Dr. Med. Fritz Bornstein, as his professional card reads, twenty-four years old, a graduate of the Medical Faculty of the University of Hamburg, arrived here yesterday on the Berengaria to seek his fortune in free America. Literally apple-cheeked and as fresh-faced a youngster as you would want to see, he craned his neck eagerly on a sunny deck of the Cunard liner, to catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty that he had been told lights up the entrance to the Western world.
Prancing with impatience to set foot on free soil, young Fritz un-limbered binoculars and a camera from the various receptacles slung with straps from his shoulders and fixed snapping blue eyes on New York’s skyline. What a city! What patients there must be in this hive of humanity! What hospitals!
For, you see, Dr. Bornstein, whose father was a Professor in the University of Hamburg, and whose family has been living in Germany for the last eighty years, is not allowed to practice medicine in Germany Awakened. He may not be received as an interne in Germany’s Krankenhaeuser. He may not attend patients of the state Social Insurance System.
So how is a very young doctor with blue eyes and a pink skin and an itch to work to get started? Getting through the gymnasium or high-school, was not so hard. The medical faculty of the University was a little harder. But young Dr. Fritz made it. The professors were friendly and friends of the family helped out with money. And the sheepskin was his. He had the right to print these narrow little cards. So! “Dr. Med. Fritz Bornstein.” And only twenty-four years old. In spite of the blond hair and the blue eyes and the square head, “doch ein juedischer Kopf.”
Then came Hitler. No more Jewish doctors in the Social Insurance System. Alles kaput!
He was very grateful when the Jewish Daily Bulletin reporter offered to find the Hias for him and to get him a cheap room until he could locate his medical benefactor. “I must change into a clean suit,” he explained. His English is correct, if slightly Teutonic. A clean suit for Dr. Med. Fritz Bornstein, twenty-four—and then he can tackle the new world.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
