Albert Salomon (surgeon)

Albert Salomon (born January 26, 1883 in Röbel / Müritz , Mecklenburg ; died May 7, 1976 in Amsterdam , Netherlands ) was a German-Jewish surgeon at the Charité in Berlin. He is considered a pioneer in mammography .

Childhood and academic years

Albert Salomon was the youngest son of the Röbel merchant Wolf Salomon. His mother, who came from Ribnitz , died at his birth at the age of 33, his father on December 17, 1893 at the age of 63. Salomon attended the Röbel citizen school in the first four school years. After his father's death, his relatives in Ribnitz took him in, probably the family of his older sister Berta. This had the Dr. med. Bruno Joseph married. He practiced as a doctor in Ribnitz. From 1889 to 1893 Salomon attended the Ribnitz Prorealgymnasium, then the Fridericianum in Schwerin and in 1900 passed the Abitur with the grade “Very Good”.

In 1900 Salomon first enrolled as a student of medicine at Berlin's Friedrich Wilhelms University . After completing the Physikum , he moved to the universities of Heidelberg, Munich and Würzburg for two semesters each. In Würzburg, Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered the X-rays that were later named after him in 1895, and Salomon was one of the first users. His dissertation dealt with the histology and diagnosis of tumor diseases. He received his doctorate on March 15, 1905, and received his license to practice medicine on April 6 of the same year.

Work as a doctor and researcher

In 1905 Albert Salomon became an assistant doctor in the Friedrichshain hospital at David Hansemann's Institute of Pathology . In 1906 Salomon published a treatise on "Tumors of the renal hilum" in the Zeitschrift für Krebsforschung. With the opening of the community hospital in Pankower Galenusstrasse, he moved there and worked as an assistant doctor in the internal department. From July 1, 1907, he moved to the surgical department of the newly built Israelite Hospital in Breslau. In 1909 he received an assistant position at the 1st surgical clinic at the Berlin Charité. As an employee of August Bier , he developed great scientific productivity there. With his essay Contributions to the Pathology and Clinic of Mammary Carcinoma , published in 1913 , he became an internationally known pioneer of mammography. In it, he compared mastectomy specimens with and the associated X-ray images and described the classic image criteria still valid today for malignant findings with fuzzy borders, spicular extensions and microcalcifications.

In addition to his work in the hospital and in addition to research and teaching, Salomon registered on January 1, 1914 as “Spec. Doctor for surgery and gynecological diseases ”in Kantstrasse 34 in Charlottenburg.

At the beginning of the First World War in 1914 he was assigned to work as a hospital doctor at the Auguste Victoria Hospital in Berlin-Weißensee. In the summer of 1916 he became a soldier and, after completing his weapon training, was ordained a doctor in the military hospital.

In 1916 Salomon married Franziska Grunwald; In 1917 his only child, Charlotte, was born. On February 22, 1926, Franziska Salomon died of suicide after suffering from depression.

In December 1928 Albert Salomon was appointed associate professor at the Charité.

In 1930 Salomon married the famous singer Paula Lindberg .

Persecution and emigration

After the " takeover " by the National Socialists, social exclusion and discrimination began for Albert Salomon too. In 1933 he lost his license to teach at the university. He was initially able to continue his medical practice because, as a combatant in the World War, he retained his license as a statutory health insurance doctor. In 1935 he took over the surgical-urological polyclinic, and from 1936 he was head of the surgical department of the Jewish hospital in Berlin.

The day after the “Reichspogromnacht” , Albert Salomon was arrested by the Gestapo and taken to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp . On November 29, 1938 he was released from the concentration camp.

In March 1939 Albert Salomon and his wife fled to the Netherlands from the National Socialists. In September 1943 they were arrested in Amsterdam and taken to the Westerbork transit camp . There he was used as an experienced surgeon for medical tasks. As part of his duties, he and his wife were given permission to go on a business trip to Amsterdam on November 17, 1943, allegedly in order to procure medical instruments for sterilization. They did not return from this business trip, but went underground as "Onderduiker". They survived in the province of Limburg with the help of Dutch resistance fighters .

Solomon's daughter Charlotte was arrested with her husband in southern France in September 1943 and probably murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz on October 10 of the same year .

literature

• Johannes Gossner: Historical. Albert Salomon (1883–1976): pioneer of mammography and persecuted by National Socialism. Georg Thieme Verlag KG, Stuttgart, New York 2016.
• Robert Kreibig: Röbel-Berlin-Amsterdam: The life of the Jewish doctor Prof. Albert Salomon (January 16, 1883 - May 7, 1976). In: Engelscher Hof at the old synagogue Röbel. Exhibition, research, projects. Ed .: Land und Menschen eV Röbel / Müritz.
• Michael Buddrus , Sigrid Fritzlar: Jews in Mecklenburg. 1845 - 1945. Paths and fates. A memorial book. Volume 2. Ed .: Institute for Contemporary History Munich - Berlin / State Center for Civic Education Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Schwerin 2019, ISBN 978-3-9816439-9-2 , p. 614 f.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Summary on Johannes Gossner: Historisches. Albert Salomon (1883–1976): pioneer of mammography and persecuted by National Socialism. Georg Thieme Verlag KG, Stuttgart, New York 2016.
2. ↑ tab prisoner number 009805 at the Russian military archives Moscow.