Friday, December 18, 2009

Paul Caspari, MD: in memoriam, 1867, January 27--1937, December 16










My grandfather Paul Caspari, MD, died in Berlin in 1937, during a gallbladder operation; he suffered a heart attack. My mother Beate Caspri-Rosen, MD, always recalled him as a wonderful father and an ideal doctor, "the good doctor," so sorely missing from practice today in the United Sates. (for more on my grandfather, see my website www.profkoslow.com, Family, Beate Caspari-Rosen, essays). I was born five years after his death so the man in the pictures and the oral and written history is all that remains of this wonderful person. I have selected a 1927 picture which is in much need of restoration that shows my grandfather hiking in a region in Germany; a photograph taken shortly after he married his spouse, my grandmother Flora Arnswalder Caspari; the cover of the Trauer Album (grieving/ memorial book) given to my grandmother and the page which records the dates when the jahrzeit (memorial) candle is to be lit, a practice that I maintain, but one that will end with my demise. Finally, the tomb at Weissensee Cemetery as it appeared several years ago.


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