Charlotte Ruderman-Dehorne

A Polish student at Lille’s Faculty of Science

Charlotte ‘Lota’[1] Ruderman was born on 6 July 1884 in Tomaszow Mazowiecki, in the Łódź region of Poland, which was at that time part of the Russian Empire. Her marriage certificate mentions her parents, Paul (or Piotr) Ruderman and Esther Galenska, but gives no indication of their professions or social background. Later documents tell us only that they were of the Jewish faith. However, we can imagine that her family belonged to the middle class or even the petit bourgeoisie, as she was one of the first waves of foreign students to come and study in France, often from Eastern Europe. Indeed, access to higher education was complicated for women in the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century, all the more so for those of the Jewish faith, so many young women turned to French, German or Belgian universities.

As far as her classical education is concerned, we know that Charlotte Ruderman attended a girls’ gymnasium, the equivalent of the French lycées de jeunes filles (secondary school for those intending to study at university). In general, students who completed the full cycle of studies left these schools at the age of nineteen or twenty. We can therefore assume that she completed her secondary education around 1904.

It is difficult to find any trace of when the young woman arrived in France. According to her student record from the Lille Faculty of Science, she spent two years at the University of Liège between 1907 and 1909, where she obtained a Candidature en Sciences degree. This is the degree awarded on completion of the first undergraduate cycle of higher education at Belgian universities, in preparation for a doctorate in science. The first official record of Charlotte Ruderman’s attendance at the Lille Faculty of Science dates back to 1909, when her student file mentions enrolment for the 1909-1910 year. There, she studied for a certificate of higher education in zoology.

However, a book written by André Peragallo about his friend Armand Dehorne, Charlotte Ruderman’s future husband, and based on their discussions, tells us that she met him in Paris. Armand Dehorne, at that time a zoology ‘préparateur’ (lab assistant) at the Lille Faculty of Science, was working on his doctoral thesis at the University of Paris. Did their thesis and research topics bring them both to the capital? She was also working towards a doctorate, a degree often reserved for foreigners as it did not require them to have first obtained a bachelor’s degree. In any case, the two young people worked together every day, and this intellectual understanding led to a romantic affair.

In his book, André Peragallo recounts how the couple travelled to many countries, including Poland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Some of these trips also enabled Charlotte Ruderman-Dehorne to visit her family back in Poland. In the summer of 1920, she visited her mother, Esther Galenska-Ruderman, who was still living in her native Łódź. According tothe census map of the time, his widowed mother lived on General Henryka Dabrowskiego Square, right next to the large theatre in Łódź[2]. So she kept in touch with her family even though she stayed in France.

Resuming her studies and her career as a zoology ‘préparateur’ (lab assistant)

At the start of the 1920 academic year, she enrolled again at the Faculty of Science to resume her studies, which had been interrupted by the conflict, and in particular to work towards a certificate of higher education in geology.Alongside her studies, she was recommended by Professor Alphonse Malaquin in December 1920 for the post of deputy ‘préparateur’ (lab assistant)[3] for general and applied zoology, becoming the first female zoology ‘préparateur’. In June 1921, she obtained her certificate of higher education in geology, which enabled her to obtain a Bachelor of Science degree in July 1921. Thanks to this degree, she was appointed to her position as ‘préparateur’ on 1 July 1921, thanks in particular to the support of Professor Alphonse Malaquin and Dean Benoît Damien. She worked alongside her husband and was described as an excellent collaborator by her colleagues. However, her health had not improved since the loss of her child and, by 1922, she had to take several months off work to combat what appeared to be blood cancer.

Despite all the care she received, Charlotte Ruderman-Dehorne finally succumbed to her illness and died on 11 May 1926 at their family home, 45 rue Louis Faure in Lille. For her husband, the loss would remain deep and painful. In addition to his career as a biologist, Armand Dehorne was also a poet; he took refuge in poetry and composed a moving text in honour of his lost love: