Thursday, April 5, 1945 Morning Star (Rockford, IL) Page 9
Fritzi Berne, Librarian at Rockford college, who fled as a refugee from the city of her birth, Vienna, Austria, in July, 1939, just before outbreak of the war in Europe, yesterday was one of a group of 71 Winnebago county aliens admitted to citizenship in the United States by Circuit Judge William R. Dusher.
A change in name also was also granted by the court. The new Fritzi Berne, by which she has been known at Rockford college, shed her old world name of Frieda Blumenthal along with her allegiance to Austria and Germany.

Monday Dec 8, 1952 Register Republic (Rockford, IL) Page 1
Medical Society's Librarian Dies;
Was Austrian Refugee

Fritzi Berne, 58, died Sunday in Rockford Memorial Hospital following a long illness. Miss Berne, who came to this country in 1939, a refugee from Vienna, Austria, had been librarian for the Winnebago County Medical society for the past eight years.

She was born in Austria on November 9, 1894. She taught French in a Santa Barbara, California school before coming to Rockford in the fall of 1942. She was an assistant in the Rockford College library for a time.
Miss Berne had a Bachelor of Arts degree in languages from the University of Vienna, and she studied at the University of London to perfect her English. In Vienna, she did interpreting and translating for the American Medical Association and had her own school of languages. Surviving are a niece, Mrs. Lydia Warner, Rockford; two nephews, Hans Bandler, Australia; Bernard Bandler, England; and two grandnieces, Rockford.
Services will be held Tuesday with the Rabbi Saul Appelbaum of Temple Beth El, of which she was a member and the Rev. Jack Mendelsohn, Jr., pastor of the Christian Union, Unitarian, officiating.