Heinz Steinitz
Heinz Steinitz was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) on April 26, 1909, to Walter Steinitz (1882-1963), a cardiologist and zoologist, and Marta Schindler Steinitz (1885-1926). He grew up in Breslau and was greatly inspired by his father to study science and to be an active Zionist. He studied medicine from 1927-1933 in the universities of Breslau, Freiburg and Berlin. Although he passed the Medical Board examination in 1933, and would have started work in a hospital in Berlin and in the Jewish hospital in Breslau, he was prohibited from practicing by the Nazi regime which came to power that same year. Together with his wife Ruth Aber Steinitz (1907-1995), a medical student as well, he left Germany in 1933 and immigrated to Palestine.
Heinz Steinitz
Steinitz carried out research on a number of fish families, among them the Blenniidae, Cichlidae and Cyprinodontidae . He published nearly sixty papers in his different research fields, including on the discovery of fish new to science like the Kinneret-Sardine "Acanthobrama terraesanctae", "Garra Barreimiae" (together with Henry Weed Fowler), and "Tristramella sacra intermedia" (together with A. Ben-Tuvia). Some of his publications appeared in special platforms he initiated and edited like the "Contributions to the Knowledge of the Red Sea", "Israel South Red Sea Expedition Scientific Reports", and "Contributions to the Knowledge of Lake Tiberias". Together with Otto Haim Oren he published a "Regional Bibliography of the Mediterranean coast of Israel and the adjacent Levant countries" and "Bibliography on Lake Kinnereth (Lake Tiberias)".