an adage Julius Held once said to me after I told him what had happened
Monday, July 13, 2009
Friday, July 3, 2009
Flora Arnswalder Caspari: in memoriam, May 3, 1883--July 12, 1954
I would like to say with certainty that my "Omma," my maternal grandmother, was born in Czarnikau, Poland, but I do not know. How easily the facts of life are lost, especially given the dispalcements caused by WWII. Perhaps my mother did tell me, but if she did , I have forgotten. Flora--a beautiful name-- was in her early twenties when she married. Her husband, Paul Caspari, was selected by her family as a suitable match. He was twenty years older than she and an established physician in Berlin. Only when she lay dying of cancer, did she tell her daughter that she had been in love with another man, a youth her own age. My grandmother's story is not unusual; how many young women then and now also follow family dictates. Their lives are arranged by others. Flora moved to Berlin and was charged with caring for her new household. Her first child died in childbirth; her second, my mother, Beate, survived and became a physician and author. My grandmother's life was eventful; she witnessed the rise of Hitler and fled Berlin late, in 1938, after Kristalnacht. Her husband had died about a year earlier, during an operation. She stayed as long as she could, but finally made her way to the United States, where her daughter, Beate and her husband George Rosen, MD, were living. She lived together with my parents until her cancers required hospitalization in a nursing home. Do I recall my grandmother? Yes. Though I was 13 when she died, and she had been hospitalized for about a year previously, I remember vignettes, so integral was she to our home. Omma cared for my brother Paul Peter Rosen, MD, and myself when we were children. She was remarkable in her steadfastness and her love for us. I will write more about her on another occasion. I have lit the jahrzeit candle. I have not forgotten. With love from your granddaughter Susan
Beate Caspari-Rosen, MD: in memoriam, July 8, 1995
born 14 March, 1910, Berlin--died 8 July, 1995, Hamden, Connecticut
In 1935, my mother Beate Caspari-Rosen received her medical degree, in Berlin. Her marriage to George Rosen was fortuitous for it saved her life. Although born in America, he was not able to gain entry to an American medical school due to his Jewish heritage and his humble background. He, like so many of his City College of New York classmates applied to the famous Berlin medical school and was accepted. It was there that he met Beate (Blessed). Beate was a child of WWI, the terrible aftermath of that war in Germany, its food shortages, hyper-inflation, and street warfare in her neighborhood. To protect their only child from bullets, Beate's parents--her father was a physician-- placed her in a hallway. Deprivation and turnips were her fare. Once a modicum of order was restored she was schooled in a gymnasium, choosing a professional career: to be a physician. Not only was her father a general practitioner but other male family members were too, or specialists. She alone, among the young women in her family--a very large extended one that was largely destroyed in WWII--chose medicine. She excelled in her specialty, ophthalmology. In her various practices, almost all in public or union clinics, she served her patients with patience, authority, and great skill. She was an exemplar of the "good doctor." The elderly would tell her their woes while she carefully corrected or diagnosed their visual deficits and the young received superb care and sympathy.
The pictures I have selected show her operating on an eye; the mirthful curious child; the immigrant in 1935, in the Bronx, where she lived with her in-laws for a time, and finally a picture taken before her departure to the United States. On her passport, she visited for Czarnikow in Poland, undoubtedly knowing that she would never return and be able to see her beloved family again. The visit is stamped in her passport, which survives. Beate's mother's family had a farm and other property in that town, located about an hour from Poznan. She is seen with her grandmother. All members of the family in Poland were exterminated. The houses were looted and the property taken as well. Though my mother expressed delight about visiting Czarnkow/Czarnikau she also related stories that were traumatiizing. Local children threw rocks at her and called her a "dirty Jew." Later she learned that Jewish cemeteries had been desecrated, the cadavers and bones exhumed from their graves, and skulls used for soccer balls. She never returned. My husband, Harold Olejarz [Olarsch] and I visited Czarnkau on our way to Poznan. Our stay was shortened by thunderstorms and the necessity of traveling farther that day. Perhaps more can be learned about the town and its Jewish community from numerous resources on the web.
I will write more about my mother in a different context. For now, the pictures illustrate aspects of her life.
Note: in a "recent post" on the web, "Dr Elizabeth Fee: a historian reaching out to wider audiences."
Interview given to Hochman, G., Benchimol, J., Wegner, L., Azevedo, N., Romero Sá, M. and Martins, R. B.
História, Ciências, Saúde – Manguinhos, v. 13, n.3, p. 83-99, July-Sept. 2006, comments about my mother--and father. Dr Fee is not the author of the essay--it is a transcription of a discussion with her. For the record, my mother's name is spelled Beate NOT Beata. Beate is a not an unusual name in German, and keyrings gan be purchased at stores along with Christophers and Helmuts.
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