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Hedwig Rosenbaum

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Bohemian tennis player

Hedwig Rosenbaum
Personal information
Born3 July 1864
Prague, Kingdom of Bohemia
Died31 July 1939 (aged 75)
Prague, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
Sport
SportTennis
Medal record
Representing  Bohemia
Bronze medal – third place 1900 Paris Singles
Representing a Mixed team
Bronze medal – third place 1900 Paris Mixed doubles

Hedwig Rosenbaum (3 July 1864 – 31 July 1939), née Hedwig Austerlitz, from 1909 on Hedwig Raabe, in Czech from 1945 on referred as Hedwiga Rosenbaumová, was a tennis player who was attributed to represent Bohemia. She won two bronze medals in tennis at the 1900 Summer Olympics in Paris, in the women's singles and the mixed doubles with Great Britain's Archibald Warden. She was the first woman to represent Bohemia at the Olympics.

Hedwig Rosenbaum was of German-Jewish origin and lived in Prague all her life. She belonged to the first generation in Prague to play tennis. At least since 1894 she played in singles, doubles and mixed tournaments in Cisleithania and Germany for the Prague Lawn Tennis Club. In 1899 Rosenbaum was number 5 on the Austrian national list. In the same year she won a tournament in Berlin.

In 1900, Rosenbaum took part in the second Summer Olympics in Paris as a private individual from Prague at her own expense for travel, accommodation and entry fees. She belonged neither to the Bohemian nor the Czech nor to the Austrian delegation. Rosenbaum was the first woman ever to represent Bohemia and Austria-Hungary at the Olympics, winning two bronze medals. In the individual tennis competition, she lost in the semifinals to eventual silver medalist Yvonne Prévost in straight sets 6–1, 6–1. In the mixed competition she played together with Briton Archibald Warden. The two were beaten in the semifinals, their second game. They lost to Prévost from France and Harold Mahony from Britain in straight sets 6–3, 6–0. The qualification of both pairs is attributed to mixed teams in Olympic history.

In 1899 she won the Championships of Berlin at the Lawn-Tennis-Turnier-Club. In 1904 she won the title at the Bohemian championships and finished second at the Austrian Championships. After that she withdrew from tournament sports due to age.

Hedwig Rosenbaum had been managing director and board member of the Club of German Female Artists in Prague (Klub deutscher Künstlerinnen in Prag) since it was founded in 1905. During World War I, Hedwig Raabe worked as a nurse. She was temporarily employed in the publishing house of her nephew Heinrich Mercy Jr. and ran a handicraft shop from 1921. She translated sports books, plays and fiction from English into German for Prague newspapers and German publishers.

References

  1. Martin Pelc (Silesian University in Opava / Slezská univerzita v Opavě): "Mistaken Identities – Hedwig Rosenbaum, the First Olympic Medallist from Bohemia", 2019, Journal of Olympic History 27, Vol. 2: "the Czech form Rosenbaumová was not used before 1945" (p. 55), "Rosenbaum was a member of the German-speaking Jewish minority of Prague. This was a community from which writers Franz Kafka and Franz Werfel emerged in the next generation." (p. 55)
  2. "Hedwig Rosenbaum". Olympedia. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
  3. "Hedwiga Rosenbaumová Olympic Results". sports-reference.com. Archived from the original on 20 October 2013. Retrieved 26 January 2014.
  4. "First female competitors at the Olympics by country". Olympedia. Retrieved 26 June 2020.
  5. Gillmeister, Heiner (1997). Tennis: A Cultural History. Leicester: Leicester University Press. pp. 395–401. ISBN 978-0-7185-0147-1.
  6. "Klub deutscher Künstlerinnen in Prag". Prager Tagblatt (in German). No. 335. 5 December 1906. p. 9. Retrieved 1 September 2022 – via Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (National Library of Austria).

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