Aug. 27--A fixture on the University of Chicago campus for many years as a lecturer and resident master who supervised students in the dormitories, Pera Wirszup always had an open door, a hug and wonderful advice for anyone who needed it, even in retirement.
"It is impossible to overstate the joy, comfort, and inspiration that Pera brought to students," said Chicago attorney Joseph A. Morris, who earned a bachelor's and law degree from the University of Chicago in the 1970s. "She treated the nerdiest and most awkward of first-years as if they were beloved and friends and important people".
Wirszup, 100, died Aug. 20 in her Hyde Park home from natural causes, family members said.
A former lecturer in Russian at the University of Chicago, Wirszup and her husband, Izaak Wirszup, who was a fellow resident master and a math professor at the university, also pioneered the tradition of bringing faculty and students together in a lecture program.
The lectures drew hundreds and featured such notable figures as authors Eudora Welty and Saul Bellow, historian John Hope Franklin, astronomer Carl Sagan and physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. That program continues with the Izaak Wirszup Lecture Series, endowed by a former student.
"Many of the speakers were close colleagues of my parents, or friends they'd known for years," said the Wirszups' daughter, Marina Tatar. "They were extraordinarily interesting lectures and always very well-attended. Saul Bellow, who rarely made public appearances, even came to speak, but limited his time to a Q-and-A that was held at my parents' home with a much smaller group of students and faculty."
"University of Chicago students were blessed to have teachers and masters who had some of the biggest brains in the universe," Morris said. "Pera Wirszup had a brain in that league, to be sure, but what made her amazing was the extraordinary capacity of her heart."
Born in Wilno, Poland (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania), Wirszup grew up in the vibrant Jewish community of the city, where her family owned a textile manufacturing business. She lost most of her family during Germany's 1939 invasion of Poland. She and Izaak Wirszup, who both had previous marriages, lost their first spouses during the Holocaust.
"She utilized her resourcefulness, courage and intelligence to survive the Holocaust," her daughter said.
Pera and Izaak Wirszup, who had known each other as children, reconnected after the war ended and were married. He adopted her daughter, Marina. They journeyed to Paris, where Izaak Wirszup worked before being invited to join the University of Chicago's math department in 1949.
"It is amazing that Izaak and Pera, after all that they endured during the Second World War, could be such magnificent examples of kindness and generosity," said Robert Fefferman, a professor in mathematics, in a University of Chicago news release. "Through a most remarkable collaboration, they greatly improved the quality of life on our campus for generations of students and colleagues alike."
For many years, Wirszup also worked for Peck Peck in Chicago, a New York-based, high-end women's apparel store, where she rose to a management position before leaving in 1980 to join the Slavic languages and literatures department at the University of Chicago as a lecturer in conversational Russian, one of six languages she spoke. She introduced the students to the classics of Russian literature and taught until 1992.
The Wirszups served as resident masters at the former Woodward Court residence hall from 1971 to 1985. Izaak Wirszup, who founded the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project, died in 2008.
In addition to her daughter, Wirszup is survived by three granddaughters and six great-grandsons.
Services were held.
Joan Giangrasse Kates is a freelance reporter.
