Samuel Swarsensky

In 2022 one book from the library of Samuel Swarsensky could be returned.

Through the title S.-R. ("Sanitätsrat" - medical officer), the activity as a medical doctor that can be deduced from this, and the rare name Swarsensk[i/y], it was possible to clearly identify Dr. Samuel Swarsensky as the previous owner of the book.

Samuel Swarsensky was born on 24 August 1869 to Salomon Swarsensky and Amalie Swarsensky née Rosenau in Isinger, district of Pyritz in Pomerania (now Nieborowo, Poland). He received his licence to practise medicine in 1894 and is listed in the Berlin address book from 1898 at Wrangelstr. 49 in Berlin Kreuzberg. According to these entries and other sources, he worked as a paediatrician.

In 1905 he married Cäcilie Elkan in Berlin. She had been born on 29 December 1882 in Frankfurt an der Oder, to Gustav Elkan and Helene Elkan née Katz. The couple had four children: Hedwig Charlotte Rose, born on 23 December 1905, Arnold Werner Bernhard, born on 7 November 1908, Maximilian Joachim Rudolph, born on 27 October 1909 and Friedrich (Fritz) Siegesmund, born in 1917, who were all born in Berlin.

The Swarsensky family was persecuted as Jewish in Nazi Germany. They managed to escape to Argentina in 1938/39. Thus they survived the Holocaust. Samuel Swarsensky died in Buenos Aires in 1943.

The route of access of the returned volume to the holdings of the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek is unclear and could not be traced. The object was accessioned as a "gift" after the end of World War II in 1946. The supplier named is "Kulturamt", a supplier used inflationarily in the post-war period.

The biography of Samuel Swarsensky suggests that the book was part of the purchase of the books of the deported in 1943, but this cannot be verified.