Josef Karl Rynarzewski
Stamp: "J. Rynarzewski Dr. med."
Stamp: "Dr. med. I. Rynarzewski Berlin N. 65, Gerichtstr. 52"
Stamp: "RYNARZƎWSKI."
Signature: "Josef Karl Rynarzewski cand. med. S.S. 1920"
Josef Karl Rynarzewski was born on 27 February 1900 in Berlin, the son of the merchant Isidor Rynarzewski (1849–1910) and Adelheid Rynarzewski, née Meyer (1869–1940). He had two half-sisters: Gertrud (1885–1923) and Lotte, who was born in Berlin on 1 February 1887. Josef Karl also had two sisters: Dora, born in Berlin on 15 March 1897, and Erika, born in Berlin on 8 June 1901.
Josef Karl Rynarzewski attended the Askanisches Gymnasium in Berlin. In May 1917, he received a certificate of early graduation and was initially deployed to the ‘vaterländischer Hilfsdienst’ (Patriotic Auxiliary Service) before being conscripted into military service. After the First World War, he studied medicine at the universities of Berlin and Rostock. In 1923, he completed his studies, obtained his doctorate and received his licence to practise medicine. He became a general practitioner and obstetrician in Berlin. His practice was located at Gerichtsstraße 52.
In Nazi Germany, Dr Josef Karl Rynarzewski was persecuted as Jewish. In 1939, he escaped from Germany to Shanghai; he died on 22 January 1943 in China. His sisters, Dora and Erika Rynarzewski, were both murdered at the Kulmhof extermination camp; the exact dates of their deaths are unknown.
Lotte Rynarzewski married the jurist Arthur Schönfeld (1881–??) in Berlin in 1910. The couple lived in Breslau, where Arthur worked as a lawyer. Their first daughter, Elisabeth, was born in Breslau on 22 October 1910. Her sister Ruth was also born in Breslau on 27 January 1921. As for the rest of their lives, all that is known so far is that Lotte and her two daughters survived the Shoah. Lotte Schönfeld, née Rynarzewski, died on 5 June 1963 in Montevideo. Elisabeth Schönfeld married the actor Jan Van Loewen (1901–1987, born Hans Löwenstein) and fled to England before 1940. She died in London in 2002. Ruth Schönfeld married Ernst Bauer (1903–1984) at an as yet unknown date; she died in 2009, also in Montevideo.
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