chapter three

A Life in Learning

Just as Lise Meitner had, Elizabeth Rona headed to Berlin. She was going to work for Otto Hahn, the director of the Radioactivity Department at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry. For the past fourteen years, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner had been working closely together, expanding the world’s knowledge of radioactivity. Elizabeth arrived to find a smooth-running department equipped with the latest instruments. The community that surrounded the institute seemed entirely focused on science, something she liked, even if not all the pursuits were geared toward radioactivity.

At the institute, Elizabeth came to know not only Otto very well but also Lise. She knew that Lise was originally from Vienna, having made her way to Berlin to study under Max Planck and be assigned to work as a theoretical physicist with Otto Hahn.

Elizabeth Rona was immediately fascinated by the experiments Lise Meitner was conducting at the time on beta decay. Lise believed that beta particles, in the same way as alpha particles, must form an energy field.

Elizabeth liked Lise immediately, even though she found it hard to get to know her. Lise was quiet and shy, more of an introvert than Elizabeth had ever been. It took some time to crack that hard reserve. They were both outsiders who shared a devotion to science, and their work brought them together. Elizabeth came to admire Lise’s tenacity in solving scientific challenges; she was like a dog with a bone, one she never intended to give up.

Lise told Elizabeth that she had always suffered from horrible stage fright. This did not surprise Elizabeth. Lise admitted that she dreaded the start of any lecture she gave; in fact, she tried to avoid giving lectures altogether. But no one saw a trace of fear on Lise’s face when she gave a talk. Elizabeth attended several of Lise’s lectures at the institute, and found Lise to be an engaging and eloquent speaker. Elizabeth told her as much, something that Lise appreciated.

Despite her friendships with Lise and several others outside the laboratory, Elizabeth found life in Germany as harsh as it had been back home in Hungary. There was also a particular dislike for women, especially those involved in the sciences. As in Lise Meitner’s Austria, women were supposed to live by the motto “kitchen, children, church.”

Elizabeth had rented a room in the home of a German couple, both of whom held PhDs in zoology. She thought their mutual backgrounds in the sciences would make for a pleasant interaction. However, it turned out that she was wrong. Despite his wife’s credentials, the husband would not allow his spouse to work outside the home, keeping her a virtual maid. And every time he bumped into Elizabeth heading to or returning from the institute, he would glare at her with disdain.

Lise understood what Elizabeth was going through. She had experienced the same situation at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Chemistry, and she hoped life would change for the better for every female scientist.

Elizabeth Rona found that she and Lise Meitner had much in common, including the way each had come to study science and the influence their fathers had on them.

It was the early 1900s, and Elizabeth Rona’s family was spending the summer holiday in their house just outside Budapest. As she looked out her bedroom window early in the morning, the birds were singing, the grass was green, and the sun was low on the horizon.

There, sitting beneath a tree, was her father, surrounded by folders, books, and all kinds of correspondence. He was deeply involved in his work, and even when she knocked on her bedroom window to catch his attention, he didn’t flinch. She wondered what had him so engaged. Still wearing her pajamas, she went outside. “What can be so interesting that it makes it worthwhile to get up at the crack of dawn?” she asked. He looked up and replied, “Research.”

From that day forward, the word research took on a mythic significance—an importance she could not explain. She made up her mind that she would also have to find something to research, something that would nudge her awake at dawn with the same eagerness as her father.

Samuel Rona, who was then a well-known dermatologist in Hungary, was happy that his young daughter had developed an interest in the sciences. On her first day of the school year, he brought her to the Holy Shepherd’s Hospital in Budapest, where he showed her an X-ray machine, explaining its intricate design and how it worked. Other children later talked of walking to the local pastry shop to commemorate that special first day with fancy pastries and cocoa. Instead, Elizabeth received a scientific lesson on the merits of the X-ray machine and was allowed to have her way with its buttons.

A few days later, Dr. Rona came home in the evening in a very fine humor. He put his briefcase and papers on a nearby table and, without removing his jacket, called Elizabeth to come sit by him, as he had a special surprise for her. With much ceremony, he showed her a small tube that he had been hiding in his pocket. “Radium,” he told her. “And someday it will cure skin diseases.” He felt that radium would revolutionize the medical world.

She then learned of Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre Curie, who in their Paris laboratory had made the radium discovery. But at that moment, Elizabeth, sitting by her father, could not have imagined that one day she would be a pupil in Madame Curie’s laboratory, or that she would come to know Madame Curie as well as she did. Elizabeth would also come to know and learn from Marie Curie’s daughter Irène, whose teachings she would take all the way to America.

