Eidelheit Meier

Eidelheit Meier (Maks (16 July 1910, Janów near Lviv – 1943) belonged to the second generation of the Lwów School matematicians.

He was born on 16 July 1910 in Janów near Lviv, he obtained the high-school certificate from Hetman Stefan Żółkiewski 5th High School in Lwów and began studying mathematics at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Jan Kazimierz University. He graduated in 1933, and five years later obtained his doctorate on the basis of the dissertation O rozwiązywaniu równań liniowych o nieskończenie wielu niewiadomych (About solving linear equations with infinitely many unknowns), which supervisor was Banach himself.

It was known from the beginning that he was going to be an outstanding mathematician. He already had several works published in “Studia Mathematica” (published seven of them in total), participated in seminars ran by Banach and Mazur, became a member of the Polish Mathematical Society, but, like many younger scholars, he could not count on a university job. He earned extra money as a teacher in Jan Kochanowski High School in Lwów, and as a private tutor.

Of course, he was also visiting Scottish Café. How often and with what intensity he participated in the “banachalia” (this is what Steinhaus called the alcohol-drenched part of the session) is unknown, but the Scottish Book contains five problems written in by Eidelheit. The first one in 1938, the last one, no. 188, in 1940. One of them was solved years later by the biographer of Eidelheit, Professor Lech Maligranda.

In 1940, a place for him was found at the Ukrainian university. He got a position in the Department of Analysis II, headed by Hugo Steinhaus. In a report on the work of the department, he wrote that “a check carried out in Eidelheit's class showed that the lecturer clearly presented the subject to students.” In March 1941, the Scientific Council of the Ivan Franko National University bestowed him with the degree of associate professor of physical and mathematical sciences, a month later he got a full-time job, which finally meant stabilization.

The calmness did not last long, however. Hugo Steinhaus wrote in his Wspomnienia i zapiski (Memories and Notes), that Eidelheit was killed in one of the anti-Semitic pogroms that took place in June 1941, shortly after the Russians left Lviv and before the Germans took over the city. But that's not true. After the Germans entered, he disappeared. Where? Who helped him? Nobody knows. “Suddenly, on Zielona Street, I met Professor Max Eidelheit, one of my math teachers. He told me that he, being of Jewish origin, was in hiding”, recalled the philosopher Roman Ingarden years later.

He was murdered by the Nazis, most likely in March 1943. Under what circumstances, it is also uncertain. Everything we know comes from the 1948 issue of "Wiadomości Matematyczne", which published Edelheit's last article. It was accompanied with a short note by the editors: “The author of this work was murdered by the Germans in March 1943. The manuscript that was sent to the Editorial Office in 1941 has recently been found among the documents left by S. Banach.”

The following concept is associated with the name of Meier Eidelheit:

- Eidelheit separation theorem

Mariusz Urbanek