Jewish doctors serving with American advance units are now treating German civilians in the liberated parts of Germany, though most of them refrain from informing the patients that they are being treated by a Jew, the correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency was told today by military medical authorities.
Capt. Dr. A. S. Goldsmith of New York told the correspondent how he has been treating German civilians in Waldheim where the local German doctor fled into the interior. A young woman suffering from a severe case of pneumonia and scarcely able to walk was given sulpha-thyiazole treatment and was cured, he related. “I did not tell her that I was a Jewish doctor for fear that she would refuse to take the pills thinking them poison,” he added. “But when she is quite well I’ll tell her.” Dr. Goldsmith also removed shrapnel from legs of German civilians and treated one for acute tonsillitis.
Capt. Julius Rubin of Camden, Mass, and a number of other Jewish doctors in the U.S. Units also told the correspondent that when treating German wounded prisoners and civilians they prefer not to tell them that they are being treated by a Jew. However Sgt. Jake Brill, medical aidman from New York, when giving blood transfusions to wounded German soldiers in the field, never fails to tell them that they now have Jewish blood in their veins.
One of the American doctors rendering medical aid to Germans is Dr. Ernest Sears, a refugee from Nuremberg, the seat of the notorious Jew-hater Julius Streicher. “The first case I had after landing in France was a wounded German soldier,” Dr. Sears said. “I would prefer to give them brimstone, but when Germans are in need, of medical treatment, I give them such treatment. I hope to get to Nuremberg and to stay there long enough to take care of some people like Streicher.”
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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.