Benjamin Auerbach

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Benjamin Auerbach (born September 24, 1855 in Wald (Solingen) ; † November 18, 1940 in New York City ) was from 1885 to 1935 the chief doctor of the Israelite Asylum for the sick and the elderly in Cologne . He carried the honorary title of "Secret Medical Council" . The Auerbachplatz in Cologne-Sülz was named after him.

Life

Auerbach studied in Würzburg , Munich and Bonn . There he received his doctorate in 1877 on the subject of obliteration of the arteries after ligature . The following year he settled in Cologne and opened an internal medicine practice in Blaubach 1. Since 1898 he ran a practice for general medicine and obstetrics in Mohrenstraße, Cologne-Altstadt-Nord . In 1885 he became the chief doctor of the Jewish Asylum for the sick and the elderly, which was inaugurated in 1869. The hospital , which was initially located in Silvanstrasse, was enlarged under his direction and finally rebuilt in Neuehrenfeld in 1908 . Auerbach ran it as an ultra-modern hospital with an excellent medical and nursing reputation.

Auerbach founded an Israelite home for apprentices, the Cologne Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith and the Association for Jewish Nurses in Cologne , of which he also became chairman. He was one of the founders of the Cologne Rhineland Lodge and the Cologne group of the Central Association of German Citizens of Jewish Faith . With the beginning of the persecution of the Jews during the National Socialist era, at the age of 80, he resigned his office in 1935. In 1939 he first emigrated to Great Britain . In 1940 he moved with his wife Ida to New York, where his daughter Lisbeth practiced as a doctor. He died there a few months after his arrival.

Another daughter of Auerbach is the painter Edith Auerbach (1899–1994), who emigrated to France and was interned there in the Camp de Gurs , among other places .

call

Auerbach, although originally from the Bergisches Land , is often compared to an original from Cologne . “The Auerbach” should not only have attracted attention because of its characteristic appearance - dressed in dark, bearded, always wearing a floppy hat and with a silver pince-nez on his nose, he said goodbye to everyone and talked young and old with “leeve Jung” ( Kolsch affectionate: “Dear Boy "). Since he did not own a car, he mostly walked through Cologne, only sometimes taking the tram or cab . He is described as overly conscientious and undemanding, is said to have regularly forgotten his meals during work and only bought new suits after his wife's long insistence.

swell

  • Ulrich S. Soénius: Kölner Personen-Lexikon . Greven-Verlag, Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-7743-0400-0 , pp. 35-36.
  1. ↑ a b Barbara Becker-Jákli: The Jewish hospital in Cologne: the history of the Israelite asylum for the sick and the elderly from 1869 to 1945 . Emons, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89705-350-0 , p. 374 f .
  2. ^ A b c Monika Grübel, Georg Mölich: Jewish life in the Rhineland. From the Middle Ages to the present. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2005, ISBN 3-412-11205-4 , pp. 99-100.
  3. ↑ A biography of Edith Auerbach was published in 2020: TEKENARES VAN MONTPARNASSE (THE DRAWERS OF MONTPARNASSE) (in Dutch)
personal data
SURNAME Auerbach, Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German doctor of the Israelite asylum for the sick and the elderly in Cologne
DATE OF BIRTH September 24, 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH Forest (Solingen)
DATE OF DEATH November 18, 1940
Place of death New York City