Chaim Weizmann Zionist activity, and executed in 1939. His fate became known to his wife and children only in 1955. Maria Weizmann was a doctor who was arrested as part of Stalin's fabricated "Doctors' plot" in 1952 and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in Siberia. She was released following Stalin's death in 1953, and was permitted to emigrate to Israel along with her husband in 1956. Weizmann was married to Vera Khatzmann. The couple had two sons. The younger one, Flight Lieutenant Michael Oser Weizmann (1916–1942), fought in the Royal Air Force during World War II. While serving as a pilot
Chaim Weizmann Switzerland to complete his studies at the University of Fribourg. In 1898, he attended the Second Zionist Congres in Basel, and that year became engaged to Sophia Getzowa. In 1899, he was awarded a PhD in organic chemistry. That same year, he joined the Organic Chemistry Department at the University of Geneva. In 1901, he was appointed assistant lecturer at the University of Geneva. Getzowa and Weizmann were together for four years before Weizmann, who had begun also dating Vera Khatzman in 1900, confessed to Getzowa he was involved with two women. He would not tell his family that he