Gertrud Clara Samson (1891-1979) was born in Hamburg as the daughter of the Jewish lawyer Dr. jur. Herrmann Jacob Samson and his wife Clara Marie, née Löwengard.1
She initially attended the Mädchenrealgymnasium (girls' grammar school) in Hamburg. She graduated from the Johanneum Realgymnasium in March 1911 and went on to study medicine in Freiburg. Further stations were Heidelberg, Kiel, and Berlin. She worked as an auxiliary assistant at the St. Georg hospital and reserve hospital in Hamburg during the First World War, from winter 1914 to March 1916. She then continued her studies in Strasbourg. After having passed her state examination in April 1917, Samson became an intern for two months at the Pathological Institute of Johann Georg Mönckeberg (1877-1925). She wrote her dissertation on a casuistry on lymphogranulomatosis and was awarded her doctorate ("summa cum laude") under Mönckeberg and co-supervisor Erich Meyer (1874-1927) the same year.2
Samson accepted a position as assistant physician at the St. Georg General Hospital in Hamburg. She was admitted as a new district doctor for Winterhude (Hamburg) in 1920. She had settled as a doctor specialising in internal medicine at Sierichstrasse 98 in Hamburg by 1927.3 She moved to Hagedornstrasse 14 in 1932 and also worked at a private clinic in Hagedornstrasse from 1933. Samson was a member of the Association of German Women Doctors.4
Following the National Socialist takeover, Samson initially continued to work at the private clinic in Hagedornstrasse, where many Jewish patients were treated. She accompanied one of the Kindertransporte from Hamburg to England in February 1938, before she herself emigrated to London a year later, in March 1939, together with her parents and her aunt.5
Samson first worked as a clerk for a refugee committee at Bloomsbury House in London. She was registered as a doctor on 6 June 1942 and worked at various hospitals and surgeries, including 40 Neville Court, Abbey Road, London, NW 8.6 She no longer had her own practice. She later campaigned for 'compensation' for people affected by Nazi human experimentation.7 She died in Westminster (London) in 1979 at the age of 87. Her four siblings were long dead by then: Anna Wolff (1890-1924), Otto Leopold Samson (1895-1895, who died as an infant), Dr. iur. Rudolf Hermann Samson (1897-1938) and Dr. med. Richard Samson (1900-1943).
A Stolperstein (stumbling stone) was laid in memory of Gertrud Samson at Hagedornstrasse 14 in Harvestehude on 3 March 2023 on the initiative of the DGIM.