Jewry's Role in
Human Health

THEY HELPED CONQUER DISEASE

Martin Lowenberg

"With us it was genocide."

Deported to Riga, Latvia, in 1941 from
Germany, Martin Lowenberg lost his
parents and twin brothers in Auschwitz.
Passover brings back specific mem-
ories, he said. Working 92-hour shifts
while loading ships in Kaiserwald,
Latvian concentration camp, he
relates easily to slavery in Egypt
before him, and the recent persecu-
tion in Kosovo.
"The people who are being taken
from their homes, and forced to
march hundreds of miles, not so
much being killed but being perse-
cuted for who they are, reflects so
much on what we went through,"
Lowenberg said. - With us, it was
genocide, a different type of killing.
We have never been free. We are
reliving it over and over, day in and
day out," he said. "Not just during
Passover."

Abraham Pasternak

"Pesach wasn't much
of a Pesach."

He couldn't say why he cried after read-
ing the Haggadah this year, but he did.
Abraham Pasternak remembers
the irony of being thrown out of his
house during Pesach, the memory
that religious Jews were forced to
open their stores on Shabbos and
yontiv.
"Pesach wasn't much of a Pesach,"
he said.
There was no personal mention of
his experiences at the seder table this
year, he said, but we read about the
6 Million when we open the door for
Elijah, and we will not forget. We
cannot just shed it off; it's like an
extra skin."
In the camp, Pasternak said the
prisoners would have Talmudic-type
debates as a way of finding a "distrac-
tion from our predicament."
They debated if they were allowed
to eat chametz on Pesach, since this
was a means of bekech nefesh (saving
your body). "Some people asked, 'Do
you eat the soup, which had very lit-
tle nourishment, or should you eat
the bread, which had more?'"
Pasternak said the real question
was, "Why would you have a seder
when you are a slave yourself?"

Paula Marks-Bolton

"We also grieve for
our family"

Marks-Bolton spent her childhood in
the Lodz Ghetto. Orphaned at 13, she
was sent to Auschwitz and other
camps before her liberation from
Bergen-Belsen in 1945. She is the only
one of her family to make it out alive.
"The last full seder I had was
before the war," she said. "We don't
go through the whole thing anymore."
She calls Pesach a "wonderful, but
sad reflection" of what happened not
only to the slaves in Egypt, but to the
6 Million.
"Of course, we rejoice to be in a
free land, to be a survivor of this hor-
rible tragedy," she said. "We also
grieve for our family that did not sur-
vive and are not here with us."
For eight years, Marks-Bolton has
spoken at the Holocaust Memorial
Center; "It means so much to me
because I'm the only one who survived."

William Weiss

"I was never a teenager"

He spent time in six concentration
camps and lost his whole family in the
war. When William Weiss returned to
his hometown in Levouf, Ukraine, the
once teeming Jewish population of
135,000 had been reduced to 200.
With three married sons and grand-
children, the seder table in his home is
always large, but references to the war
are left out of the conversation.
It's too emotional to talk to his
children about what happened.
Weiss isn't comfortable, because he
doesn't want to cry in front of his sons.
"I was never a teenager," he said.
"All my teenaged life, I spent in
prison or in the camps."
As a speaker at the Holocaust
Memorial Center, Weiss said, "It's
much easier to talk to strangers."
The situation in Kosovo also
dredges up memories.
"When I see the pictures and the
way they killed them, see them
undressed and hungry and crying, I
wish we could help them somehow,"
he said.
"I'm glad that America is starting
to help them. It's just too bad that
they didn't help us. They could have
helped us, but they didn't know."

The cause of the dread disease pellagra, afflicting many southeastern
Americans around the turn of the century, baffled investigators. Symptoms
included acute gastric upset, painful skin lesions and mental aberrations, all
too often leading to death. Joseph Goldberger (1874-1929), a U.S. Public
Health Service physician born in Hungary, linked its onset to diet
deficiencies. His findings led to the isolation of a vitamin B factor
(nicotinic acid) that cured the ailment when combined with improved
nutrition.
Similarly, health professionals of Jewish origin have dispro-
portionately led the way with lifesaving breakthroughs before and during
this century. The names of some like August von Wassermann (1866-
1925) and Bela Schick (1877-1967) remain attached to their discoveries:
the Schick Test that predicts susceptibility to diphtheria, and the
Wasserman Reaction for diagnosing syphilis. Others have also blazed
pathways to disease control and eradication.
The Polish-born biochemist, Casimir Funk (1884-1967), found a
preventive for beriberi and coined its name a "vitamine" which came to
designate a whole spectrum of nutritional elements. Currently on the
frontiers of molecular biology, Nobel Prize winner Walter Gilbert (1932-)
is advancing the science of genetic engineering by mapping the human
genetic blueprint.
Yet another respected researcher in microbiology, Mathilde Krim
(1926-), has usefully applied molecular virology to probe for the causes of
cancer and AIDS. And Canadian biologist Sidney Altman (1939-) shared
a Nobel Prize for discoveries related to RNA molecules that could help
strengthen the body's defenses against viral attack.
Dental science has an international leader as well. Landmark
studies of dental disease by Irwin Mandel (1921-) earned the discipline's
counterpart of the Nobel Prize: the ADA Gold Medal Award for
Excellence. Among others not mentioned in previous columns are Jewish
medical practitioners, scientists and public figures whose gifts to human
welfare are better known than their names:
Ludwig Traub (1818 1876), a founder of experimental pathology.
Julius Bernstein (1839-1917), widely regarded as the father of modern
neurophysiology. Julius Cohnheim (1839-84) who helped
modernize pathology and proved that tuberculosis was
contagious. George Haym (1841 1933), the discoverer
of blood platelets. Joseph De Lee (1869-1942), a
designer of medical instruments used worldwide.
Martin Heidenhain (1864-1949), a founder of
the field of cytology. Adrian Kantrowitz
(1918-) who designed the famous Kantrowitz-
General Electric pacemaker.

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The achievements continue with Alexander Marmorek (1865-
1923), a pioneer in typhus and diabetes research. Isaac Hays (1796-1879),
a founder of the AMA in 1847. Adam Politzer (1835 7 1920), a preeminent
authority on ear disease who established the field of otology. Oscar
Minkowski (1858-1931), an originator of insulin treatment for diabetes.
Adolphus Solomons (1826-1910) who with Clara Barton co-founded the
American Red Cross. Alexander Wiener (1907-1976), a co-discoverer of
the Rh blood factor.
What's more, advances in medical technology bearing Jewish
signatures include digitalis, the world's first oral contraceptive, the
invention of the laryngoscope, modem tranquilizers, the first practical birth
control pill and the wonder drug, streptomycin.
- Saul Stadtmauer

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Detroit Jewish News

4/9
1999

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