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
Heinz Steinitz was an ichthyologist, herpetologist, and marine biologist. He researched the ecology, distribution and evolution of amphibians and fresh water fish in the Middle East; the ecology, distribution and taxonomy of fish in the Red Sea; the ecology of the southeast Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Other research interests included experimental embryology, neurohistology, and anatomical microscopy of the amphibian eye. Geographically, his studies were conducted along the Syrian-African Great Rift valley, from Lake Hula and Lake Kinneret (The Sea of Galilee) in the north of Israel, through the Dead Sea in the center of the country, down to the Gulf of Eilat and the Red Sea in the south. Other parts of his work were carried out in the south east Mediterranean Basin and along the coasts of the Sinai Peninsula. His research concerned taxonomy, anatomy, zoogeographic distribution and ecology of the fauna investigated.