{{Short description|Czechoslovak surgeon (1910–1957)}} {{Infobox medical person | honorific_prefix = Dr | name = Karel Sperber | honorific_suffix = OBE | image = Karel Sperber.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = <!-- only use if different from name above --> | birth_date = {{birth year|1910}} | birth_place = Tachov, Austria-Hungary | death_date = {{death year and age|1957|1910}} | death_place = Accra, Gold Coast | citizenship = | education = | occupation = | years_active = | known_for = | relations = | website = | profession = Physician | field = | work_institutions = | specialism = Surgery | research_field = | notable_works = | prizes = | child = | module2 = | signature = }}
'''Karel Sperber''' OBE (1910–1957) was a Jewish Czechoslovak surgeon who travelled to England after the Nazi invasion of his country, but unable to practice medicine because he was an alien, took a job as a ship's doctor instead and was captured by Axis forces when his ship was sunk by the Germans.
He was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp where he was forced to help the SS doctor Carl Clauberg in his sterilisation experiments on Jewish women. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1946 for the medical services he provided to prisoners of war. He became a ship's doctor again and worked for the British Colonial Medical Service in Ceylon, and then in Ghana where he died.
==Early life== Karel Sperber was born in Tachov, western Bohemia, in 1910 to a Jewish family. He completed his studies in medicine at the German University in Prague<ref name=Weindling2007/> and Vienna.<ref name="Wollheim">{{Cite web|url=http://www.wollheim-memorial.de/en/karel_sperber_19101957|title=Karel Sperber (1910–1957)|website=www.wollheim-memorial.de|language=en|access-date=8 October 2018}}</ref>
==Second World War== In 1939, Sperber escaped to Britain<ref name=Weindling2007/> following the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Germany. He was prohibited from practising medicine in Britain because he was considered an "alien".<ref name="Wollheim"/> Instead, he took up a post as a ship's doctor<ref name=Weindling2007/> and purser<ref name=Shindler/> on the British merchant and passenger ship SS ''Automedon'',<ref name=Weindling2007/> which was delivering important papers to the British Far East Command concerning Japan's possible entry into the Second World War.<ref name=Weindling2007/>
On 11 November 1940,<ref name=Seki2006>{{Citation|last=Seki|first=E.|title=The Days Of Captivity|url=http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/10.1163/ej.9781905246281.i-204.40|work=Mrs Ferguson’s Tea-set, Japan and the Second World War|date=January 2007|pages=98–121|publisher=Brill|language=en|doi=10.1163/ej.9781905246281.i-204.40|isbn=9789004213531|access-date=11 October 2018|url-access=subscription}}</ref> his ship was attacked and sunk by the German auxiliary cruiser ''Atlantis'' near Sumatra in Indonesia.<ref name="Wollheim"/> Sperber and the other surviving members of the ship's crew were taken first to the floating prison, the Norwegian tanker {{SS|Storstad|1925|2}},<ref name=Weindling2007/> and then to Bordeaux. Whilst interned at the camp hospital in Marseille, he, along with an Indian Dr Mitra, kept a look out whilst an escape tunnel was being dug.<ref name=Lane1990>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8IDoAAAAIAAJ&q=sperber+&pg=PA216|title=The Merchant Seamen's War|last=Lane|first=Tony|publisher=Manchester University Press|year=1990|isbn=0719023971|pages=216|language=en}}</ref> In late 1942, Sperber was sent to a prison in Bremen following a journey through a number of prisoner-of-war camps.<ref name="Wollheim"/> He saved the lives of many British prisoners at Stalag X-B, when an outbreak of typhus occurred.<ref name=Shindler/><ref name=romn>{{Cite news|url=http://www.vhec.org/images/pdfs/zachor05_3.pdf|title=How All Roads Could Lead to Auschwitz: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Karel Sperber|last=Romney|first=Claude|date=August 2005|work=The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre Newsletter}}</ref>
