Dr. Robert Botkin, news of whose project to build a sanatorium for servous diseased at Santiago, Chile, and employ sixty Jewish refugee physicians from Germany created considerable interest, has been exposed by the Havana and Santiago correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as a Jewish Telegraphic Agency as a swindler.
When he was last heart from, Dr. Botkin was in Chile, but he has since disappeared.
Dr. Botkin came to Santiago at the beigining of December, 1933. He represented himself as being a close friend and pupil of Dr. Sigmund Freud, the famed psychoanalyst, and said that he had a dipoma from Columbia University here. Botkin succeeded in wining the interest and confidence of scientific circles, attacted much attention in the press and aroused public opinion in favor of his sanatorium project, claiming that he had alrady invested five million pesos in the enterprise.
HAVANA SENDS NEWS
Realizing that an establishment such as Dr. Botkin claimed to be planning would greatly benifit the Chilean population and a at the same time be a boon t a number of Jewish physicians in Germany, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent relayed the story to the New York office. Efforts made here to corroborate details of the story were unavailing and correspondents were notified to sent any information about him. The Havana correspondent sent the following information:
“Dr. Robert Botkin, said to be planning a sanatorium for nervous patients in Santiago, was forced to flee from Cuba in August, 1933, because of a marriage swindle which he perpetrated upon a Jewish woman here and for which he was threatened with arrest.
“Dr. Botkin came to Havana early in June, 1933, presumably from Mexico, where he had ‘planned’ a clinic for nervous patients but for which he was not successful in obtaining a backer. In Havana, too, Dr. Botkin said he was a psychiatrist, personal fried of Freud and graduate of universities in New York, Paris and Vienna.
Dr. Botkin won the confidence of the most porminent persons in Havana, and made a number of porposals to Jewish leaders there concerning the founding of aclinic. When the Jewish leaders did not repond as he expected them to, Dr. Botkin gave up the idea and began a new racket, that of making proposals of marriage to Jewish women.
“The last person to whom he made such a proposal was Mrs. Berta Bergerman, a widow, who was known to possesss about ten was known to possess about ten thosuands dollars. The matter soon aroused suspicion, and then one morning it was learned that a few hours before Botkin and Mrs. Bergerman were to appear in court for obtaining marriage papers, the bridegroom-to-be had disappeared from his hotel. Before going, Botkin had left word that he found it necessary tgo make a tour of Cuba on important business and that he would send further word while on his trip.”
FLEES CUBA
But Dr. Botkin sent no word and has not been seen in Cuba since. No one there knew his whereabouts until word about his activities in Chile called attention to him again. It is improbable that he had five million pesos to invest in Chile, since in order to make his get-away from Cuba he had inveigled Mrs. Bergerman into giving him over a thousand dollars.
The Botkin-Bergerman affair created quite a sentsation in Havana. Mis. Bergerman was abroad on a visit to her parents when her husband died, only a few months before the widow returned to Havana and metr Dr. Botkin. Mrs. Bergerman was so depressed by the whole affair that she liquidated her property and took her five-year-old son back to Lithuania to live with her parents.
Following the receipt of this story from the Cuban correspondent, a further inquiry was snet to the correspondent at Santiago, who replied:
“I went to see Dr. Botkin, and asked him for more information concerning his undertaking. He received me very pleasantly and asked me to come again on the next day, talk with me. But no longer in Chile.
“Dr. Botkin already had the stage set for his final act, which was to bring him millions of pesos, but your inquiry spoiled his business. Five of the best architects in this country were engaged on plans for his sanatorium buildings, plans they were ‘stuck’with.”
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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.
