Arthur Bloch
1880 - 1943

Arthur Bloch was born in Worms on July 2, 1880, the child of the factory owner Rafael Bloch and Pauline Bloch, née Mayer. According to the Worms directoey of 1880, the family lived at Paradeplatz 4, today Ludwigsplatz. In 1920, Arthur Bloch married Else Hedwig Israel, who was born in Berlin on September 3, 1891. The following year, their son Peter Rafael Bloch was born in Frankfurt on the Main. The family lived at Linden street 39 at the time and until their emigration in 1939, where they lived in middle-class circumstances. They had an art collection that included a painting by Canaletto, works by Max Slevogt and Lesser Ury, as well as East Asian art. Although the Blochs were Jewish, they also celebrated Easter and Christmas, according to Peter Bloch.

Else Hedwig Israel was the daughter of Prof. Dr. med. James Adolf Israel (born in Berlin in 1848, passed away in Berlin in 1926) and Meta Goldstein (born in Danzig in 1854, died in Berlin in 1930) and belonged to a family from which numerous famous Jewish doctors came. Her brother Prof. Dr. Wilhelm James Adolf Israel, born in Berlin in 1881, was a medical doctor and private lecturer in urology and surgery in Berlin. He emigrated to Great Britain, where he died in London in 1959. His brother Prof. Dr. Arthur James Israel, born in 1883, also worked as a doctor. He was Professor of Surgery and Chief Physician at the Jewish Hospital in Berlin until 1933, then worked at the Jewish Hospital in Hamburg until 1940, before emigrating to the USA. There, in New York City, he ran a practice until 1959 and then moved to Munich, where he died ten years later.

Else Hewig Bloch already had a child from a previous relationship with Felix Bonnet (formerly Czapski): Werner Czapski (1912-1974), who first studied in Berlin and finally from 1935 to 1939 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. Felix Bonnet was a furniture manufacturer, interior designer and art dealer. He was a co-founder and member of the presidium of the Franco-German Society, which was founded in 1928. In 1936, he emigrated to the USA with his third wife Elisabeth Bonnet. In Chicago, he managed the office of the famous Mies van der Rohe. He died there in 1955. Werner Czapski also died in the USA. Else Hedwig Bloch passed away in New York City in March 1988, while their son Peter died there 20 years later, in July 2008.

Arthur Bloch studied medicine in Munich and Berlin and completed his doctorate at the University of Munich (Bavaria). He published his dissertation in 1903 in Munich with C. Wolf & Sohn under the title "Metastatische Eiterungen als Folge von Bronchialerkrankungen" (Metastatic suppurations as a result of bronchial diseases). Dr. Arthur Bloch lived in Frankfurt on the Main from 1910. The Frankfurt address book for 1911 lists him as a surgeon for kidney and urinary tract diseases at Bockenheimer Anlage 50. He worked at the hospital of the Vaterländischer Frauenverein (Fatherland Women's Association) and was involved in training nurses. At the same time, he published in medical journals, for example in the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift (German Medical Weekly), volume 40 of 1914, an article together with others "Zur sekundären Koli-Infektion des Nierenbeckens" (On the secondary coli infection of the renal pelvis). During the First World War, Arthur Bloch served as a staff physician on the Western Front.

Until his dismissal in 1933, Arthur Bloch was head physician at the Vaterländischer Frauenverein hospital in the Eschenheimer Anlage and then ran a private practice in his own home until October 1938. According to his wife Else Bloch, he also initially worked in a clinic in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen. When this closed, he went to the hospital of the Jewish community of Frankfurt in the Gagern street, where he worked as deputy head physician from January 1937 and as head physician of the urology department from October 1937.

After emigrating, Dr. Arthur Bloch was no longer able to work as a doctor. According to witness statements from the restitution proceedings, he was not allowed to work as a doctor in Belgium and therefore had to live from the sale of valuables.

In the annual reports of the Frankfurt on the Main section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club for the years 1911 to 1914, Dr. Arthur Bloch is listed as a member who joined in 1911. In the Frankfurt address books of the time before the First World War, he is listed for the first time in 1911 (and until 1920) with the address Bockenheimer Anlage 50, 2nd floor, and as a surgeon for diseases of the kidneys and urinary tract.

However, Arthur Bloch is missing from the overview of members for the years 1919-24 published in 1925. It is currently unclear exactly when (after 1914, but before 1925) and why he left the Frankfurt section. As it has also not been possible to identify him among the new members since 1926, we currently assume that Dr. Arthur Bloch and/or his wife Else Hedwig Bloch did not become members of the Frankfurt Section until 1933. However, we were unable to inspect a few issues of the Nachrichten-Blatt, so that there is still no certainty here.

His son Peter reports that the family went on vacation to the island of Sylt, for example, but he doesn't mention any vacations in the Alps. On family trips by car around Frankfurt on the Main, he mentions churches and castle ruins, but not the ascent of the Feldberg or other Taunus peaks. Therefore, the family does not seem to have undertaken any regular hikes in the German low mountain ranges or the Alps in the 1920s and 1930s.

However, Arthur Bloch's interest in mountains is also evident in his emigration. A list of books that were packed for emigration includes Walter Mittelholzer's report on his "Kilimandjaro Flug" (Kilimanjaro Flight), published in 1930, and Arnold Nolden's (actually: Wilhelm Pferdekamp) report on "Afrika beginnt hinter den Pyrenäen. Durch Städte in Spaniens Wüste" (Africa begins behind the Pyrenees. Through cities in Spain's desert), published in Berlin in 1932. However, the Gestapo confiscated the Blochs' emigration property in Rotterdam in 1944.

As a Jew, Dr. Arthur Bloch lost his position as head physician at the Vaterländischer Frauenverein hospital, today part of the Maingau Clinic, as early as 1933 and from then on ran a private practice in his apartment at Linden street 39. He went to the Netherlands before the November pogroms in 1938 with the help of a visiting visa in order to organize visas for the other family members. As a result, he was not arrested on November 10, 1938, by German police or SS and deported to a concentration camp. However, he was unable to return to Germany. Instead, he managed to obtain a visa for Belgium. So, the family lived in Belgium from 1939. The son Peter first went to England in April 1939 and later from there to Belgium to join his parents.

Peter Bloch fled to Switzerland in July 1942. His parents went into hiding in Brussels after the mass deportations by the German occupying forces began in August 1942 and lived separately from then on. Dr. Arthur Bloch was finally discovered in July 1943, arrested by the Germans and taken to the German concentration and collection camp in Mechelen (Malines). Peter Bloch reported in 1994 that his father was hanged there by SS guards on the day he was brought in. Accordingly, the death certificate from July 1943 states "death by hanging". However, a decision in the restitution proceedings from 1955 states that he died by "suicide". As the Blochs' lawyer in the restitution proceedings speaks of him being hanged by the Gestapo, it can be assumed that Arthur Bloch was murdered and did not commit suicide.

His wife Else Bloch survived the persecution of the Jews in Belgium in hiding. She and her son emigrated from Brussels to the USA in 1949 as they were unable to obtain a work permit in Belgium.