"Code Slowing" New York Jews to a certain death during height of Holocaust - and the dying Gentile who saved them
During the darkest days of WWII - at the height of the Holocaust - Charles Aronson , Miriam Laskowitz, Penny Mehler and Otto Morowitz all faced a death sentence as sure as any issued by the Nazis.
They were children of immigrants growing up in crowded homes in the NYC area during the late 1910s and 1920s , at the height of the deadliest phase of acute Rheumatic Fever.
As a result all had badly damaged heart valves and now as young adults during the war years, faced certain death from the uniformly fatal SBE (subacute bacterial endocarditis).
Taking a page out of the Nazi handbook , Anglo-American medical elites were using the excuse of 'war necessity' to deny them the medicine that could save these Jewish lives.
Yet as other Jews around the the world were dying from battlefield bullets or in secret gas chambers , these New York City Jews (and ultimately tens of thousands of other Jews worldwide very like them) , were plucked from death and given a new life.
As the result of a selfless act of agape from a dying Gentile doctor.
This Canadian-born doctor gave up his own life to save the lives of strangers - and changed our whole world for the better - forever.
I mention these patients' names only because they have already been already made public long ago , by Gladys Hobby in her seminal account of the exciting saga of wartime penicillin (PENICILLIN : MEETING THE CHALLENGE).
Hobby was one member of Dr Martin Henry Dawson's tiny medical team at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital (today's CUMC) who had laboured for five years to save these four and dozens of others.
These four can not be all the wartime Jews plucked from death by the direct and indirect efforts of Dr Dawson's tiny team - it is just that they are the only names I currently know.
And that is almost all I know about them - they have vanished from history.
Next year - October 16th 2015 - will mark the 75th anniversary that the first of these Jews (Charles Aronson) was saved from death by Dr Dawson's hospital-brewed natural penicillin - an event that also ushered in our era of life-saving antibiotics.
Jewish Genealogy in the New York City area
I appeal to those involved in New York City area Jewish genealogy , to New York City medical personnel with an interest in medical history and to all those scholars researching Jewish death and survival during WWII .
Please consider helping to mark the 75th anniversary of the world's first ever penicillin shot (Manhattan Oct 16th 1940) by turning your eyes and skills towards recovering some of this lost story of Jews saved from certain death.
Beginning with recovering the stories of Charles, Miriam, Penny and Otto and their families ...
Charles born about 1913
Miriam born about 1920
Otto born about 1914
Penny born about 1932
Based on my assessment of their penicillin treatment patterns and Gladys Hobby's whereabouts upon retirement , I believe all four were living in the greater NYC area in the mid 1940s (ie including the near-by parts of New Jersey) and the last three were still living there circa 1980 as she prepared her book.
Penny's last name might be Mahler. There is always a distinct possibility that all these names are actually their middle names (or that they are their first names but their families knew them by other names.)
After all , the Dawson patient who was received the world's first penicillin shot was recorded as Aaron Alston , but was known as Leroy to family and friends and he always wrote his name as A. Leroy Alston !
I think that Charles might well have died in the 1950s - for a child and man who cheated death at least six or more times, a by no means bad fate ....
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