File 7 - Oral history interview with Henry Fenigstein, Part II

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Oral history interview with Henry Fenigstein, Part II

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CA ON00425 F001-1-1-7

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  • 1982 (Creation)
    Creator
    Fenigstein, Henry

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1 audio cassette (36 min.)
1 folder of textual records

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Dr. Fenigstein was born in Warsaw, Poland, on May 12, 1913, to Zygmund Fenigstein and Julia Kissin. Dr. Fenigstein studied in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Warsaw before being conscripted to the Officer's Medical Academy of the Polish army in September 1937. In April 1940, Dr. Fenigstein went to the Warsaw Jewish Hospital, working as an assistant physician in the department of pathology. He taught anatomy and pathology in the Warsaw ghetto underground medical school and did plenty of research on topics like hunger disease until the first big liquidation of Warsaw ghetto on July 22, 1942. During the final liquidation starting on April 19, 1943, Dr. Fenigstein was sent south to a camp near the city of Lublin and from there he started his way through a few concentration camps in occupied Poland and then in Germany. He was liberated by the 3rd American army near Munich on April 30, 1945. After the war, Dr. Fenigstein studied obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Munich, Frauenklinik. In September 1948, he moved to Toronto, Canada, where he started as a general practitioner and then worked as a family physician. After acquiring certification in psychiatry from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, Dr. Fenigstein started working as a practicing psychiatrist. He also taught at Sunnybrook Hospital as a teaching staff for many years before he resigned in 1970.

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File consists of a transcript and an audio cassette of an oral history interview with Dr. Henry Fenigstein conducted by Dr. Charles Roland in Toronto, Ontario on March 31, 1982.

Topics discussed in the interview cover: the studies recorded in Dr. Fenigstein's book "Hunger Disease" from the beginning of 1940 to July 22 1942, including how, where, and why the studies were done, the effects of the war on the studies, conditions in the Jewish hospitals during the studies, burning of the research papers, findings from the studies and autopsies, publication of the studies after the war; the students from the Warsaw ghetto underground medical school; sex life during the war; Treblinka extermination camp; the correctness and accuracy of television show "The Wall" in 1982; Dr. Fenigstein's roles in the underground fighting groups; German officer August Walling from the concentration camp Hessental and his trial; clarification of the dates mentioned in the first interview.

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  • English

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