Thursday
11 May 1933
Certificate issued to Sigmar Karplus confirming his service during the First World War
There were a number of exceptions to this rule: doctors who had taken up their work before the First World War, who had fathers or sons who had fought at the front in the war, or who had fought themselves. Those who had served as medics at the front were also exempt.
The radiologist Sigmar Karplus (1878–1962) met two of these conditions. He had received his medical license in 1902 and—as certified in this document from the Central Search Office for War Casualties and Graves—he had worked for eight months as a senior physician in a military hospital in Thorn. Karplus was evidently required to submit the certificate to the authorities. Because of his exemption, he was able to continue treating publicly insured patients at his practice on Kaiserdamm in Berlin. However, he was no longer allowed to train radiologists.
In late September 1938, the Nazi regime revoked the medical licenses of all Jewish doctors in Germany. Afterward, only a small number of selected physicians were granted permission to work. They were required to call themselves "Krankenbehandler" ("treaters of the sick") and were only permitted to treat Jewish patients. They included Sigmar Karplus, who was thus allowed to keep his practice open. Tipped off by a former non-Jewish patient, Karplus was also able to avoid arrest during the November pogroms
Aubrey Pomerance
