[Peter Voswinckel: 1937-2013. Die Geschichte der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Hämatologie und Onkologie im Spiegel ihrer Ehrenmitglieder – "Verweigerte Ehre". Dokumentation zu Hans Hirschfeld]
Andreas Winkelmann 11 Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Institut für Vegetative Anatomie, Berlin, Deutschland
Bibliographical details
Peter Voswinckel
1937 - 2012. Die Geschichte der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Hämatologie und Onkologie im Spiegel ihrer Ehrenmitglieder – „Verweigerte Ehre“. Dokumentation zu Hans Hirschfeld.
Erscheinungsjahr: 2012, 166 Seiten, € 16,00 (bestellbar über www.dgho.de)
ISBN 978-3-00-039487-4
Recension
What should we expect from a book entitled "The History of the German Society of Haematology and Oncology as Reflected in its Honorary Members" – particularly if it comes with a cover that resembles those of pharmaceutical company giveaways of the 1980s? I admit that I would have expected songs of praise honouring old or deceased men, and mostly irrelevant for non-haematologists. Such an expectation might be fulfilled for the reader quickly flipping through the pages: you will find a black-and-white picture and a CV for every honorary member – all of them indeed men. But you might get caught by, e.g., the CV of José Carreras (the famous tenor who, after surviving an acute lymphatic leukaemia, initiated a leukaemia research fund and became honorary member in 2006), or else – in stark contrast – the CV of Ernst Robert Grawitz, pictured in SS uniform complete with his official titles ("SS-Obergruppenführer, Reichsarzt SS, Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS"), who owed his honorary membership of 1939 to his political powers and to his father, a well-known haematologist. Even a hurried reader, however, will finally read the book from the start when he/she finds that the pages in the second half of the book are upside down.
After a dedication of today's board of the society (DGHO) on the first page, the author commissioned by the board, the medical historian Peter Voswinckel, gives an introduction entitled "Historicity of Honorary Membership" (p. 5-9), in which he discusses the term "honour" and refers to the refusal of honour and honorary membership to somebody who certainly would have deserved it as one of the leading German haematologist of the 1930s: Hans Hirschfeld, deported to Theresienstadt for his Jewish descent and succumbed in 1944. This introduction is followed by an index of honorary members and an overview of the various historical phases of the society, founded in 1937 as "German Haematological Society", including its name changes, the split into an Eastern and Western society 1961-1990, and the names of the respective presidents. On pp. 12-61, as mentioned above, all honorary members are presented in chronological order, each with references to their works and to the literature, to spouses and children.
To read the second part (pp. 68-166), the book has to be turned by 180° and read from the back cover. This obvious position of the book is held by a detailed "Documentation on Hans Hirschfeld" entitled "Refused Honour". Explicitly "far from wide-ranging moral pleas", the author presents copies of documents from archives and other sources regarding Hirschfeld's fate and its aftermath, with only short explaining captions. This is a moving documentation of a bureaucratically administrated downfall. While before 1933, Hirschfeld was an internationally renowned researcher, co-editor of the Folia Haematologica, head of department and extraordinary professor at the Institute for Oncological Research of Charité in Berlin, living in a 7-room-flat benefitting his rank, in 1938 he had become a mere "Krankenbehandler" (doctor without full registration, with permission to treat Jewish patients only), had lost his assets and his surgery, lived as a lodger together with his wife, and wrote desperate letters to international colleagues when it was too late. In October 1942, the couple was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp with the 70th "Alterstransport (old age transport)". Hirschfeld died there on 26 August 1944, while his wife survived the camp. The author, however, does not stop here, but also documents the fate of Hirschfeld's valuables (the bookshop Rothacker shows interest in a bargain purchase of the private library, a GP acquires most of the inventory of Hirschfeld's office, the SS takes over the financial assets). He also documents how Hirschfeld's contributions were "forgotten" in the post war sequels of journals and handbooks edited by Hirschfeld, and also the attempts of the widow to receive reparation – Mrs Hirschfeld did not live to the end of the bureaucratic quarrels in this matter.
The rich documentary material presented here, which is well referenced (with some minor exceptions), is also owed to the fact – expressed only between the lines – that the author has obviously been concerned with Hirschfeld's fate for more than 25 years. Voswinckel should be given credit for not stressing explicitly, that he had already gathered a comparable documentation for the 50 years jubilee in 1987, documentation which had even gone to print already but had been withheld by the then board of the society for fear of "disagreeable discussions" (p. 159). While the introductory dedication by today's board gives the impression that even after 25 years the actual board members are still not fully confident in this question, they at least brought themselves to an "explicit approval" of Voswinckel's presentation. The DGHO society deserves praise for publishing an honest document of contemporary history, which is of interest even to non-haematologists.
Competing interests
The author declares that he has no competing interests.
