Remembering my mother, an opthamologist, whose degree was granted in Berlin, but whose practice of medicine was carried out in the United States. The only child of Flora Arnswalder Caspari ( the daughter of Bertha Bernstein and Louis Arnswalder) and Paul Caspari ( son of Jacob Caspari, born in Breslau), my mother was educated in schools in Berlin and obtained her medical degree there as well. During her medical studies, she met George Rosen, an American, also studying medicine in Berlin, and the two young people well on love and married. This union was fortuitous for my mother. Her studies were officially ended when the Nazi's came to power in Germany, but because she was married to an American, Beate was able to complete her degree, since she was considered by the authorities an "American" and thus no longer under German jurisdiction. Her very large diploma states these facts.
When I think how much my mother endured in her youth--WWI, post-war inflation, the Weimar Republic, and the seizure of the German government by the Nazis, I am astounded that she had so much pluck and bravery to begin a new life in the United States. This part of her life brought her joy, but with happiness, not surprisingly, much grief as well. But an indomitable spirit supported her until the day of her death in summer 1995. She had seen much, understood the way the world was, and never succumbed to an anodyne complacency. To the end her mind was clear; but she bemoaned the inevitable limitations that an ailing body imposed on her. Most of all she missed the companionship and love of her husband George Rosen, physician, historian, public health thinker and activist, editor, sociologist, teacher, scholar, and father.
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