Unidad documental compuesta 7 - Oral history interview with Henry Fenigstein, Part II

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.