On 13 December 1942, he entered Auschwitz as a Jewish prisoner,<ref name="Wollheim"/> although, as stated in the Geneva convention, he should have been held as a prisoner of war.<ref name="Smith2013">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GFroQcvRAnIC&q=karel+sperber&pg=PA207|title=Heroes of the Holocaust: Ordinary Britons Who Risked Their Lives to Make a Difference|last=Smith|first=Lyn|date=2013|publisher=Ebury Publishing|isbn=9780091940683|pages=207|language=en}}</ref> The number "82512" was tattooed on his arm.<ref name=Shindler>{{Cite web|url=https://www.thejc.com/news/news-features/history-merchant-navy-s-role-in-world-war-two-1.451472|title=The forgotten war heroes who kept Britain afloat|website=www.thejc.com|access-date=11 October 2018}}</ref><ref name=trove>[https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/46255246 "Auschwitz Horrors", ''The West Australian'', 13 January 1947, p. 7.]</ref> There, he worked among a number of Nazi physicians including Josef Mengele, Eduard Wirths, and Friedrich Entress.<ref name="Weindling2007" /> In addition, he was forced to assist SS physician Carl Clauberg in sterilisation experiments on Jewish women. While in Auschwitz, Sperber smuggled a letter to Charles Coward, asking him to inform Sperber's relatives in Sunderland of his whereabouts.<ref name="Smith2013" />
In 1944, he was sent to work at the prisoner infirmary of the Monowitz concentration camp.<ref name=Weindling2007>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q2zCDgAAQBAJ&q=karel+sperber&pg=PT483|title=From Clinic to Concentration Camp: Reassessing Nazi Medical and Racial Research, 1933-1945|last=Weindling|first=Paul|date=2017|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317132394|language=en}}</ref><ref name="Wollheim"/><ref name="PaulWeindling2009">{{Cite journal|last=Weindling|first=Paul|date=1 December 2009|title=Medical Refugees in Britain and the Wider World, 1930–1960: Introduction|journal=Social History of Medicine|volume=22|issue=3|pages=451–459|doi=10.1093/shm/hkp098|issn=0951-631X|pmc=4496448|pmid=26166947}}</ref> On 18 January 1945 he was sent on the death march to Gleiwitz and Buchenwald. After arriving at Buchenwald he and a group of doctors were able to gain admission to the hospital and later worked there as physicians. He subsequently escaped and hid in a forest until he was found by American troops on 1 April 1945.<ref name="Wollheim"/><ref name=romn/>
==Later life== After the war, Sperber returned to England. In December 1945, he sent a deposition to the British war crimes authorities about the atrocities he witnessed at Auschwitz which was subsequently used at the Nuremberg Trials.<ref name=trove/><ref name=Weindling2004>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2L4WDAAAQBAJ&q=karel+sperber&pg=PA100|title=Nazi Medicine and the Nuremberg Trials: From Medical Warcrimes to Informed Consent|last=Weindling|first=P.|date=2004|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=9780230507005|pages=100|language=en}}</ref>
In 1946, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire for the medical services he provided to prisoners of war<ref name=romn/> and he received British citizenship in 1948.<ref name=Weindling2007/> He signed on as a ship's doctor again<ref name="Wollheim"/> and worked for the British Colonial Medical Service in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and then in Ghana, where in 1957 he died of Hodgkin's lymphoma in Accra.<ref name="Wollheim"/>
(See pp194-6, 'Jews in the Merchant Navy in WW2 - last voices', by Martin Sugarman, VM books, London)
== References == {{Reflist|2}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sperber, Karel}} Category:1910 births Category:1957 deaths Category:Deaths from Hodgkin lymphoma Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:Czechoslovak surgeons Category:People from Tachov Category:Czechoslovak Jews Category:20th-century Jewish medical doctors Category:Czech emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:Charles University alumni Category:Ships' doctors Category:Czechoslovak emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:British expatriates in Ghana Category:British surgeons Category:Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Category:Deaths from cancer in Ghana Category:Colonial Medical Service officers Category:British Merchant Navy officers Category:Jewish escapees from Nazi concentration camps Category:Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to the United Kingdom Category:Austrian emigrants to the United Kingdom Category:Jewish British medical doctors