Ira (Irene) Rischowski (1 August 1899 – 1989) was one of Germany's first female engineers and active in the German anti-Nazi resistance group Neu Beginnen before fleeing to Britain.
[2] In 2019, the Institute for Nuclear Physics at Technical University of Darmstadt created the Rischowski scholarship programme for female students in her honour.
[2][7] Interned for a year at the Rushen Camp on the Isle of Man as an enemy alien, she was released without restrictions in November 1941 on appeal[8] She worked as a draughtsman and planning engineer, first at Tuvox Ltd and later at James Gordon Ltd, where she became Head of Projects.
[10] Rischowski was the accommodation secretary for the second International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists held in Cambridge in 1967, whilst working as a consultant in power generation for Elliott Process Automation.
When she was forced into exile in 1935, Rischowski left her children in the care of her elderly mother Ida in Berlin until 1938 when, with support from members of the Women's Engineering Society and their connections, she was able to bring them both to London.
[2] Rischowski's sister Edith Novak donated a seventeenth century silver cup, made by Hans Paulus, to the Victoria & Albert Museum, to remember "her mother Ira [sic] Rischowski, her aunt Rosa Friedlander and Hedwig Malachowski, and in gratitude for the safety found by younger members of her family in the British Commonwealth" (Ira is a mistake for Ida).