Dr. med.
Arno Dienstferig (Dennis)
1894 - 1969

Education and Places of Work

“I was born in Breslau on May 16, 1894, as the son of the general practitioner Dr. Dienstfertig. I am Prussian, and of the Jewish faith. I attended the St. Maria Magdalena secondary school in my hometown, from which I graduated on February 11, 1913. I then devoted myself to studying medicine in Breslau and passed the preliminary medical examination on July 12, 1915, and the oral doctoral examination on May 8, 1918. Since June 1, 1918, I have been working as a medical trainee and assistant doctor in the internal department of the Israelite Hospital [Jewish Hospital. CH] in Breslau,” wrote Arno Dienstfertig in his dissertation “On the calcified gallbladder and its visibility in X-rays” on June 20, 1919. He received his license to practice medicine on June 13, 1919.

After 1 ½ years as an assistant physician in Breslau, he moved to Berlin for his specialist training. In the polyclinic for internal and gastrointestinal diseases of Prof. Rosin and Dr. Paul Hirsch-Mamroth (former outpatient clinic of Prof. Albu and Dr. Paul Hirsch) in Berlin, he published on “The acidity ratios in the stomach complaints of circulatory patients”.

He also worked in the private clinic of Dr. Emmo Schlesinger, the best-known radiologist at the time. Here he worked on “On the illusion of the bull horn shape of the stomach in X-ray images”.

He is recorded in the specialist register of the insurance office of the city of Breslau starting November 1, 1921.

On April 1, 1922, he establishes a practice at Schuhbrücke 22, Breslau as a specialist for gastrointestinal and biliary diseases and diabetes. He continued working on his publication from Wroclaw with a case report from his practice “On chronic duodenal ulcer in children”.

In addition to the (D)GVS, he is also a member of the German Radiology Society.

He married Alice Hauschner (born April 13, 1906) in 1931. Their son Ulrich was born in November 1933.

 1933

On October 1, 1933, Arno Dienstfertig’s license to work for health insurance companies was revoked by the Nazi authorities. These restrictions on his professional practice, which he had to accept as a Jewish doctor, led to a sharp decline in his practice, forcing him to move to smaller practice rooms at Tauentzienplatz 1. His license to practice medicine was revoked on October 1, 1938, and his doctorate from the University of Breslau taken away on June 11, 1940.

He was arrested in November 1938 and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, from where he was released on November 29, 1938, as an “action Jew”. After his release, he decides to flee: On June 13, 1939, he travels via Bremen with his wife and son on the “Europa” to Southampton. From June 1939 to February 1940, the family lived in York (England), where he was forbidden to engage in any professional activity.  Arno Dienstfertig therefore decided to emigrate to the USA and arrived in New York with his wife and son on February 19, 1940, on the ship “Britannic” from Liverpool.

His professional life in the USA was not easy either, initially he worked as a laboratory assistant and office clerk in a hospital, his wife as a “floor lady”.

It was not until November 1952 that he was able to work as a salaried doctor at the Royal Hospital in the Bronx, and in 1958 at Fordham Hospital in New York. He became a naturalized US citizen on January 15, 1946, and changed his surname to Dennis.

From 1961, Alice and Arno Dennis live with their son Ulric Dennis in Sunnyvale, California, where he dies at the age of 74 on April 11, 1969.

His sister Hildegard Blumberg and her husband Arthur were deported to Kaunas (Kovno) and murdered there in 1941. His father-in-law Alfred Hauschner was deported to the Majdanek concentration camp in 1943 and murdered there.