A MAN OF GREATNESS RETURNS TO HIS NATIVE OPATIJA

Abstract

This report deals with a school project that prompted the organisation of the international scientific symposium «Dr. Leo H. Sternbach: Life and Work of Valium Inventor» (Opatija, Villa Angiolina,18th May 2006.), and the unveiling of the commemorative plaque on the house in Opatija where Dr. Leo Henryk Sternbach, an eminent American scientist originat- ing from Opatija, spent his childhood. The project was realised by the pupils of The Eugen Kumičić Grammar School in Opatija; Ana Petrovčić, David Deszô, Dominik Pažin, Davor Dujmić, Marin Dujmić and Hrvoje Tramontana during the 2005/6 academic year, as an assignment of the school history group. The project stemmed from a special curriculum on the holocaust and human rights education including the research into the history of pre-war Jewish community in Opatija, of which the Sternbach family was a part. It was based on the research of original archive material, biographic literature and the application of the historiographic method of oral history. The project was expounded through PowerPoint presentation in the course of the symposium during which both foreign and Croatian presenters shed light on facts pertaining to life and scientific work of Dr. Leo Henryk Sternbach, emphasising his exceptional contribution to the development of the medical science of the 20th century. On 18th May 2006, under the aus- pices of Roche Croatia and the Town of Opatija, the scientific symposium “Dr. Leo Henryk Sternbach: Life and Work of Valium Inventor” was held at the Villa Angiolina in Opatija. Also, the unveiling of the commemorative plaque on the building at 114 Maršal Tito Street in Opatija, where Dr. Leo Henryk Sternbach spent his childhood was ceremoniously performed, marking thus the perennial memory of this distinguished scientist (picture 14)