It was not surprising that Elizabeth, watching her father flourish in his career, would want to follow in his footsteps and become a doctor, too. But she was surprised when he disapproved of her career choice. There were few women doctors, he told her, as it was a tough field for them. Elizabeth would have to choose something different if she desired his approval. She pondered this for a moment. She had chosen medicine not because she particularly liked it, but because she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps. What did she truly want to do? She realized that she liked the study of chemistry better and decided to pursue that.

During Elizabeth’s second year at the University of Budapest, her father died. To make matters worse, he had died from the same bacterial infection he had spent countless hours helping others overcome: erysipelas. It seemed that he had been treating an infected patient and, for some unfathomable reason, had neglected to wash his own hands before scratching his head, where a minor scab already existed. An especially nasty case of the infection took root, quickly spread, and killed him.

Elizabeth returned to school with a heavy heart but determined to finish her studies. By the time she was twenty-one, she had received PhDs in chemistry, physics, and geochemistry. Despite all her studies, though, she still felt limited by her knowledge and yearned for more. Several of her friends and classmates had joined the technical Karlsruhe University in Germany, and she decided to follow them, eager to study under Georg Bredig, who at the time was one of the leading physical chemists in Europe.

Most of the professors were stuffy, typical of those she had met before, but Professor Bredig had a warmth that reminded her of her father’s. When he invited her and the rest of the class to his house to continue the lessons, she accepted. It was there that Elizabeth met the professor’s wife, Rosa, a German cook who refined her skills by feeding the students and indulging in her favorite activity, baking cakes.

While Elizabeth enjoyed those visits, there was one aspect she disliked. She was the only woman in Professor Bredig’s laboratory, so when the class was invited to his home, she was shuffled to the parlor or the kitchen with the other women, as they believed that she needed female companionship. This meant she couldn’t chat about science with the rest of the class. “The conversations dealt with children, cooking preserves; recipes were exchanged. To these discussions I could not contribute. How I longed to be with my colleagues, to hear and talk shop,” she later admitted. No one realized how much she detested those women’s conversations, and she did not have the heart to tell them.

But rather than Bredig, it was Kazimierz Fajans who introduced her to the new field of radioactivity. This area of study would take hold of her imagination for many years to come. Professor Fajans, who also invited students to his house, did not discriminate. Women could join the scientific conversations there, and there Elizabeth found herself at home.

She remained at Karlsruhe University for only eight months, studying briefly in London before returning home to Budapest at the outbreak of war in 1914. There she had the opportunity to work with George de Hevesy, who had just completed the first experiments using radioactive tracers to observe chemical processes—a technique that would win him the Nobel Prize almost thirty years later. Elizabeth’s interest in radiochemistry was growing, and in Hevesy’s lab, she used the radioactive tracers to determine how molecular layers dissolve.

While her scientific work continued, Elizabeth could not completely cut herself off from the world at large. Events around her interfered, particularly in 1919, when the Communists took over Hungary. She later said that her birthday that year was the beginning of the end of her peaceful youth. She was supposed to meet her family at the opera for a celebration but had received a telephone call telling her to go home instead. A group of armed Communists had gone into the opera house and executed a Catholic priest.

More troubles followed. The Communists took over Elizabeth’s apartment, leaving her and her mother with the use of only one room. They hid whatever money they had under wood paneling before the officers rummaged through everything they owned, looking for cash and other valuables. Unable to bear the situation, Elizabeth and her mother moved in with an aunt, whose house was already overcrowded. Not only were the living conditions terrible but also food was scarce, and what they could manage to buy was expensive. When money was not available, they had to pay with jewelry or clothing or even small furniture.

The takeover lasted only several months but was followed by a counterrevolution known as the White Terror. The government imprisoned, tortured, and executed anyone suspected of Communist sympathizing. This included leftists, intellectualists, and some of Elizabeth’s colleagues. For a time, the laboratory was nearly empty, and she ended up teaching more courses than she thought she could handle. It was then that Otto Hahn, at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Berlin, offered her a research grant and she resigned.

She accepted the grant offer, and from that day forward, the study of radioactivity became her vocation.

