Tag: orphans
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International adoption of Greek “orphans”
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Child refugees from Macedonia, Greece, 1948. Retouched from the original held by the State Archives of the Republic of Macedonia (DARM). Via Wikimedia. No known restrictions on publication or modification. “He’s only a pawn in their game.”1 – Bob Dylan Between 1950 and 1962, 3,200 Greek children were adopted…
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Creating a race of orphans: Lebensborn, the “spring of life”
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Nazi Germany was a racial state. People of “pure” Aryan or Nordic heritage were believed to have superior physical, intellectual, and moral qualities. People from other ethnic or racial groups were undesirable, and a potential source of “pollution” in an Aryan nation. One of the Reich’s main functions was to eliminate racial…
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Nazi doctors and medical eponyms
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “Special Children’s Ward” Vienna Am Spiegelgrund. Source. The tradition in medicine has been to name a pathological condition after the person who first described it in the medical literature. Thus we have Addison’s disease, Down’s syndrome, and several hundred others. The tendency now is to eliminate the possessive,1 giving Addison…
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Dr. Samuel Sarphati
Annabelle SlingerlandLeiden, the Netherlands Times of confusion and uncertainty can also be fruitful grounds for seeds to root, rise, and bloom. One such seed was Dr. Samuel Sarphati, who created New Amsterdam on the banks of the river Amstel. Amsterdam in the early nineteenth century was already renowned for its prosperous canal belts, streets lit…
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We are all hospitalized (metaphorically speaking)
F. Gonzalez-Crussi Chicago, Illinois, United States Figure 1. Right section of an etching titled Infirmus eram et visitastis me: (“I was sick and you visited me,” quoted from Matthew 25:36), sometimes attributed to Cornelius Galle. The left section (not shown) has Jesus Christ overseeing the hospital visit. Among the many species of adversity that unavoidably…