the world. In 1999, she moved to San Antonio to be with her son Robert, her daughter-in-law Hiroko, and their two children, Max and Alex. Von Raffler-Engel will be laid to rest next to her husband, A. Ferdinand Engel, in Baltimore, Maryland. A rabbi will officiate at the graveside. In addition to her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren, she leaves behind a daughter Lea Engel and three sisters, all residing in Italy. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to her grandchildren's college scholarship fund c/o Porter Loring Mortuary North or The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, 305 7th Avenue, 19th Fl., New York, NY 10001, which provides lifetime financial support to aged and needy rescuers who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
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