After the stint in Berlin, which lasted only months, while summering at an Austrian resort, Elizabeth heard a knock on the door of her bed-and-breakfast just a few days after her arrival. There stood Stefan Meyer, a short, middle-aged man with a wide and engaging smile. Meyer also happened to be the director of the Institute for Radium Research in Vienna.

He had heard that she was in the area and wanted to meet her. It seemed that their interests overlapped, he told her. He asked if she would like to talk and maybe go on a hike in the surrounding countryside. She immediately said yes, and those talks and hikes continued for the rest of the summer. They chatted about science, and they chatted about nature. They talked about the travels they had both enjoyed, all while trying to identify the various types of grass and plants they encountered along the paths. It was a fun, relaxing, and enjoyable time.

Before Meyer left, he asked Elizabeth to join his staff at the Institute for Radium Research. That summer was not only the start of a lovely friendship but also one of the longest job interviews ever conducted. She agreed, happy to have another job in her field.

By the time he met Elizabeth, Meyer was one of the pioneers in the field of radioactivity. At the Institute for Radium Research, he didn’t so much engage in new experiments as supervise those of the other scientists. He was looked upon as a master, an expert who was there to inspire and give guidance.

The environment at the institute was inviting. “The atmosphere at the institute was most pleasant,” Elizabeth later said. “We were all members of one family. Each took an interest in the research of others, offering help in the experiments and ready to exchange ideas. Friendships developed that have lasted to the present day. The personality of Meyer and that of the associate director, Karl Przibram, had much to do with creating that pleasant atmosphere.”

Although by this time Lise Meitner was succeeding in her field and making great advances in the sciences, there were moments when it still irritated her that she had not been allowed entrance to the Curie laboratory in Paris. On the one hand, she felt like a failure; a role model of hers had told her that she was not good enough to participate. On the other hand, those who were eagerly accepted by Madame Curie had arrived on her doorstep, suitcase in hand, unaware of what they were getting themselves into.

Elizabeth Rona arrived in Paris in 1926, sent by the Institute for Radium Research to learn from Irène Curie how to handle polonium sources. Elizabeth immediately made her way to the Left Bank, on the banks of the Seine, where the Curies’ laboratory, known as the Radium Institute, was located. Before entering, she walked around the building, catching a glimpse of the backyard garden, where she saw a multitude of plants and blossoms of various colors and heights. She was delighted; she had been told that Madame Curie, and especially her daughter Irène, loved flowers and always made it a point to have a profusion of them around. She also noticed that a balcony on the second floor opened to the garden. She suspected that it was a bedroom, whose occupant’s first view of the world upon waking was of the fresh plants and flowers.

Elizabeth was excited to meet the famous Madame Curie but also felt a shiver of apprehension running down her spine. She had a suspicion, one she hoped was unfounded, that like many other people of her stature, Madame Curie would turn out to be a conceited snob who barely spoke to her students.

She entered the institute and met an assistant, who led her to the back of the building, where the laboratory was located. There Elizabeth was surprised by the vision that was Madame Curie, a thin, pale woman in ragged lab coat, walking here and there among her students. This was the image that would forever accompany Elizabeth when she thought of Madame Curie after leaving the institute.

Elizabeth arrived that first day at lunchtime. Right away, Madame Curie let everyone out for a break and walked to meet Elizabeth, asking her if she’d eaten. Elizabeth said that, yes, she’d had lunch prior to arriving. That was good, Marie Curie said, as she hated to waste time on such frivolities. And with that, Marie Curie removed a piece of bread from her lab coat and began to munch on it. Elizabeth was startled. She had imagined that Marie Curie would indulge in a somewhat more elaborate and extended lunch, as most of the French enjoyed doing. But Marie Curie ate only bread while working in the laboratory—always a small piece that she had tucked away earlier. She found stopping for lunch useless. Why waste so much time over a meal when one can be working on an experiment? However, her students disagreed, and they got their lunch break.

Right after lunch, Madame Curie gave her lectures. Elizabeth learned early on that this timing was not the most conducive to learning. The students had just returned from a heavy meal, Madame Curie spoke in a low and steady voice, and the place itself was kept warm, thus many of the students had a hard time following her, and there was a tendency to nap instead. Elizabeth would have done things differently.

Elizabeth noticed that most of those in attendance were from Poland, and that the majority were women, which she appreciated. Also, as a rule, if there were difficulties or dangerous experiments to be performed, Madame Curie performed those herself rather than allowing one of the students, however advanced, to do it. And Irène was always by her side.

But on one occasion, a few days after Elizabeth’s arrival, Madame Curie made an exception, and Elizabeth became a part of that process. No one refused an invitation from Madame Curie, even if Elizabeth had no idea what the experiment was about. Intrigued, she had agreed, and now, here she was, trudging to the lab in the haze of the afternoon.

Madame Curie needed help opening a glass flask containing a very strong solution of radium salt. The flask had been sealed for years, and they both understood that because of the strong radiation, the solvent water had broken down and hydrogen peroxide had accumulated. If they did not take the proper precautions, there could be a very powerful explosion.

Knowing Elizabeth Rona’s reputation already, Madame Curie felt that with her help she could avoid the hazard.

However, something went wrong, and a loud explosion rocked the laboratory, one that was heard throughout the institute and the neighborhood, and made the rest of the students snap out of their afternoon reverie and come running to the laboratory.

Madame Curie explained that she had used a file to scrape away at the lid of the flask, to help the wax around it melt. But the explosion that followed had been so strong that the flask had fallen from her hands and shattered, spreading glass everywhere. Fortunately, neither Madame Curie nor Elizabeth had been hurt or contaminated. Elizabeth then noticed Madame Curie’s fingers, whose tips had been burned by too many previous experiments with radioactivity, and blamed that for the lack of dexterity she had just displayed.

In spite of the accident, Elizabeth was happy that she had been invited to work with Madame Curie and that she had the chance to spend some time alone with her. Before arriving in Paris, she had been warned by Stefan Meyer that Madame Curie was a very introverted woman. She liked her privacy, he had told Elizabeth, and kept her distance from people, even from her students.

After that explosion, it seemed that Madame Curie’s reserve had broken a bit. She often talked to Elizabeth about her long friendship with Stefan Meyer, who had helped her procure the pitchblende from the mines of Joachimsthal in Czechoslovakia, then part of Austria. It was from that pitchblende that she had first extracted polonium and then radium.

But she also had a more personal reason to feel indebted to Meyer, and that had nothing to do with science, she told Elizabeth. During the recent war, it was Meyer who had kept Madame Curie updated on the conditions of her family back in Poland. He had also managed to send them food parcels, which allowed them to fend off starvation and survive when many others hadn’t. She owed him a debt that went beyond any repayment imaginable.

At the laboratory, Elizabeth watched Irène prepare the polonium sources. Irène had pretty much perfected George de Hevesy’s and Friedrich Paneth’s technique of separation, which used electrolysis to separate polonium from lead-210 and bismuth-210. Irène used plutonium and gold electrodes and a weak solution of nitric acid. Polonium was then dissolved from the metal and deposited on a silver film, which was rotated in the nitric acid solution. Elizabeth watched Irène use this method over and over, but she could never match Irène’s high yields until she later figured out how to increase the concentration of polonium by distilling it.

Elizabeth liked Irène. Although she had been told that Irène could be standoffish, she didn’t find her so. She thought Irène was much like her mother, a shy person bent on following her own path rather than the one others had set up for her. She was warm, honest, liked romantic poetry (particularly the French poets), and enjoyed hiking—an activity that was dear to Elizabeth. Irène simply occupied an awkward position at the institute, as there were some who felt that she had gotten her job through nepotism.

Elizabeth also became aware that the Curie laboratory was highly contaminated. Nonetheless, the situation did not seem to bother anyone, least of all Madame Curie, who worried more about the radium’s safety than she did her own.

Elizabeth watched every morning as Catherine Chamié, who would later become her friend, removed the solutions from the safety box and, with a small, creaky cart, brought them into the laboratory. Lead bricks surrounded the cart itself, which was returned to the safe at night. Chamié was the keeper of the radium, and it was her duty to keep watch over it. Only she could go into and out of the safe.

Chamié had developed a paranoid attachment to the radium. Every evening, after she and Elizabeth left the laboratory for their respective boardinghouses, Chamié would stop midway and rush back, sensing that she had neglected to return the radium to the safe. Elizabeth would wait for her by the side of the road, knowing very well that Chamié had performed her job diligently but that no amount of assurance would help. Moments later, the woman would return, as she did every evening, comforted that, indeed, the radium was in its safe place.

Soon Elizabeth returned to Vienna, bringing with her all that the Curies had taught her about polonium. She did not know yet how she would use that knowledge, but some years down the road, the Americans would come calling, wanting to learn all she knew about the radioactive elements. Elizabeth would be very grateful for the time she had spent with the Curies in Paris.